The X-Files
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Episode Guide
"The Goldberg Variation"


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Episode 7ABX02

Title: The Goldberg Variation

First screened in Australia: 12 April, 2000
First screened in the USA: 12 December, 1999

Credits: Director: Thomas J Wright
Writer: Jeffrey Bell Starring: Guest Stars: Plot:
Mulder and Scully investigate a man upon whom fortune has smiled a few too many times, and witness first hand the theory of cause and effect and the consequences that occur when coincidence, chance and luck collide.
Fox Press Release
My Rating: 9/10
A return to the comedic episodes in the Darin Morgan vein. This episode boasts some great special affects and some humorous moments.

Notable Quotable:
We're not plumbers.
Where Have I Seen That Face Before?
Willy Garson (Henry Weems) whose real name is William Garson Paszamank previously appeared in "The Walk" episode. He's also appeared in "Come On Get Happy: The Partridge Family Story" (alongside Rodney Scott from the previous week's "Rush" episode) as well as "Being John Malkovich", "There's Something About Mary", "Mars Attacks", "Groundhog Day", "The Rock" and "Kingpin". He also has a recurring role in the TV series "Sex And The City".

Alyson Reed (Maggie Lupone) starred in "Party Of Five" while Shia La Beouf (Richie) has appeared in the movie "Breakfast With Einstein" and has a starring role in a TV series called "Spivey's Kid Brother" with Tom Virtue from the "Arcadia" episode. He's also had TV guest roles on "ER", "Jesse", "Touched By An Angel" and "Caroline In The City".

Soap star Ramy Zada (Joe Cutrona) has starred in numerous TV series including "The Guiding Light", "Melrose Place", "Second Chances", "Dark Justice" and "The Judge". He's also appeared in TV movies such as "The Rockford Files: Crime And Punishment".

Official Rube Goldberg Site:
Rueben (Rube) Lucius Goldberg Goldberg, (1883-1970), was a Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist, sculptor, and author. For information on Rube Goldberg check out the Official Site.

Trivia/Research:
Rube Goldberg's cartoon drawings of "inventions" portrayed wildly intricate machines performing simple tasks. Goldberg was sometimes skeptical about technology, and his own mechanical inventions were primitive and full of human, plant and animal parts. While most machines work to make difficult tasks simple, his inventions made simple tasks amazingly complex. Dozens of arms, wheels, gears, handles, cups, and rods were put in motion: by balls, canary cages, pails, boots, bathtubs, paddles and live animals for the simple tasks of squeezing an orange for juice, or closing a window if it should start to rain before one gets home. Today, there are many regional Rube Goldberg Machine Contests and a yearly national event held at Purdue University.

Written for the harpsicord by Johann Sebastian Bach, the "Goldberg Variations" is a set of thirty variations on a single theme. In 1742, the Count Hermann Carl von Keyserlingk of Dresden asked Bach to compose some music for his own personal harpsichordist, Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. The music Bach created from this simple request has been called "one of the greatest monuments of the keyboard repertoire." The Count was so amazed at the technically challenging, yet brilliantly dramatic work that he had Goldberg play the variations night after night.

The character Richie has liver failure caused by complications from hepatitis. More inormation can be found at The American Liver Foundation website. Liver transplants are not solely dependent on matching blood type. In order to dramatize the story, Richie's blood type is B negative because only 1.5% of the population has such a blood type. Richie is also diagnosed as CMV negative, making him much harder to match for a liver. Cytomegalovirus is a very common virus. Approximately 80% of healthy adults have antibodies to CMV in their blood, indicating a previous infection. This type of virus rarely shows symptoms, but in cases of organ transplants, it can cause problems. Those people who haven't have had the cytomegalovirus need organs that are CMV negative. They cannot receive CMV positive organs because this would cause complications from serious CMV infections.

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