This episode feels, almost personal. It's that insulting to the intelligence of the viewer.
To add to our story we are shown a summer camp in West Virginia where aliens are being kept. Evil soldier goons show up and execute them.
Back to our heroes, Mulder tries to find a Japanese doctor so he can get into a train car with an alien on it, but then an assassin finds the doctor first and kills him, but then the assassin leaves the door to the alien train car open, but then the assassin was hiding in the wall and is strangling Mulder to death, but then the train guy has a gun and he makes the assassin quit killing Mulder.
Meanwhile Scully goes to the summer camp and is literally shown a mass grave filled with alien grays, literally filled with their recently murdered corpses, but after being captured by a group of unknown soldiers who murder the last of the camp survivors, a fat guy explains to Scully they were just experimented on medically with radiation and diseases, and it made their heads all big and inhuman, and they all shrank like two feet in height, and had four fingers instead of five, and were silicone based instead of carbon.
Because she's a medical doctor Scully immediately recognizes all of this as true. Also she has proof that it's true, the President issued a vague, non-specific apology for government testing in the 70s that involved radiation (no I'm not making that up or even misstating it for comedic effect, that's literally what she says). So you see Mulder, it was all just the Japanese perpetrating a hoax on the American public to cover their tracks by pretending to be aliens. How do I explain the Japanese having anti-gravity utilizing space ships, the technology to read people's minds, the ability to abduct me from the side of a mountain without use of a manmade flying machine on a rendezvous set up using telepathy with a crazy man, I'm sorry Mulder you'll have to repeat all that, sssscrrrrrr, ssssscrrrrr, I'm sorry Mulder there's so much static right now I can't hear you, bye.
Oh, she also claims Mulder's train will explode with the "totally human test subject" which will expose tens of thousands of people to hemorrhagic fever---let me just stop you right there, doctor. Of all the ways you might realistically spread any kind of virus, or of all the ways you might unrealistically spread any kind of virus that a regular person may still just go with, exploding a patient infected with it using 50lbs of C4 is not one of them. Viruses have shown a remarkable irresilience to being exploded.
Anyhoo, nothing else really happens but we're expected to be super, super, duper worried that Mulder might finally die in a midseason episode of season 3 of a very popular television show because of that bomb. Fortunately Scully helps Mulder open the door, although the assassin, who Mulder has had his back turned to for most of the half of the episode he has him captured, without any restraints whatsoever, somehow manages to sneak up and knock Mulder out before kicking him repeatedly for good measure.
But then Mr. X shows up, shoots the bad guy, and carries Mulder off the train. The end. Oh except Scully shows up one more time to berate Mulder for even believing in aliens when clearly this can all be neatly explained by a rogue Japanese scientist giving people small pox or something.
And I'm quite sure as a kid I was left wondering if I had missed some episodes that retconned seasons 1 and 2, or was I misremembering a different television show about FBI agents who look for aliens as being The X-Files, or hmmm...
To add to our story we are shown a summer camp in West Virginia where aliens are being kept. Evil soldier goons show up and execute them.
Back to our heroes, Mulder tries to find a Japanese doctor so he can get into a train car with an alien on it, but then an assassin finds the doctor first and kills him, but then the assassin leaves the door to the alien train car open, but then the assassin was hiding in the wall and is strangling Mulder to death, but then the train guy has a gun and he makes the assassin quit killing Mulder.
Meanwhile Scully goes to the summer camp and is literally shown a mass grave filled with alien grays, literally filled with their recently murdered corpses, but after being captured by a group of unknown soldiers who murder the last of the camp survivors, a fat guy explains to Scully they were just experimented on medically with radiation and diseases, and it made their heads all big and inhuman, and they all shrank like two feet in height, and had four fingers instead of five, and were silicone based instead of carbon.
Because she's a medical doctor Scully immediately recognizes all of this as true. Also she has proof that it's true, the President issued a vague, non-specific apology for government testing in the 70s that involved radiation (no I'm not making that up or even misstating it for comedic effect, that's literally what she says). So you see Mulder, it was all just the Japanese perpetrating a hoax on the American public to cover their tracks by pretending to be aliens. How do I explain the Japanese having anti-gravity utilizing space ships, the technology to read people's minds, the ability to abduct me from the side of a mountain without use of a manmade flying machine on a rendezvous set up using telepathy with a crazy man, I'm sorry Mulder you'll have to repeat all that, sssscrrrrrr, ssssscrrrrr, I'm sorry Mulder there's so much static right now I can't hear you, bye.
Oh, she also claims Mulder's train will explode with the "totally human test subject" which will expose tens of thousands of people to hemorrhagic fever---let me just stop you right there, doctor. Of all the ways you might realistically spread any kind of virus, or of all the ways you might unrealistically spread any kind of virus that a regular person may still just go with, exploding a patient infected with it using 50lbs of C4 is not one of them. Viruses have shown a remarkable irresilience to being exploded.
Anyhoo, nothing else really happens but we're expected to be super, super, duper worried that Mulder might finally die in a midseason episode of season 3 of a very popular television show because of that bomb. Fortunately Scully helps Mulder open the door, although the assassin, who Mulder has had his back turned to for most of the half of the episode he has him captured, without any restraints whatsoever, somehow manages to sneak up and knock Mulder out before kicking him repeatedly for good measure.
But then Mr. X shows up, shoots the bad guy, and carries Mulder off the train. The end. Oh except Scully shows up one more time to berate Mulder for even believing in aliens when clearly this can all be neatly explained by a rogue Japanese scientist giving people small pox or something.
And I'm quite sure as a kid I was left wondering if I had missed some episodes that retconned seasons 1 and 2, or was I misremembering a different television show about FBI agents who look for aliens as being The X-Files, or hmmm...