The Field Where I Died

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"The Field Where I Died"
James Wong
Production code4X05
Original air dateNovember 3, 1996 (1996-11-03)
Running time44 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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The X-Files season 4
List of episodes

"The Field Where I Died" is the fifth episode of the

Nielsen rating
of 12.3 and was seen by 19.85 million viewers upon its initial broadcast.

The show centers on

past lives
.

Morgan and Wong wrote the episode specifically for

Civil War documentary
. "The Field Where I Died" received mixed to positive reviews from television critics, with many praising the episode's exploration of loss and grief as well as Cloke's acting. Others, however, felt that the episode was bogged down by its overemotional nature.

Plot

In Apison, Tennessee, authorities receive a tip from someone named Sidney alleging child abuse and weapons possession by a local cult called the Temple of the Seven Stars. The FBI and BATF stage a raid on the Temple's compound, but are unable to find its leader, Vernon Ephesian (Michael Massee). Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) experiences déjà vu and walks into a field on the compound, where he finds a trapdoor. Inside, Mulder and Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) find Ephesian preparing to drink a red liquid with his six wives. Mulder stops them and handcuffs Ephesian, but he feels a strange connection to one of the wives, Melissa Riedal-Ephesian (Kristen Cloke).

multiple personality disorder, but Mulder thinks she is recalling a past life. The agents take her back to the temple, where she takes on the personality of a woman from the Civil War
period and says that the weapons were hidden in another secret bunker in the field. She also states that Mulder, in a past life, was a Confederate soldier in the field with her, her beloved, and she watched him die.

Mulder has Melissa undergo regression

The Smoking Man
. Mulder also recalls his past life from the Civil War, when he was a man named Sullivan Biddle, while Melissa was Sarah Kavanaugh; Scully, Mulder claims, was his sergeant. Scully finds pictures of Biddle and Kavanaugh in the county's hall of records and gives them to Mulder. He wears a Confederate uniform in the photo.

The FBI and BATF plan to make another search of the compound. Ephesian, realizing that he will not survive another siege, passes out poison to the cult members while his men open fire on the FBI agents and all but he and Melissa die, Melissa having feigned drinking it. Mulder surrenders in order to get into the temple. Ephesian then forces Melissa to drink the poison, and when Mulder arrives he finds both of them dead. Mulder caresses Melissa, looking out into the field.[1]

Production

The penultimate scene has been compared to the Waco siege.

Episode writers

Civil War documentary where they read the Sullivan Ballou letter."[2]

Michael Massee, the actor who played Vernon Ephesian, wanted his character to be "normal looking" and "nondemonic", explaining, "You have to believe that he believes his own rap. When he speaks, he's just explaining that 'this is the way it is' – and that's when it gets very scary."[3] The name "Vernon" comes from the real name of Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh (né Vernon Wayne Howell), whereas "Ephesian" is taken from the biblical Epistle to the Ephesians.[4] Ephesian's Temple of the Seven Stars was built on a soundstage at North Shore Studios, and at the time was one of the show's most expensive sets.[3]

To create an authentic looking citizen's registry, the show's props team reached out to officials at Apison, Tennessee, who lent them a genuine form, which was then carefully reproduced by the show's art staffers. The old photographs featured in the episode are "hybrids" of different freely-available photographs, which were "meld[ed]" together with the help of computers.[3] The face used for Sullivan was chosen because it bore an "uncanny" resemblance to Mulder.[3] The poem Mulder reads at the beginning and end is from Paracelsus by Robert Browning.[4] The first cut of "The Field Where I Died" was over an hour long, resulting in eighteen minutes being cut; this resulted in removal of two of Melissa's personalities.[3]

Sarah Stegall later noted that the penultimate scene, which features federal agents raiding the religious compound and finding that everyone inside has committed suicide, bears similarities to the Waco siege.[5]

Reception

Ratings

"The Field Where I Died" originally aired on the

Nielsen rating of 12.3, with an 18 share, meaning that roughly 12.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 18 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. "The Field Where I Died" was seen by 19.85 million viewers on first broadcast.[7]

Reviews

"The Field Where I Died" received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Zack Handlen of

Sarah Stegall, in The Munchkyn Zone, gave the episode a 5 out 5 rating. Stegall wrote that while the episode is "drowned in tears and soaked in muted sunlight, [and] teeters on the brink of sentimentality", it manages "to stay just this side of it for a dynamite, gripping episode that showcases some fine actors".[5]

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 three-a-half stars out of five, and wrote that, while the episode "stumbles around a lot", it gives the viewer "the impression there's nothing else on TV quite like it".[10] The two felt that the idea that Mulder and Scully were friends throughout their various lives was "one of the best things about the story".[11] They also wrote that the fact that Melissa and Mulder were somehow soul mates also prevented the story from being "obvious and pat".[11] However, Shearman and Pearson felt that Morgan and Wong added "a few too many ingredients" which yielded an uneven episode.[11] Entertainment Weekly, on the other hand, was negative, giving the episode an "F" and describing it as "stultifyingly awful".[12]

The episode is a favorite of Anderson's, who said she "loved the script" and that it made her cry.[4] Series creator Chris Carter received angry calls after the Heaven's Gate, a UFO religion cult, committed mass suicide less than six months after the episode had aired. He declined to comment.[3][4]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Meisler, pp. 58–63
  2. ^ a b Vitaris, Paula (October 1997). "Morgan and Wong Return to The X-Files". Cinefantastique. 29 (4/5).
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Meisler, p. 64
  4. ^ a b c d Meisler, p. 65
  5. ^ a b Stegall, Sarah (1996). "Review of The Field Where I Died". The Munchkyn Zone. Archived from the original on November 11, 2001.
  6. Fox.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link
    )
  7. ^ Meisler, p. 298
  8. ^ Handlen, Zack (October 23, 2010). "'The Field Where I Died'/'522666' | The X-Files/Millennium | TV Club". The A.V. Club. The Onion. Retrieved June 17, 2012.
  9. ^ a b c d Vitaris, Paula (October 1997). "Episode Guide". Cinefantastique. 29 (4/5): 35–62.
  10. ^ Shearman and Pearson, p. 86
  11. ^ a b c Shearman and Pearson, p. 85
  12. ^ "X Cyclopedia: The Ultimate Episode Guide, Season IV". Entertainment Weekly. November 29, 1996. Retrieved June 17, 2012.

Bibliography

External links

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