Episode: Ice
Air Date: 11/5/1993
Spoilers: Medium
Fox Mulder: “This is Agent Mulder. We have a serious biological hazard. Request air pick-up and quarantine procedures. Over.”
This episode was outstanding. Throughout the first half of the episode, I had felt like I had seen this before, and then I realized -- John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982).
I did some research and I found out that this entire episode is inspired by that film. Well, the episode delivered and it worked great.
So Mulder and Scully travel to Alaska to investigate the mysterious deaths of a research team. They travel with a physician, a toxicologist, a geologist, and the pilot who flew them there.
Upon arrival, they encounter a rabid dog who attacks Mulder and the pilot. Then, they quickly realize it’s infected with a (extraterrestrial?) parasite and they are all in danger of being exposed. Oh, and also the pilot was infected and he died. They’re stuck. And an alien worm exists among them and has insidiously hid in one of them...
SCULLY: “Mulder, I don't want to waste a second trying to find a way to kill this thing.”
MULDER: “I don't know if we should kill it. This area of the ice sheet was formed over a meteor crater. The worm lived in ammonia. It survived sub-zero temperatures. Theorists in alternative life-designs believe in ammonia-supported life systems on planets with freezing temperatures.”
MULDER: “The meteor that crashed here a quarter of a million years ago may have carried that type of life to earth.”
SCULLY: “Mulder, that pilot developed surface symptoms within a few minutes. Within a few hours, that parasite had total control. What would happen if this got into the population? A city the size of New York could be infected within a few days.”
MULDER: “Exactly. But what do we know about it? This organism might be lying dormant in another crater.”
SCULLY: “Mulder, if we don't kill it now, we run the risk of becoming Richter and Campbell with guns to our heads.”
MULDER: “But if we do kill it now, we may never know how to stop it or anything like it in the future.”
After the pilot dies, the show quickly spirals into madness and paranoia as they all suspect at least one among them is infected.
Probably my favorite episode so far. So brilliantly made.