The first season of the science fiction and horror television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox network in the United States on September 10, 1993, and concluded on the same channel on May 13, 1994, after airing all 24 episodes.
The first season introduced main characters of the series, including Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who were portrayed by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, respectively, and recurring characters Deep Throat, Walter Skinner, and Cigarette Smoking Man. The season introduced the series' main concept, revolving around the investigation of paranormal or supernatural cases, known as X-Files, by the Federal Bureau of Investigation; it also began to lay the groundwork for the series' overarching mythology.
Initially influenced by Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Twilight Zone, series creator Chris Carter pitched the idea for the series to Fox twice before it was accepted for production. The season saw the series quickly gaining popularity, with ratings rising steadily throughout its run; and garnered generally positive reviews from critics and the media. It helped to make stars of its two lead roles, and several of its taglines and catchphrases have since become cultural staples.
Concept and themes
Although Carter initially conceived of the series based on the influence of Kolchak and The Twilight Zone, he has stated that the "leaping-off point" for the series' overall concept came from UFO lore. After being introduced to the works of John E. Mack—especially a study by Mack that reported that 3% of Americans claimed to have been abducted by aliens—Carter believed he had found his central theme.Edwards, p.11 It was decided that the series would focus on the FBI to avoid something Carter had seen as a failing in Kolchak, whereby mysterious events would continually occur in one locale and be accidentally uncovered by the same character—by creating a fictional FBI unit which actively uncovered these paranormal cases, it was felt that the series would be "sustainable week after week without stretching the parameters of credibility".Lowry, p.11 Early in the planning stages, Carter had envisioned that a significant proportion of the episodes would deal with investigations which uncovered hoaxes or cases which had been mistakenly viewed as paranormal. Although this decision never came to pass, the third-season episode "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" can be seen as a holdover from the idea.
The series revolves around its two main characters, which had been defined early in conception as the "believer" and the "skeptic". Of these, the "believer", Fox Mulder, was created with a character-defining personal motivation, involving the disappearance of his younger sister during his childhood, which he would believe to be a result of alien abduction. The creation of the "skeptic", Dana Scully, was influenced by Jodie Foster's portrayal of Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs, leading the crew to decide that the character needed to seem "real", as opposed to the "bombshell" type of character the studio was pressing for.Lowry, p.15
Thematically, although the series focused heavily on alien abduction lore, the decision was made early on to allow the plots of individual episodes to branch out into different territories to prevent the overarching plot from running out of momentum, which led to standalone episodes such as "Squeeze" being developed. The variety of storylines which the series has shown has led director Daniel Sackheim to note that "The X-Files has found its own style in that it doesn't have a confined style to it", adding that the series' "fluid" approach has meant that "everybody who comes on the show attempt to make a little scary movie".Edwards, p.14 To this end, several episodes feature varying plots, with alien-influenced storylines varying between "Ice", a "briskly-paced" episode set in one location, and the character-driven "Conduit", which served to fill in background on the characters. Elsewhere, plots focused on soul transference or reincarnation, with the episodes "Shadows", "Born Again" and "Lazarus" sharing similar storylines. The plot of "Ghost in the Machine" featured a malevolent AI; while "Shapes" introduced the first of what would become several Native American-themed episodes.Cantor, p.158
The first season also introduced many minor characters who would go on to become central figures to the series—The Lone Gunmen, first seen in "E.B.E.", would become regular characters beginning the second season, eventually starring in the spin-off series The Lone Gunmen; whilst the episode "Tooms" introduced Walter Skinner, portrayed by Mitch Pileggi, who would go on to be billed as a series star by the ninth season. The abduction of Mulder's sister Samantha was explored in the episodes "Pilot", "Conduit", and "Miracle Man", and would go on to become one of the central themes of the series as a whole.
Production
Development California native Chris Carter was allowed to produce new shows for the Fox network in the early 1990s. Tired of the comedies he had been working on for Walt Disney Pictures,Edwards, p.9 inspired by a report that aliens may have abducted 3.7 million Americans, and recalling memories of Watergate and the 1970s horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, Carter came up with the idea for The X-Files and wrote the pilot episode in 1992.Lowry, p.16 He initially struggled over the untested concept—executives wanted a love interest for Scully—and casting. The network wanted either a more established or a "taller, leggier, blonder and breastier" actress for Scully than the 24-year-old Gillian Anderson, a theater veteran with minor film experience, who Carter felt was the only choice after auditions.Lowry, pp.15–16
Carter's initial pitch for The X-Files was rejected by Fox executives. He fleshed out the concept and returned a few weeks later, leading to the commission of the pilot. Carter worked with NYPD Blue producer Daniel Sackheim in further developing the pilot, drawing stylistic inspiration from the 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line, and the English television series Prime Suspect.Edwards, p.13 Inspiration was also taken from Carter's memories of watching Kolchak: The Night Stalker and The Twilight Zone in his youth; as well as from the then-recently released film The Silence of the Lambs, which was the impetus for framing the series around agents from the FBI, in order to provide the characters with a more plausible reason for being involved in each case than Carter believed was present in Kolchak.Lowry, pp.10–12 Carter was also keen on keeping the relationship between the two lead roles strictly platonic, basing their interactions on the characters of Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) and John Steed (Patrick Macnee) in the series The Avengers.Edwards, p.12Lovece, pp.3–4
During the early stages of production for the series, Carter founded Ten Thirteen Productions and began planning to film the pilot in L.A. However, unable to find suitable locations for many of the scenes, Ten Thirteen Productions decided to "go where the good forests are", and moved production to Vancouver,Lowry, p.17 where the series would remain for the next five seasons; production would eventually shift to Los Angeles beginning with the sixth season.Meisler, pp. 18–19 It was soon realized by the production crew that since so much of the first season would require filming on location, rather than on sound stages, two location managers would be needed, rather than the usual one.Gradnitzer and Pittson, p.16
Casting David Duchovny had worked in L.A. for three years before The X-Files, and initially wanted to build his acting career in film. But in 1993, his manager, Melanie Green, gave him a script for the pilot episode of the series. Green and Duchovny were both convinced it was a good script, so Duchovny auditioned for the lead.Lowry, p.54 When Duchovny was auditioning for the part of Fox Mulder, he made a "terrific" audition, but spoke rather slowly. Chris Carter thought that at the beginning of the auditioning for the character, he was a "good judge of character", and thought that Duchovny wasn't "bright". So he went and talked to Duchovny and asked him if he could "please" imagine himself as an FBI agent for the "future" week. The show's casting director was very positive about him. According to Carter, Duchovny turned out to be one of the best-read people he knew. Carter recalls being contractually obliged to provide Fox with a choice of two actors for the role; however, he was confident Duchovny was the right choice from the outset.Edwards, p.19 After getting the role, Duchovny thought the show wouldn't last or that it wouldn't make much impact.Lovece, p.16
Gillian Anderson was cast due to Carter's insistence that she would fit the role perfectly; however, Fox executives wanted a more glamorous "bombshell" for the part, hoping this would introduce a romantic element to the series. This led Carter to insist that he did not want Mulder and Scully to become romantically involved, citing the relationship between the lead roles in Moonlighting as an example to avoid.Lowry, pp.15–17 Anderson called her early work on the show "a complete learning experience for me – the pilot was only the second time I'd been in front of a camera".
The series also introduced the character of Walter Skinner, played by Mitch Pileggi, who would go on to become a recurring and later a main character in the show. The character had been conceived as playing against the stereotypical bureaucratic "paper-pusher", being instead someone more "quietly dynamic".Lovece, p.26 Pileggi had auditioned unsuccessfully for several other parts on the series before being cast as Skinner. At first, the fact that he was asked back to audition for the role had puzzled him, until he discovered the reason he had not been cast for the previous parts—Chris Carter had been unable to imagine Pileggi as any of those characters, since the actor had been shaving his head. When Pileggi attended the audition for Walter Skinner, he had been in a grumpy mood and had allowed his small amount of hair to grow back. Pileggi's attitude fit well with Skinner's character, leading Carter to assume the actor was only pretending to be grumpy. After successfully auditioning for the role, Pileggi thought he had been lucky that he had not been cast in one of the earlier roles, as he believed he would have appeared in only a single episode and would have missed the opportunity to play the recurring role of Walter Skinner.Lowry, p.71
Glen Morgan and James Wong's early influence on The X-Files mythology led to their introduction of popular secondary characters who would continue for years in episodes written by others, such as the Scully family—Dana's father William (Don S. Davis), mother Margaret (Sheila Larken) and sister Melissa (Melinda McGraw)—as well as conspiracy-buff trio The Lone Gunmen.
Writing Initially, there was no certainty about how long the series would run,Lowry, p. 21 and as a result, there was no long-term plan to guide its writers. Although the initial impetus for the show was based on alien abduction lore,Edwards, pp.11–12 the crew believed that the series would not be able to maintain its momentum for long if it did not branch out into different plot ideas. The show's first season thus featured numerous standalone stories involving monsters, and also diverse alien or governmental cover-ups, often with no apparent connection to each other—such as the Arctic space worms in "Ice", and the conspiracy of genetically engineered twins in "Eve". Carter himself wrote "Space", an intended bottle episode about a manifested alien "ghost" in the NASA space shuttle program, which was subject to cost overruns and became the most expensive of the first season.Lowry, pp.120–122