The Beginning (The X-Files)
"The Beginning" | |
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The X-Files episode | |
Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 1 |
Directed by | Kim Manners |
Written by | Chris Carter |
Production code | 6ABX01 |
Original air date | November 8, 1998 |
Running time | 45 minutes |
Guest appearances | |
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"The Beginning" is the first episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on November 8, 1998. The episode was written by Chris Carter, and directed by Kim Manners. It helps explore the series' overarching mythology. "The Beginning" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.9, being watched by 20.34 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews from television critics.
The show centers on
"The Beginning" was the first episode of the series to not be filmed in Vancouver, Canada, after production was moved to Los Angeles at the behest of lead actor David Duchovny. The episode follows directly from
Plot
In
In
The Smoking Man seeks
Scully brings Gibson to a hospital, where it is determined that he has the alien virus in his blood. The Black-Haired Man (Scott Eberlein) kidnaps him soon after and brings him to the power plant. They find the alien, who attacks the Black-Haired Man but not Gibson, as witnessed by Mulder from outside a locked door. Afterward, Mulder and Scully are ordered to not associate with the X-Files and are reassigned under Assistant Director Alvin Kersh. Spender is visited by the Smoking Man in his office. Mulder continues to work on restoring the X-Files, and is told by Scully that Fowley's report does not reflect what really happened. Scully reveals that the alien virus DNA is also part of all human DNA, but in Gibson the DNA is active. Meanwhile, at the power plant, Gibson is trapped inside with the alien, which sheds its skin inside a spent fuel pool, revealing the traditional grey alien form.[1]
Production
Pre-production
"The Beginning" was the first episode of the series to be filmed in Los Angeles, California. The move was instigated by David Duchovny, who portrayed Mulder, in order to increase his opportunity to find movie work as well as to give him a chance to be nearer to his wife, Téa Leoni. Series creator Chris Carter opposed the move; others, like series director Kim Manners and Gillian Anderson supported the move but were less vocal than Duchovny. Fox network officials eventually made the decision to film in California.[2][3] According to Andy Meisler, "The very first shot of the season a long look directly into a bright sun shining on a barren desert was designed to boldly announce the show's arrival in Southern California."[4] As a result of the move, the episode featured a largely new group of crew members, hired by Carter, Frank Spotnitz and new co-executive producer Michael Watkins; this necessitated the show's new crewmembers spending five weeks, receiving, unpacking, and cataloging filming material from their Vancouver counterparts.[4]
Because of the shift from Vancouver to Los Angeles, some fans of the series were alienated. Many accused the show of "Hollywood-izing" the series by adding notable guest stars as well as making the plots simpler and more enjoyable for larger audiences. According to Space.com, a number of fans of the show specifically loved "the moody ambiance filming around Vancouver lent the series [during seasons 1–5]", which the sixth season reportedly lacked.[5]
Writing and filming
Spotnitz said that the hardest part about writing "The Beginning" was the task of not only segueing from a movie but also tying the story into the previous season finale. To accomplish this delicate task, the writers brought back characters like Gibson Praise, Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender (none of whom were in the film), as well as those that had been introduced in the film, like the alien. Carter claims to have thought of the episode's rough plot almost two years prior, when he was developing the plot of The X-Files movie.[4]
The character Sandy, who is killed in the teaser sequence, was played by the show's casting director Rick Millikan at the request of Carter. Millikan later joked that he spent most of the shoot on the phone casting others for future X-Files episodes.
The scenes in an Arizona suburb were filmed in Valencia, California, because the producers wanted "something really Edward Scissorhands."[6] The scenes set in the nuclear power plant were filmed in a Long Beach, California-based building owned by the electricity supply company Southern California Edison. Due to a heat wave, many of the scenes were filmed "in temperatures well above one hundred degrees", and some lines had to be re-recorded in the studio due to excessive background noise.[6] The scenes of the alien molting in the power plant's spent fuel pool were filmed in a tank of water located in Marina del Rey, California that was frequently used by the producers of the show Baywatch. Filming the plant scenes proved to be troublesome, and many shots needed to be filmed multiple times due to prop and set issues. These problems persisted into post-production, and some scenes were not finalized until the end of October—nearly two months after principal filming ended.[6]
Broadcast and reception
"The Beginning" first aired in the United States on November 8, 1998.
Critical reception to the episode was divided, as reviews ranged from largely positive to negative. In the book The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to The X-Files, Vol. 5, author Andy Meisler wrote that some fans and critics responded positively to "The Beginning," most notably because the episode functioned as "a particularly artful and effective way to launch the series's new season—and era."[4] Tom Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files wrote positively of the episode, saying "'The Beginning' was a pretty good premiere episode. I was quite pleased to see how Chris Carter took last season's finale and the movie and tied things together to get Season 6 off to a fresh start."[13] Emily VanDerWerff from The A.V. Club gave it a B. She praised the performance of Chris Owens, saying that he was "acting the shit out of Spender".[14] Despite this, however she called the episode "lackluster" and wrote that it "isn’t a great episode of the show, but it works well enough".[14] VanDerWerff's main issue with the entry was that it chose to wrap up the plot thread left dangling with the fifth-season finale, but did little to expand upon the revelations of the series' feature film. VanDerWerff also criticized the fact that Scully was, once again, a skeptic of the paranormal after all she saw.[14]
Not all reviews were positive, however. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five, writing that "'The Beginning' opens witty enough […] and then offers the viewer no substance. It's a better season opener than 'Redux' […] but it's still very poor."[7] Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a largely negative review and awarded it one-and-a-half stars out of four.[15] She derided the episode's plot, saying that the episode was "another mile down the X-Files Road of Mythology. Monster aliens? This is something out of a schlocky pulp novel with the science of the show dissolved into complete technobabble".[15]
Footnotes
- ^ a b Meisler, pp. 11–18
- ^ Vitaris, Paula (October 1998). "X-Files: A Mixed Bag of Episodes and a Feature Film Pave the Way for Season Six". Cinefantastique. 30 (7/8): 27.
- ^ Hurwitz and Knowles, pp. 155–156
- ^ a b c d Meisler, p. 18
- ^ Parks, Jo-Ann (20 January 2000). "What's Ailing The X-Files". Space.com. Archived from the original on February 7, 2005. Retrieved 26 March 2012.
- ^ a b c d Meisler, p. 19
- ^ a b Shearman and Pearson, pp. 167–168
- Fox.)
{{cite AV media notes}}
: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link - ^ a b Meisler, p. 294
- ^ "BARB's multichannel top 10 programmes". barb.co.uk. Retrieved 1 January 2012. Note: Information is in the section titled "w/e March 1–7, 1999", listed under Sky 1
- Los Angeles, California: Fox Broadcasting Company. 1998.
- ^ Kim Manners et al. The X-Files Mythology, Volume 3 – Colonization (DVD). FOX.
- ^ Kessenich, p. 13
- ^ a b c VanDerWerff, Emily (27 July 2019). "'The Beginning'/'The Innocents'". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved 7 June 2012.
- ^ a b Vitaris, Paula (October 1999). "Sixth Season Episode Guide". Cinefantastique. 31 (8): 26–42.
Bibliography
- Hurwitz, Matt; Knowles, Chris (2008). The Complete X-Files. Insight Editions. ISBN 978-1-933784-80-9.
- Kessenich, Tom (2002). Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files. ISBN 1-55369-812-6.
- Meisler, Andy (2000). The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to the X-Files Season 6. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-06-107595-7.
- Shearman, Robert; Pearson, Lars (2009). Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen. Mad Norwegian Press. ISBN 978-0-9759446-9-1.
External links
- "The Beginning" at IMDb