The X-Files
Australian Conne-X-ion
Episode Guide:
"The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati"


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Episode 7ABX03

Title: The Sixth Extinction: Amor Fati

First screened in Australia: 15 March, 2000
First screened in the USA: 15 November, 1999

Credits: Director: Michael Watkins
Writers: David Duchovny and Chris Carter Starring: Guest Stars: Plot:
Scully continues to search for a way to save her ailing partner, a catatonic Mulder mysteriously disappears from the hospital, and Cigarette-Smoking Man's involvement in Mulder's ordeal intensifies.
Fox Press Release

My Rating: 8/10

As I've said before there's two things I hate - shows about time travel and dream sequences, but I've got to admit the "dream sequences" in this episode are very good and I especially loved the scene where Cancer Man is looking out the window and the alien craft flies over the house. The Diana Fowley sequences were also well done. I can't believe the intensity of the hatred shown by all the anti-Diana Fowley fans out there - hey without her there wouldn't have been the interesting Fowley-Scully storyline for the past year. Like the Spender death, we still haven't seen a body so it may not be over.

As I've also said before, the Cancer-Man-being-Mulder's-father angle is just wrong in my opinion and Chris Carter has fallen for the old Star Wars cliche.

One other criticism of this episode, who did the makeup on the aging Mulder? It looked terrible!

Where Have I Seen That Face Before?
Martin Grey (Agent Flagler) has appeared in "The Natural", "Odd Couple II" and on TV in "Santa Barbara".

Brian George (Project Doctor) will be well known to fellow "Seinfeld" fans as Babu Bhat in three episodes of that show. He's also appeared in movies such as "Inspector Gadget", "Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery", "Robin Hood: Men In Tights", "Roxanne" and "Blind Date".

The Pain Factor:
Mulder undergoes a life-threatening operation instigated by Cancer Man.

Amor Fati explained by Frank Spotnitz:
From Entertainment Weekly, November 26, 1999.

Burning Question

Q: In part 2 of The X-Files' season premiere, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) undergoes an elaborate and dangerous medical procedure that has all sorts of important repercussions for him, not to mention the future of the world. So what exactly did they do to Mulder?

A: The truth, says X-Files executive producer Frank Spotnitz, is back there - two seasons back to be exact. That's when Mulder was infected by the black oil (remember?). Although it seemed at the time that the alien virus had been cleared from his system, it was actually just lying dormant - until the extraterrestrial hieroglyphics discovered last season reactivated it. The newly potent virus transformed Mulder into an alien-human hybrid equivalent, one with telepathic powers. Enter the Cigarette Smoking Man, who abducts Mulder and, explains Spotnitz, "has the alien material removed from Mulder's brain and transplanted into his own." If the operation worked - and right now, we don't know - the CSM would be a psychic hybrid, resistant to the black oil and the coming alien invasion. Mulder, in turn, is back to being plain old human. So why all the Christ imagery (e.g., Mulder on a cross wearing a crown of thorns)? Turns out Duchovny, who co-wrote the episode with Chris Carter, wanted to structure the episode along the lines of Martin Scorsese's 1988 film The Last Temptation of Christ. In fact, Mulder's musings on a life that could've been were patterned directly after Christ's dream in that movie. The homage was designed to emphasize the dominant themes for this season: "It's a conjunction of science and mysticism, of aliens and religion, that we're starting to develop," explains Spotnitz. "It's deliberate on our part, to help bring all the mythologies together into one story line." Calls to Oprah were not returned.
Will Lee
Transcribed by:alfornos
Research:
From The Official X-Files Web Site:
The Latin phrase "Amor Fati" translates to "Love of Fate." Friedrich Nietzche (1844-1900) used the phrase in his work, "The Gay Science":
"I still live, I still think: I still have to live, for I still have to think. Sum, ergo cogito: cogito, ergo sum. Today everybody permits himself the expression of his wish and his dearest thought; hence I , too, shall say what it is that I wish from myself today, and what was the first thought to run across my heart this year--what thought shall be for me the reason, warranty, and sweetness of my life henceforth. I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor Fati: let that be my love henceforth! I do not want to wage war against that is ugly. I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse. Looking away shall be my only negation. And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer."
Mass extinctions in the world have eliminated certain species. Many scientists theorize that we are on the verge of another great extinction, brought about by human influences, specifically our impact on the environment.

Cigarette-Smoking Man makes a reference to the "five great extinctions," implying that the sixth extinction is when humans will be eliminated by aliens.

For further research on mass extinctions, go to http://www.wri.org/wri/biodiv/b03-koa.html or http://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/95/950417.mass.extinctions.shtml

The bodies on the surgical table have scoop marks on the arms and knees. Scoop marks and deep impressions in the skin are occasionally reported by people as physical evidence of their abductions, theorized to be from an invasive physical examination. Sceptics claim that these are caused by everyday injuries.

Although Cigarette-Smoking Man only quotes the first line, here is the full text of Shakespeare's Sonnet XXIX:
When, in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state
And trouble deal heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featured like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least;
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth, sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings.



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