SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

Recap by funkymunky

I was a little late to the recapping party and most of the good episodes were taken, so I volunteered to summarize what is generally believed to be one of the more boring episodes of The X-Files. I do it all for you, kids.

“Space” opens with footage from a 1977 news report from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. We see a female reporter dressed in a truly fugly blouse that is adorned with a large bow around the collar. Ah, the ‘70s. Although the outfits in these early ‘90s X-Files episode were pretty horrible as well, as we all know. Plaid shirts and puffy flower-print dresses galore. We won’t get into that here. There’s not enough time. The reporter explains that the NASA team is celebrating some really cool close-up pictures of Mars from the Viking Orbiter. The images reveal large amounts of water trapped beneath the planet’s polar ice caps, which could have-you guessed it- sustained life. Another image shows a formation that looks like a seriously Botoxed human face. Cut to the reporter interviewing the Project Director, Lieutenant Colonel Marcus Aurelius (really) Belt, who denies any alien involvement in The Face’s formation. He explains that it’s the result of light and shadows and solar winds that cross the surface of Mars at 300 miles per hour.

The camera pans out from a grainy black-and-white image of The Face, as Belt drops his keys on the table in his apartment. He lies back in bed, the windows wide open and the curtains blowing in the wind. Silly Col. Belt. Don’t you know that bad people and/or things can come in through open windows and kill you? Oh well. It’s your funeral. Literally. I’ll get to that later. We see a flash of white light as Belt flashes back to a spacewalk he did. He shouts that there is something out there, and that it’s coming at him. Another flash of light, and he opens his eyes. He stares up at the ceiling, which starts to swirl into The Face. Scary violin music plays and it starts screeching and flies towards him. Belt has a look of sheer terror in his eyes. You know, I was nine years old when this episode first aired, and am really glad my TV interests at the time were confined to Tiny Toons and Full House. This would have scared the crap out of me. Though it’s a wonder Uncle Jesse’s mullet didn’t do the same.

Credits.

Shuttle Space Center, Cape Canaveral, Florida. Present Day. Good ol’ stock footage of a shuttle launch. The fictional NASA gang is gearing up for liftoff. The scene moves to Mission Control in Houston. A young woman is sitting at her station, with Belt standing behind her. The countdown begins, but liftoff is aborted with 3 seconds left.

Washington D.C., two weeks later. Our heroes are sitting on the steps of someplace or other, waiting for somebody. Scully’s hair is looking fabulously bad, and Mulder’s is all wavy and full and odd-looking. Mulder tells Scully that he got a note from someone from wanting to meet with someone from the FBI. A woman sporting some cheap-looking earrings approaches them and introduces herself as Michelle Generoo. When I heard that name, I couldn’t help thinking of a species of penguin known as the gentoo. I love penguins. And I loved them before this whole craze, so you can’t accuse me of jumping on the penguin bandwagon. Anyway, Michelle is the space shuttle program’s Mission Control Communications Commander. Somebody really likes alliteration. Michelle explains that there may be a saboteur inside NASA. The launch from two weeks earlier was scrubbed because an “auxiliary power unit valve malfunctioned.” Had it not been stopped, the shuttle could have exploded right there on the ground. Michelle opens her briefcase and shows Mulder and Scully something that was sent to her in the mail-an X-ray of an APU valve that shows deep scoring marks. These marks could have caused the malfunction, and it appears that tampering had occurred. But according to Michelle, nobody could have caused that type of damage without being detected. So how did it happen? Michelle says that she came to see Mulder and Scully because they specialize in unexplained phenomena. OMG. This chick is perfect for Mulder! Except for the fact that her fiancé is the shuttle commander. There goes that idea. Oh, wait. Maybe not. NASA love triangle! With a crazy murderous diaper-wearing astronaut!

Houston Space Center, the next day. Mulder and Scully are being driven around in one of those golf cart thingies, discussing possible reasons why somebody would want to sabotage the shuttle. Wow, Scully’s hair looks especially bad in this scene. It’s not like she’s in a convertible with the wind blowing through her hair, she’s in a golf cart! Mulder makes some good arguments but I can’t stop focusing on Scully’s hair. I didn’t notice this until like my third rewatch, but I swear they drive by a guy with a mullet. Awesome. They pass by a digital clock on the wall that says that 10 hours and 45 minutes remain until launch. At first I didn’t realize this was a countdown clock, and when they got to Belt’s office a few minutes later and the clock read 10:39, I was all, “Oooh…the ghost is messing with the clocks.” Then I figured it out. Duh.