The Six Best Monsters From The X-Files Season 1

Developing a premiere season is a tough task for any producer but what made Chris Carter and Co. jobs that much harder was the originality of The X-Files, it was experimental broadcasting  with no guide rope they just had their creativity, instincts and penchant for anything spooky, oh and they also had the notorious FOX Network executives to deal with.

The first season of The X-Files was rich in Monster of the Week episodes, in-fact it boasted nineteen in total the highest amount of stand-alones in any of the nine seasons.  Not all were classics mind and some were definitely dud but there was many diamonds amongst the rough.

Some of these monsters make the cut because they are just plain scary especially for the John Doe of 19 years ago some however make us smile and others make us sad.

With so many MoW’s to choose from narrowing them down to a list of six was not easy but here it is, the definitive list of the six best monsters from MoW episodes:

6. Cecil L’Ively, Fire

Possibly a controversial choice, Cecil’s general exclusion from these types of lists can only be merited to the overshadowing hate for Phoebe Green a women equally annoying and fugly. Cecil just makes the cut based on the fact that he should not be underestimated. The highly intelligent psychopaths’ dedication to his killings is unrivalled and his anti-establishment views make him an ideal candidate for world domination. His each and every sanctimonious move derived from pure evil. A wicked black heart gets this pyro-kinetic monster a top six spot.
Watch Fire instantly with Amazon

5. Roland, Roland

The hapless autistic Roland was an early example of the variety of emotional avenues Chris Carter would be granted to travel down over the course of the next 8 seasons. This X-Files MoW week didn’t scare anybody it may have got a few laughs but in truth they only feeling we were left with was that of sorrow, loneliness and possibly empathy for the most innocent and ill-fated young man. Perhaps that is fear.
Watch Roland instantly with Amazon

4. The bugs, Darkness Falls

These carnivorous nocturnal bugs cocoon and slowly digested their prey, eating them alive. What makes their fear factor worse is that they are undetectable in daylight. They could be gathering around your bed waiting for darkness to fall. If The X-Files ever gave us a reason to sleep with the lights on this was it.
Watch Darkness Falls instantly with Amazon

3. The Eves, Eve

Creepy test tube twins Cindy Reardon and Teena Simmons both killed the respective adoptive fathers through means of exsanguination at the tender years of eight. These highly intelligent blood thirsty sentence finishers are destined to drive themselves to psychotic madness in later life, just ask their big sis, eye ball biter Eve 6.
Watch Eve instantly with Amazon

2. Luther Lee Boggs, Beyond the Sea

On death row and desperate for a pardon, Boggs claims he can use psychic channelling to help locate a killer before he kills his kidnap victims. His claims seem to hold up against adverse facts to the matter. Is he to be believed and even if he is; is this a chance for redemption and should his sins be forgiven? A most memorable character responsible for bringing passion to The X-Files, his importance to the show should not be undervalued.
Watch Beyond the Sea instantly with Amazon

1.  Eugene Victor Tooms, Squeeze/Tooms

We became acquainted with this bile spewing stretchy odd ball over two episodes that allowed us to get a real insight into his peculiar existence. Tooms appearance was also the first MoW appearance in The X-Files history. We learned early on that behind his jaundice liver hungry eyes laid the brains to challenge Mulder and Scully, he is good at what he does after all he has been doing it over a matter of centuries. His ability to stretch out and squeeze through the tightest of spaces meant that no one was safe from his appetite, his prey seldom escape. He was disgusting, the sneer on his face was unpleasant, his method of sticking his nest together was sickening and his methods of entry repugnant (the sewer especially). It was fitting that Tooms suffered such a gruesome demise at the hands of Mulder and an escalator, an unforgettably brilliant end that he earned and it was no less than he deserved.
Watch Squeeze and Tooms instantly with Amazon

There you have it my definitive list of The X-Files first season best monsters from MoW episodes. Let me know your lists, who would of you include?

TOOMS Episode 21 Season 1 of The X-Files

Brilliance and Bile 10/10

Synopsis: A court deems the stretchy contortionist Victor Eugene Tooms safe to be released back into the public, Mulder however deems otherwise.

In my last post, Darkness Falls, I touched upon the notion that inspired characters and casting make up the foundations of success for the first season of The X-Files. Enter Mitch Pileggi as Assistant Director Skinner, acting superior to agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.  As a body to report to, Skinner offered The X-Files an additional dimension, a new barrier to break down with new avenues to explore and an eventual formidable ally. Pileggi’s powerful character’s share in the first season may only be accredited to three scenes however his inclusion throughout all nine seasons of The X-Files and both films bellow his legendary status. This monopoly on the franchise is bettered by no one other than Mulder and Scully and his characters development is tantamount to the growing success of the series.

Skinner’s presence in this episode is primarily to question the practices that Mulder and Scully use to get result with a clear view to closing The X-Files. He conjects that Mulder has a detrimental effect on those that work closely with him i.e. Scully and that Mulder’s conduct is fuelled by stress brought about by his emotional involvement with The X-Files cases and asks in an apparent sincere manor that he steps back from The X-Files. Skinner’s early innocents dictate that his faith be place with the Cigarette Smoking Man however his mounting involvement with The X-Files will eventually lead him to become the equivalent of a good luck charm complete with muscle and an a whole lot of attitude.

This episode is all about change; new meeting old and I cannot give enough praise to Doug Hutchinson’s reprisal of his role as the predatory slim ball Eugene Victor Tooms. This is early 90’s Doug, a small fish in a big pond with little to note on his C.V. playing a role opposite the television pin up boy of the decade. Unadulterated determination to the character could only be born out of an obsession to make it as an actor. Tooms is given much more screen time than in Squeeze and the decision is validated by Doug’s fight for his place in the show tooth and nail, depicting a Tooms hungrier, smarter and more disgusting than before, his underlying menace seeps out past every crooked smile.

The episode in parts plays out like ‘a day in life of’ for Victor Eugene Tooms. We see him at work, stalking his prey and his methods which can only be described as thinking outside of the box. He shows some dry wit when he is told that the new room he will be staying in is small… ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to squeeze in’ Tooms replies ‘I’m sure’. We learn that he enjoys the taste of rotting rodents as he licks the glove used to pick up a dead rat and that he is unperturbed by the thought of travelling through a sewer pipe and gaining access to a property through a toilet pan. His odd behaviour adds humour to the character to the point of feeling pity and perhaps empathy, it is easy to forget that Tooms never asked to be this way and that putting all our eggs in the Mulder basket can blind us to that fact.

Tooms is a worthy adversary for Mulder. His ability to evade capture by out smarting him is something that vexes Mulder and jabs his ego. A personality trait Mulder displays on numerous occasions across the series, ‘Young at Heart’ and 'Pusher' just to examples. This trait is by no means a shortfall, more of a characteristic better described as a quality. It drives Mulder on to apprehend his suspects.

In short Tooms was dead before he ever left that courtroom and that smug smirk aimed at Mulder on leaving the court room is at fault for the excruciating pain in which the death happened. I’m not saying Mulders a murder but perhaps his latest ordeal with Barnett has gone someway to prompting a reaction.

Mulder is unmistakably aggravated by the courts rejection of the implausible truth he presents and of the release of Tooms from the psychiatric prison, biting at Scully’s doubting of his actions and methods in a stern voice he says ‘Look, Scully, if you're resistant because you don't believe, I'll respect that. But if you're resistant because of some bureaucratic pressure, they've not only reeled you in. They've already skinned you.’ In short you are either with me or with them, an ultimatum that Scully agrees with by ignoring Skinners plea to use methods that act by the book. Mulder later snaps at Scully during a stake out as it becomes apparent Tooms journey under his skin has gained mileage. This is one unhappy Fox.

Needless to say agents Mulder and Scully discover Tooms layer, an escalator pit located in the spot of his old hibernating patch. Mulder ventures down the narrow corridor beneath the escalator to find Tooms bile bonded nest. A woken naked Tooms chases Mulder back up the corridor. Mulder’s narrow escape equals Tooms demise as Mulder activates the elevator tearing him to shreds. This ending is one of the most memorable sequences in X-Files history and cause of a particular recurring nightmare of mine when I was young.

Tooms is an abundant feast of scares and humour, refined plot lines and commendable series development and whose only competition for season one best MoW is EVE. I think Tooms just squeezes out in-front. 10/10

Musings: 

• This episode gave me a mutual respect of my toilet, a caution later validated by season two episode The Host. 
• You can see Tooms bum in the escalator chase scene! Hutchison came up with the idea to get completely naked, and I make him right. 
• C.S.M muttering the three little words ‘course I do’ in endorsement of the phenomenon contained in The X-Files. His first words are telling in that he is a believer. 
• Tooms return signals the first of three MoW sequels. Can you name the other two? 

THE JERSEY DEVIL Episode 5 Season 1 of The X-Files

Monster of the Weak 5/10

Synopsis: Mulders investigation into a murder in New Jersey leads to him hunting down the mythical Jersey Devil. Meanwhile Scully goes on a date.

After the luxury that was Eugene Victor Tooms in the previous monster of the week episode, the monster featured here was nowhere near as fascinating and creepy. The opening scene where a man get attacked and has limbs ripped off promises a creature of immense hostility, brutishness and coldness but what we got was a pretty women in desperate need of some Pan10 Pro V.

The story was all a little obvious and flat and just appeared to hurry on as quickly as it could. They added the Dana Scully on a date bit in to elucidate the fact that she too was to be married to The X-Files and have little or no personal life comparable to her partner. I understand the reasoning for its inclusion in the episode but personally I think this screen time could perhaps be shared with the hobo staying in Mulders hotel room. I am sure he was probably drinking the mini bar dry and ordering soft porn to his telly, but I guess we’ll never know.

A part of this episode I found quite interesting was when the agents meet up with Dr Diamond, one of Scully’s old teachers. He and Fox are talking about the evolutionary food chain;

MULDER: But what if something entered the food chain above us?

DR. DIAMOND: It won't happen, see our intelligence virtually insures us, barring the introduction of some alien life-form, we will live out our days as rulers of the world.

And there it is in black and white a heads up or warning maybe?

That was not all that was said. I’m probably reading way too much into this sentence but...;

MULDER: But, but what if through some fluke of nature, a human was born, who reverted to it's most animal instincts, a kind of carnivorous Neanderthal. Wouldn't he occupy a space above us on the food chain?

As soon as I heard this sentence I immediately thought of fluke form season 2 episode ‘THE HOST’ as an example of a freakish evolution in nature that sits aloft us humans in the food chain. I am also thinking this sentence can be applied to numerous villains from Monster of the Week episodes. But like I said I might just be reading way too much in to things.

One more thing before I go, anybody else notice the guy in the casino that checked the change slot in the telephone just before Mulder was going to call the park ranger. Not significant really just thought it was a nice touch and Mulder reaction made me laugh.

Time to rate and sorry X-Philes I want to give it a higher score but 5/10 seems fair. An uninspired story and a insipid monster. I think this is one of the episodes from series that tries to stick to close to real mythology, before the writer new to bend the 'truth' a little more.
Hopefully I will leave the next episode post on a merrier note, so look out for my covering of SHADOW coming soon.

SQUEEZE Episode 3 Season 1 of The X-Files

Better then Doug Hutchison's latest squeeze 8/10

Synopsis: Careerist FBI agent Don Charlton seeks the help of the X-Files team to solve the case of three murders in which the victims liver is removed and the culprit seemingly vanishes into thin air.

The first monster of the week episode and a fine episode it is. The guest star is immense.

Ladies and gentleman, boys and especially teenage girls can you please put your hands together in applause for the performance of Doug Hutchison. He played one of the most memorable characters in X-Files history, Eugene Victor Tooms and he made the role his own. He has managed here to prove that he was just as creepy in 93 as he is now. Seriously imagine for a moment if you will, you wake up in the dead of night only to see those jaundice eyes peering at you through the dark. Creepy huh, now imagine how Courtney Stodden must feel!

All joking aside that was one heck of a performance and I salute you sir. 

Another noteworthy performance is that of Gillian Anderson. In this episode we see Scully cutting ties with her graduate friends at the FBI by committing herself to the X-Files and thus the bureau laughing stock that is Fox Mulder. Does this means now that she is in it for the long haul? Of course we know it does and I guess by this point FOX network executives gave up calling for Pamela Anderson to take the role of the highly intelligent, sophisticated and not to mention natural PHD FBI Agent Dr Dana Scully.

Dochovney was up to his usual high standard. Mulder came across like a lone ranger showing his defiance in the face of bureaucracy’s pear pressure. Even the opportunistic easy to hate character of Don Carlton pushed the episode on when needed. Top marks all round.

All in all a good episode. The 8/10 lends weight mainly to Hutchison's stand out portrayal of the disturbing Tooms. Bring on the next one! CONDUIT. Until next time,

Stay safe, I WANT TO BELIEVE J