Trivia for
"The X Files" Triangle (1998)

• The episode was designed to look as though it had been shot in four long takes. This was accomplished through editing, however, and some cuts are actually quite easy to detect. The last act has the most edits in it, as well as the only cut that hasn't been disguised.
  
  
• The sixth season episode Triangle contains several references to The Wizard of Oz (1939). The captain of the British cruise liner is called Captain Yip Harburg, after uncredited co-writer (E.Y. Harburg). The ballroom singer is called Almira Gulch, after Margaret Hamilton's character. Mulder's boat is called the Lady Garland, after Judy Garland. The episode title "Triangle" may also be a reference to the album cover of Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", which has also been linked convincingly to The Wizard of Oz (1939).
  
  
• In Season 5 "The X-Files" began filming in 1:78:1 widescreen, the now common ration for TV programs. However for approximately ten minutes the ratio switches to approximately 2:20:1, which is almost the ratio of most standard action films. This was done in order to fit more action into those scenes.
  
  
• Many of the costumes used in this episode were ex-Titanic costumes from the Fox wardrobe department.
  
  
• The first four acts of this episode are each comprised of one very long, continuous shot (called a one-off) and the fifth is split between two series of one-offs, employing a split-screen. Such long one-offs are very difficult, considering an entire set must be constructed, all the lines must be said correctly, and the camera movements must be continuous (and usually handheld). Some cuts are hidden in whip-pans and when the screen goes dark. Chris Carter intended this as an homage to the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Rope (1948), which used a similar technique.
  
  
• This episode we see the first of 4 on-screen kisses between Mulder and Scully, although in this case Scully is an alternate version of herself.
  
  
• The opening tag line was changed to: 'Die Wahrheit Ist Irgendwo Da Draußen', German for 'The Truth Is Somewhere Out There'.
  
  
• The scene where Scully is trying to find information on Mulder's whereabouts is conceived as one continuous long take until commercial. But there is at least one cut, when the camera is on one of the many elevator scenes: the dent on the door slightly but evidently moves from frame to frame.
  
  
• The alternate version of Scully is identified as an OSS agent, but the OSS did not exist in 1939.
  
  
• Toward the end of the whole sequence with Scully in the beginning trying to find information on where Mulder is, she is running out of Fowley and Spender's office and going around the corner toward the elevator. She slips and almost falls. It's quite obvious, you can hear her slip and also see Gillian Anderson's arm shoot out to catch herself. She's quite lucky that she didn't fall because if she had, since they filmed the entire episode in real time, they would have had to start back at the very beginning of that scene and done it all over again.
  
  
• The Captain of the Queen Ann, Yip Harburg (E.Y. Harburg), is named for the songwriter who, with Harold Arlen, wrote the music for The Wizard of Oz (1939). He also wrote Finian's Rainbow and the song "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" that Groucho Marx sang in At the Circus (1939). The episode plot takes place in 1939, the same year that both "The Wizard of Oz" and "At the Circus" were released.
  
  

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