The X-Files
Australian Conne-X-ion
Episode Guide:
"Within"


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Episode 8ABX01

Title: Within

First screened in Australia: 14 February, 2001
First screened in the USA: 5 November, 2000

Credits: Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter Starring: Guest Stars: Plot:
Agent John Doggett heads an FBI manhunt to locate the missing Mulder. Meanwhile, Scully and Skinner use information supplied by the Lone Gunmen in their quest to find their colleague.
ten.com.au
My Rating: 9/10
Comments for both Within and Without which were shown as a movie length feature in Australia:
After waiting so long since the previous episode and hearing vague rumours of how bad season 8 was and how bad Agent Doggett was (I've luckily avoided all spoilers for season 8, woo hoo), I was pleasantly surpised with these two episodes. Sure it's going to be tough to suffer through all the episodes without Mulder, after all without Mulder there is no X-Files as far as I'm concerned, but it was great to see Scully in the role of the believer. After all her denails in the previous seven seasons it's a big change.

John Doggett came across fine -- he was given a job and did it but he also was being used, so it will be interesting to see how that develops. He also got to see straight away the alien bounty hunter so that too will be interesting - just how much of a disbeliever will he be? He was a sympathetic character though and despite having water thrown in his face didn;t hold a grudge against Scully, visiting her in hospital and giving her a card for example.

Good to see Gibson Praise return but I fear he'll just be banished to the memory for another year or so. His abilities weren't used though which was surprising.

Within was the better of the two eps, Without seemed to drag a bit and peter out slightly.

Where Have I Seen That Face Before?
Kirk B R Woller has appeared in "Mercury Rising" and at the time this episode aired in Australia had three 2001 movies slated: "Swordfish" with John Travolta, "A1" directed by Steven Spielberg and "American Leather" with Terry O'Quinn. On TV he's appeared in episodes of "Sliders" and "Dark Skies".

Marc Gomes has appeared in B movies and TV movies, the latest being "Hidden Blessings". He's best known as a star of the soap "As The World Turns".

Sal Landi is another soap star, from "The Young And The Restless". He's recently appeared in episodes of "The West Wing". His career is also dotted with B movies plus "Cops and Robbersons", "Bulletproof" and "Executive Target".

Christine Firkins only other role was in the flop "Speed 2".

Jonathan Palmer has appeared in "Judgement Day" (on the video shelves in Australia at the time this episode aired) with Ice-T and Coolio. He's also appeared in the bad David Schwimmer-directed "Since You've Been Gone" and an "ER" episode.

Cut Scenes:
Scully's searches originally led her to Mulder's doctor, Dr. Beth Siegler. The clues to Mulder's possible whereabouts -- or the reason behind his disappearance -- lie in the events seen in Biogenesis / The Sixth Extinction / The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati. Mulder's transformation plays a big part in these episodes, which is why Scully decies that she must find Gibson Praise, who has the same abilities as the ones that Mulder had. However, though these details remain in the episode, the character of Beth Siegler was cut.

Cut Scenes in Australia:
The end credits to the episode were cut, including the dedication of the episode to Jim Engh:
In Memoriam
JIM ENGH
1961-2000
You may remember that Jim (a member of the production crew) died after being electrocuted while filming this episode on a scaffold. Six other crew members were hurt in the accident. It sounds like they were filming the scene where Scully finds her landlord on the fire escape.

Trivia and Research:
Robert Patrick's character, Agent John Doggett, is named for sports announcer Vin Scully's co-commentator, Jerry Doggett. Vin Scully is the man for whom Dana Scully is named.

The number of Gibson Praise's file is 1013-113 (10/13 is creator Chris Carter's birthday)

Media Article # 1:
TV Guide, August 6, 2000
'X-Files' gets late start and interesting makeover for Fall

Imagine an X-Files episode about a creature that won't die. It threatens to, but it keeps returning, larger and louder. That's the story of The X-Files. Despite occasional death notices, it will return in the fall with:
Twenty new episodes. David Duchovny will appear in 11-six as a fully involved star and five partly involved. Gillian Anderson and her new co-star, Robert Patrick, will be in all 20.

A spin-off Lone Gunmen series, with 13 episodes starting next spring. "It's going to be a show that's more comedic that its dramatic...," says X-Files Creator Chris Carter. "It's kind of like Mission Impossible on laughing gas."

And Maybe more. "The TV series leads hopefully to another movie," Carter says.

All of this could be enough to keep fans content. Twenty episodes will be plenty says Sandy Grushow, chairman of Fox Television. The new season will get a late start (Nov 5 after the World Series) and probably will rest in the spring.

"I'd really like to see Lone Gunmen use that time slot (9pm Sundays) at first," Grushow says.

All of this is a turnaround from on year ago.

Back then, the X-Files was getting ready for it's seventh season in disarray. Anderson had two years left on her contract and said she wasn't happy about it, Carter and Duchovny had one year left and said it would be their last.

Then Duchvony filed a suit saying he wasn't getting his promised share of the profits.

That caused a rift with Carter, Duchovny says. At one point, "our friendship was damaged."

Now things are being patched up, Carter says, "We had lunch twice (recently)....we weren't able to speak a lot last year, (but) there has been a lot of repair of something that was damaged."

During the rift Carter had a dilemma: "I had to write the season finale...not knowing whether or not we'd be back."

The finale he create was bizarre.....even by X-Files standards.

Fox Mulder (Duchovny) was beamed up to a spaceship along with many people from previous episodes. Also, Dana Scully (Anderson) announced that she was pregnant.

If Duchovny hadn't returned that would be the end of Mulder. Now, presumably there will be a quick resolution: Carter promises Duchovny will be in the opening two-parter episode.

He also says there needn't be a supernatural explanation for Scully's pregnancy. "There is potential she was having sex."

Meanwhile, he says, it's important to work in a new star: Duchovny will be gone half the time and Anderson needs some weeks with light episodes. "She needs to be with her daughter a certain amount of time."

For years, X-Files was rooted in a basic notion: Mulder instinctively believed odd events; Scully, a doctor tried to disbelieve.

That's not easy anymore. Carter says, " She's become a reluctant believer."

So the new character will be opposite: John Doggett is an ex-marine, an ex-cop and an instinctive disbeliever.

"(He is) very much an insider at the FBI," Carter says. "Mulder had always been an outsider --- The comsummate outsider. We wanted somebody who was blue-collar, former cop, a man's man."

He auditioned some better-known actors then chose the actor best known as the villain in Terminator 2.

"Robert Patrick just embodied this character,"

Carter says. "He has got everything, from he timbre of his voice to his presence to his intensity."

He won't formally be Scully's new partner but they will work together. Otherwise, the new season might be business as usual:

Six or seven of the episodes will deal with what Carter calls the "mythology," the vast overview of who is scheming about what. The others will be standard stand-alone episodes.

It will be the third season shot in Los Angeles after five years in Vancouver. This might be a busy year for one character, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He was the only witness to Mulder's disappearance; Mitch Pilegii, who plays Skinner, has promoted to star billing.

There will be the usual duty for other characters. Carter won't even rule out more appearances by the Cigarette Smoking Man, although he's dead, which is typical of the show.

The Lone Gunmen will still be in the show, Carter says, beginning with the season-opener. The Gunmen are computer buffs who sometimes help Mulder with a case. This started as tiny roles for three obscure Vancouver actors then kept growing.

"These guys are wonderful together," Carter says, "(They play) three sort of nerds --- techies."

Next March they'll have their own show an some new co-stars. It will be filmed in Vancouver. Even after the death notices the world of the X-Files keeps growing.
Media Article # 2:
Article from the Union Trib about filming in San Diego County.
Borrego Springs lands TV favorite.
At 110 and little shade, heat is on for filming of 8th season's opener.

By Kristen Green, August 12, 2000

BORREGO SPRINGS -- If the popular television show "The X-Files" isn't getting hotter in its eighth season, certainly its cast and crew are.

The science fiction show's season premiere is being filmed in Borrego Springs, where temperatures have soared to 110 degrees this week. A cast and crew of about 125 descended on the small desert community last weekend, arriving on buses. About 100 others will replace them next week.

Despite the steamy weather, the crew hasn't complained that it's filming in one of the hottest spots in the nation, said Ilt Jones, who scouted the location for the Fox TV network.

"There used to be a time when people said, 'What the hell are you bringing us here for?,' " said Jones, the show's location manager. "But anything's possible on 'The X-Files.' That's the beauty of the show."

At least one crew member, however, didn't find working in nature's blast furnace the least bit beautiful. He quipped with the location team: "Could you have possibly picked a hotter spot?"

Other crew members, heads covered in straw hats and noses coated in purple sun block, stood in front of huge fans that sprayed a constant mist of water. They made frequent trips to a tent filled with coolers full of icy drinks, including bottled water delivered on a refrigerated truck.

Harry Bring, one of the show's producers, said he's accustomed to filming under extreme conditions. Once, while he was a producer for "Melrose Place," he filmed a water-skiing scene in sleet and snow, he said.

And, while most of the crew of "The X-Files" seem to be indifferent to spending a couple of weeks in the desert, the Borrego Springs community -- whose population drops to about 3,000 in the summer -- is thrilled about the presence of the Hollywood visitors.

"The whole town's talking about it," said Scott Tynan, a grocery store owner who is supplying food for Fox's caterers.

Fox producers called "kind of out of the blue" about a week ago to ask whether they could film in three locations in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, including the park headquarters, said Park Ranger Fred Jee. They also are filming in the Split Mountain and Font's Point areas.

During a time of year when many Borrego Springs hotel rooms would be vacant, most resorts are booked solid for the next couple of weeks.

"Absolutely nothing is available," said Shane McClung of La Casa del Zorro Desert Resort.

Some restaurant owners are changing their hours daily to accommodate the crew's schedule. Kathy King, who runs a coffee shop and bookstore, offered to open at 3 a.m. to make lattes for the crew members as they were getting off work.

"August is the worst month in the world down here," King said. "We will do anything we can to make a buck."

This is the first time "The X-Files" has filmed in San Diego County, but Borrego Springs will portray a fictitious Arizona town called Flemington. And the Anza-Borrego Desert State Park headquarters has been converted into a school for deaf children.

Producers are keeping the plot under wraps, but David Duchovny's character, Fox Mulder, will make an appearance on the two-part premiere, Bring said. Mulder was abducted by aliens in last season's finale.

Duchovny will arrive in Borrego Springs next week, and writer Chris Carter has said Duchovny will return for 11 of the season's 20 episodes.

Gillian Anderson, who plays Dana Scully, has been in town all week. On Wednesday, she celebrated a birthday with a vanilla and chocolate marble cake made by King's bakery.

Robert Patrick, known for his role as the T-1000 in "Terminator 2," also has been in Borrego Springs this week. His character, FBI Agent John Doggett, will be introduced in the premiere.

The first episode of the new season is scheduled to air at 9 p.m. Nov. 5. The conclusion of the two-parter will run Nov. 12.

By then, Borrego Springs residents will be relaxing in 80-degree temperatures.

Copyright 2000 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Media Article # 3:
TV Guide Online
THE NEXT FILES

"This reads like a piece of potboiled science fiction."

So growls the stern new FBI deputy director Kersh (James Pickens, Jr.) as the riveting two-part eighth-season opener of The X-Files comes to a typically unsettling and ambiguous close next Sunday.

To which new Special Agent John Doggett (Robert Patrick) barks back, "You mean it reads like an X-File."

They're both right. And what's so bad about sci-fi potboilers, especially when they simmer as provocatively as The X-Files? Even those skeptics who can't imagine the show without Agent Mulder (David Duchovny) at Agent Scully's (Gillian Anderson) side are likely to be satisfied by the suspenseful scenario that series creator Chris Carter has contrived to yoke Scully with Doggett in an uneasy and fractious new partnership.

As even casual fans must know by now, Mulder is missing — abducted in a spaceship by shape-shifting alien bounty hunters in last season's finale, a device that allows Duchovny to sit out a good chunk of this season. (His contract only calls for him to appear in 11 episodes, and in the first two, he mostly exists in gory scenes of extraterrestrial torture.)

Mulder's shocking absence is the catalyst that brings the hard-boiled Doggett, a former Marine and NYPD officer, into the picture. Talk about big shoes to fill, and Patrick (best known for playing, of all things, a shape-shifting assassin in Terminator 2) attacks the role with rugged confidence. His tense rapport with a mysteriously pregnant Scully, who's also traumatized over the loss of her longtime partner, is a work in progress, to put it mildly.

How will their combustible chemistry manifest itself when they're assigned to a regular X-File? That remains to be seen, but the prognosis is good from the evidence so far. It's an interesting role reversal to have Scully (and Mitch Pileggi's Skinner) in believer mode, with Doggett as the by-the-books skeptic who has trust issues of his own about the agency.

As always with The X-Files, the trick in writing about it is to convey its mystifying thrills without ruining things by giving too much away. Let's just say that when the action really kicks in, paranoia of a classic variety (think Invasion of the Body Snatchers or The Thing) rules. Nobody is who or what they seem, and that's just how we like it.

Final note of appreciation: Scully and Doggett are names that fit well together, as anyone who listened to Vin Scully and Jerry Doggett's renowned broadcasts of L.A. Dodgers games can attest. (Carter grew up listening to them, and this is his homage.)

While the new duo is certainly playing in a different and more cosmic league, it's a pleasure to note that their first time at bat is a home run.

By Matt Roush


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