THE X-FILES A TO Z: B is for BEES

Carl Sweeney continues the alphabetical breakdown of The X-Files by looking at the importance of bees to The X-Files and its mythology...

Bees were, for a while, an important ingredient in the mythology mix. They don’t appear that often, and I’d argue that they were never used as well as something like the Black Oil. Chris Carter liked to keep introducing new elements to the conspiracy storyline, which may partially explain why bees fell by the wayside. The creatures also apparently presented considerable production challenges, probably meaning the creative team didn’t miss them too much. They gave us a few memorable moments though and played a key part in Mulder and Scully’s first big-screen outing.

‘Herrenvolk’, the Season 4 opener, begins with a workman in Canada being stung while up a telephone pole. Shortly after, while being observed by a group of identical boys, he has an intense allergic reaction and falls to his death. Mulder and Jeremiah Smith discover the man’s body while travelling to an area of farmland tended by clones, some of whom are apparently doubles of Mulder’s sister, Samantha. Mulder, Smith and a Samantha clone hide from the Alien Bounty Hunter in an apiary, a sequence during which the young actress playing Samantha was stung.

In ‘Zero Sum’, Skinner has to make good on a promise he made to the Cigarette-Smoking Man in ‘Memento Mori’. His task is to cover up the death of a woman stung to death by bees in a workplace bathroom, in exchange for CSM doing a good deed for the cancer-stricken Agent Scully. Skinner does the dirty work while assuming Mulder’s identity, a risky strategy which proves difficult to maintain. We learn a bit more about how bees relate to the Syndicate’s grand plan when a swarm of killer bees are unleashed on primary school children in South Carolina, spreading the smallpox virus to all who get stung. This appears to be a trial run for a similar event that will take place when aliens return to colonise Earth.

Shippers everywhere were given reason to curse the Africanised Honey Bee when ‘Fight the Future’ hit cinemas. Mulder and Scully’s adventure in pursuit of an alien virus through Texas takes them to a domed tent in a cornfield. When the agents enter they are assailed by thousands of bees released from vents above them, in a nice set piece that makes good use of the switch from small to big-screen. Unbeknownst to Scully, a stowaway bee hitches a ride in her collar back to Washington DC. It sits through an FBI hearing before deciding to strike seconds before Mulder and Scully can kiss for the first time. This interruption puts the prospect of romance on the backburner for the next two seasons, not least because the bee sting infects Scully with the alien virus and causes her to collapse almost instantly.

Unbeknownst to Scully, a stowaway bee hitches a ride in her collar back to Washington DC. It sits through an FBI hearing before deciding to strike seconds before Mulder and Scully can kiss for the first time. This interruption puts the prospect of romance on the backburner for the next two seasons, not least because the bee sting infects Scully with the alien virus and causes her to collapse almost instantly.

‘Fight the Future’ was the last time we saw bees in The X-Files. The plans to use them during colonisation were presumably destroyed along with the Syndicate in ‘One Son’. There was no sign in Season 10 that Carter intends to revisit this aspect of the mythology, which may be for the best.

Next time... C is for CONSPIRACY...

You can follow Carl on Twitter @csweeney758.

THE X-FILES A TO Z: A is for ALIENS

Tony Black begins an alphabetical breakdown of The X-Files by talking it's myriad range of alien lifeforms...

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If you think you've seen one alien, seen 'em all on The X-Files, then think again! Over the ten seasons so far, we've seen all sorts of weird and wonderful extra-terrestrial lifeforms, so chronologically here's a run down of the beings Mulder (and sometimes Scully) has faced down over the years.

While the 'Pilot' deals with alien abduction, all we see is a mysterious light, and not until 'Fallen Angel' does Mulder track a strange, invisible entity which can run through woodland and be illuminated by beams of light. Oh just before this, in 'Space', we see an alien space ghost. Or just a ghost. It's not clear. It's also shit. A similar visage appears to Mulder in 'Little Green Men', but this could be his mind seeing what it wants to see.

'E.B.E' promises an extra-terrestrial biological entity, but it's not really until 'Nisei' do we fully see one, after a few glimpses during the 'Anasazi' trilogy as the Grey aliens from traditional UFO mythology are killed in gas chambers by rescued Nazi scientists. Scully does see an EBE embryo in 'The Erlenmeyer Flask', which presumably grows into the same alien creature Duane Barry sees in 'Duane Barry' during his flashbacks. Mulder finds a frozen one in 'Gethsemane', but this appears to be a dupe. We later discover in 'Fight the Future' that these EBE's can be gestated inside human hosts, and later sloth their skins in 'The Beginning' from the less benign creatures into the alien ones from traditional lore.

Less traditional aliens show up in 'Colony/End Game' in the form of cloned extra-terrestrial colonists created to look human, who are systematically killed by an Alien Bounty Hunter who can shapeshift into anyone. 'Talitha Cumi' later sees fellow shapeshifter Jeremiah Smith, a benevolent entity who can heal with the palm of his hand, guide Mulder into discovering more clones being bred to cultivate an alien virus, which first appears in 'Piper Maru' in the form of an oily, black substance later known as Purity. It's the life force of an alien race colonizing the universe, which can infect a human host and gestate from it an EBE.

Rebel aliens appear in 'Patient X/The Red and the Black' to start eliminating alien abductees potentially infected with Purity, aliens who have sown up the orifices of their faces to prevent infection, and who carry sticks which can set people on fire. But wait... it gets weirder...

You see, those aforementioned abductees--including Mulder--we discover in 'DeadAlive' are being left for dead after experimentation, only to be 'reborn' as human replicants, part of a 'supersoldier' program who are directly linked to an off-shoot military conspiracy linked to alien babies being born via abductees, some of which look like EBE's. Scully becomes one such abductee possibly infected and in 'Existence' gives birth to William, who may or may not be alien himself - given he can control fragments of alien spacecraft with his mind, which does suggest some kind of power!

Finally, in the brand new revival series, the suggestion is made that human DNA through a virus resembling the common cold is activating alien genes inside human genetics which have existed since man's creation. Will this virus turn us all into aliens or just cause the sixth extinction? We'll hopefully find out in Season 11!

Have you spotted any other aliens wandering around in The X-Files? Let us know!

You can follow Tony on Twitter @ajblackwriter.