Travelers (The X Files)

Plot

In 1990 in Caledonia, Wisconsin, a man named Edward Skur is shot by a police officer during an eviction and the last word he speaks is "Mulder". Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), at this point working with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, believes that the man may have had some connection to his father, Bill. Mulder discovers that Skur was reported to have died in 1952. He seeks out Arthur Dales (Darren McGavin), a retired FBI agent who investigated Skur in the 1950s. At first, Dales is reluctant to discuss the case and warns Mulder away. However, Mulder's threat of a subpoena persuades Dales to tell his story.

In a flashback to the 1950s, Dales (Fredric Lane) and his partner Hayes Michel are sent to arrest Skur (Garret Dillahunt) for being a communist. When Dales is told that Skur hanged himself while in custody, he feels guilty and returns to Skur's house to apologize to his wife. While there, he sees Skur alive and tries to recapture him. In the following struggle, an appendage emerges from Skur's mouth. Skur is forced to flee when a neighbor interrupts the fight. Dales' partner and Roy Cohn warn Dales to change his report about the attack. He does so, but feels guilty about it.

Later, Dales and Michel are called to investigate the death of a German doctor in Chevy Chase, Maryland. The local police deny calling them, and Dales finds a coaster for a bar with "come alone" written on the back. At the bar, Dales meets Bill Mulder, an agent from the State Department. Bill tells him that Skur was experimented on along with two other men, and those two men later killed themselves. Skur killed the German doctor in revenge for what was done to him, and he will kill Dales and Michel too because Skur believes they are part of the plot. Dales tries to warn Michel but he is too late and Skur kills him. Dales tries to investigate but Mr. Cohn covers it up.

A secretary at the FBI office, Dorothy Bahnsen (Jane Perry), helps Dales find a file that mentions Gissing, one of the two men who committed suicide. She explains that she files all the unsolved cases under X because there is more room under X than U. Gissing's body is still in the morgue and Dales convinces the technician to cut open the body where they find a strange creature has been sewn into Gissing's chest. Dales goes to Skur's wife and tells her what was done to her husband and that he wants to expose the experiments. Skur's wife goes down into the backyard bomb shelter to tell Skur, but he is overcome by his parasite and kills her.

Cohn picks up Dales and takes him to the office of the Director who gives him a speech about patriotism and convinces him to help bring in Skur. They take Dales back to the bar to meet Skur, who attacks Dales. Bill Mulder and the other agent wait outside until they think Dales is dead before rushing in to find that Dales has handcuffed Skur and is still alive.

Back in the present Fox Mulder is dismayed to hear what his father was involved in. He asks Dales how Skur escaped and Dales speculates that someone might have helped Skur escape hoping that the truth of what was done to him may one day be revealed. The episode ends with a final flashback of Bill Mulder driving down a road with Skur and giving Skur the keys to the car and walking away.

Writing and casting

The episode was written as a tribute to Howard Dimsdale, a screenwriter who was victimized by Hollywood blacklist in the 1950s. Dimsdale wrote several movies under the pseudonym "Arthur Dales", and thus, his name was the inspiration for the character of the same name in "Travelers". For many years, Dimsdale had taught at the American Film Institute in Los Angeles; two of his students were executive producer Frank Spotnitz and co-producer John Shiban. The two decided to combine many of Dimsdale's stories of "paranoia, treachery, and double-dealing" with the idea that "the witch-hunt was actually a smoke screen to conceal something else". The writers soon realized that by setting the episode in the past, they would be able to "trace the roots of both Fox Mulder and the X-Files".

This episode does not feature Scully, as Gillian Anderson was busy still filming her final parts of Fight the Future. Noted actor Darren McGavin appears as Arthur Dales. He was requested for the part especially by Chris Carter. Casting director Rick Millikan noted, "McGavin was Chris's inspiration for writing this series. He always had Darren in mind to use somewhere, and that was really his doing. He said 'I want Darren McGavin for this,' and he happened to be available, and we got him." McGavin had originally been casting directors' first choice for the role of Senator Matheson for the second season opener "Little Green Men". McGavin was later sought out to be Mulder's dad, but he again eluded the staff. In the end, McGavin finally agreed to appear on the show playing Dales, the agent who founded the X-Files.

Filming

Due to the time crunches of the fifth season, a "convincing period movie" was created in "less time than humanly possible" by members of The X-Files's production staff. Costume designer Jenni Gullet set about renting and creating vintage clothing from the fifties; art director Gary Allen collected older copies of National Geographic to make J. Edgar Hoover's office seem realistic to the period. Allen also constructed the bomb shelter, because his father was a contractor who had actually built several.

Special effects supervisor Toby Lindala created the "alien spider" as well as a special facial appliance that allowed the creature to crawl out of Skur's mouth and into his victim. The final film was slightly bleached in post-production to give it a "vintage appearance". The production staff was pleased with the final product, noting that it does justice to both "the painful controversies of the 1950s" and The X-Files as a "contemporary TV series". The episode also contained several in-jokes. The song playing in the German doctor's house is a specially recorded cover of the popular song "Lili Marleen"; the song's record cover reads "Paula Rabwini", a reference to one of the series' producers, Paul Rabwin. Agent Hayes Michel was named after the fiancé of Mary Astadourian, one of series creator Chris Carter's executive assistants.

Continuity

In several shots, Mulder can be seen wearing a wedding band. This was David Duchovny's idea; he explained "That was just me, you know, fooling around. I had recently gotten married, and I wanted to wear it." He later described the situation as "so Mulder to never have mentioned that he was married". Series creator Chris Carter later told Duchovny that the situation "creates a problem. If we ever do a show that takes place seven years ago, you'll have to be married." However, Duchovny reassured Carter by pointing out that there were not very many episodes, if any, that had been planned to take place seven years prior to the events in this episode. The inclusion of the detail caused an "Internet frenzy" and the minor detail was never resolved on screen.

Ratings

"Travelers" premiered in the US on the Fox network on March 19, 1998 and in the United Kingdom on February 3, 1999. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 9.9, with a 15 share, meaning that roughly 9.9 percent of all television-equipped households, and 15 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 15.06 million viewers.

Reviews

"Travelers" received mixed reviews from critics. In a 2000 review of season five for the New Straits Times, Francis Dass noted that the episode possessed a "nice retro feel throughout". Dass was also complimentary towards the fact that "Mulder senior is shown in action" during the episode. Todd VanDerWerff from The A.V. Club gave the episode a B and wrote positively of it, noting that, although the entry was designed as a "stall", it felt like a "weird backdoor pilots for [a show] that never happened." He noted that the episode "isn’t as good as it could have been" but argued that the story was "still a mostly fun". In addition, VanDerWerff wrote positively of McGavin's guest starring role and was complimentary towards the "alien spider thing", describing it as "wonderfully gross". Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode four stars out of five and called it "fresh and urgent". The two wrote that, while the episode was a stopgap, it "cannot be better placed." They argued that "Travlers"'s use of the "Communist witch hunt" conceit and its idea that "serving" means being a patriot, whereas "resisting" means being a traitor —a reference to the previous episode's tagline—themes were well-played. Shearman and Pearson, furthermore, praised McGavin's acting, noting that he was "the series' spiritual father".

Other reviews were more critical. John Keegan from Critical Myth awarded the episode 5 out of 10 and wrote, "Overall, this episode is an odd divergence from the normal series format, prompted by the production schedule for the feature film. [...] Acceptable as a stand-alone episode, it simply doesn’t fit within the overall scope of the series, and that makes it hard to judge objectively." Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a largely negative review and awarded it one star out of four. She noted that the episode, much like the earlier season five entry "Unusual Suspects" was "filler", but that, unlike the earlier episode, "Travelers" was "not particularly entertaining." Vitaris criticized the character of Arthur Dales and wrote that he was "not an intriguing character". However, she did praise the visuals, describing them as "outstanding".