SEASON 1

SEASON 2

SEASON 3

SEASON 4

SEASON 5

FIGHT THE FUTURE

SEASON 6

SEASON 7

SEASON 8

SEASON 9

Episode written by Glen Morgan and James Wong

Recap written by Adrienne (aka Starbucket)

Icy Cape Alaska, the Arctic Ice Core Project. The captions indicate that the base shown onscreen, mid-blizzard, is 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle. I'm pretty sure the Arctic Circle is north of Alaska, but I'm too lazy to look it up so let's go with it. Mark Snow's Creepy Music of Doom kicks in as we jump inside, and follow a very Blue-like dog through the building, past the thermometer reading a balmy minus 32 degrees, and around the dead body lying on the ground. We pan up to a fairly Clive Oweny-looking shirtless man, who is bleeding and breathing heavily. He staggers drunkenly, gun poised at the ready, over to the CB radio and video camera, on which he records this requisite creepy/confusing message: "We're not who we are. It goes no further than this. It ends right here, right now." Wow, he doesn't look as much like Clive Owen when he's in the light.

Not Clive Owen is grabbed from behind and thrown across the room by a blue-shirted guy. Not Clive Owen knocks him down and grabs his gun, giving Blue Shirt time to get up and point his own gun. Uh, oh. Mexican standoff. Then, with Mark Snow's Creepy Music of Doom coming to a whining crescendo, the men move to point the guns at their own heads and... bam!

Credits. Ah, they're so old and pretty. And look! There's a clip from Squeeze! Don't you just want to shout to Scully, "Run! As fast and as far as you can! Get out of there!" But, alas, she doesn't. She stays on long after even Mulder has ditched the Files. So, sad. But let's return now to happier times….

We fade in on a fuzzy screen, then color bars, then a blurry video of members of the Arctic Ice Core Project explaining to the camera that they drilled farther into an ice sheet than anyone. Ever. Go, them. The video's kinda fuzzy, though. C'mon, Mulder. Invest in DVDs. The quality is amazing. Oh, wait. This is 1993. They probably didn't have DVDs then, or if they did, they were probably secretly being used by the military for nefarious secret high-quality movie-watching purposes. Anyway, the video is paused mid-high five, and Mulder explains to Scully that the group was sent to the "artic" a year ago to drill. How hard is it to put that extra C in there? It's said arCtic, not artic. I though you went to Yale, Duchovny.

Scully reads the file behind Mulder, both of them hanging out in what appears to be a middle school computer classroom, but what I suspect is one of several prototype LBOs that were tried out before the final design was established in, I think, "Eve". Mulder explains that the samples they removed contained, "evidence that could reveal the structure of the earth's climate back to the dawn of man." Man. How much do you wanna bet he'll find some way to get aliens involved? And I'm not just asking because I've seen this episode and know that's the case. Mulder explains that there were absolutely no problems in the year the team was up there, until a week ago. The timestamp on the video is November 5, 1993 at 8:30 AM AST (Alaskan Standard Time, I'd imagine). Oh my God, this is 14 years old! Gah! I'm ancient. The first time I saw this episode was on Pro 7 in 9th grade. In German. Excuse me as I go pluck out a grey hair while Mulder shows Scully the video from the previous scene.

Can I just pause a second to say how cute Scully looks here? We're graced with a close-up of Gillian emoting to the weirdness on the screen, and I'm impressed with both the array of emotions that pass over her face in a matter of seconds, and also with how young she looks. She's, what, 24 here? With her semi-strawberry blonde hair and baby-fat-ensconced cheeks, she's so adorable. Anyway, the video cuts out with Not Clive Owen being dragged out of his chair by Blue Shirt Guy and Scully stares dramatically at the screen and asks Mulder, "What happened up there?" Mulder explains that he and Scully must be either "brilliant or expendable," (Hm, I think neither sometimes. And both sometimes. Depending on who's writing which episode) because they've pulled the case. Did they just get handed cases by some unknown higher-ups (remember, this is before Skinner was even a twinkle in 1013's eye)? I thought Mulder asked for these things. Scully asks if it's "severe isolation distress" and Mulder says, basically, "Nope." He explains to her, in what's sure to be a foolproof plan that can't go wrong in any way, shape, or form, that they're heading up to Nome to meet up with three scientists, then they have a three day window to solve the case before a blizzard hits the area. I'm sure everything will be fine. Riiiight. Oh, and, "bring your mittens."