The X-Files was a '90s phenomenon whose influence can still be felt in series like the somber yet equally human Debris. Featuring the FBI's Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, the show juggled both its long-running story arc and "monster of the week" one-off episodes. But it was also a show that both understood and showed off its roots, honoring the classics that inspired it. One of those homages is in its first season, with the fan-favorite episode "Ice" taking a different spin on John Carpenter's The Thing.
The X-Files has always been upfront about the basis for "Ice," the eighth episode of the series. Written by frequent contributor duo Glen Morgan and James Wong and directed by David Nutter, the episode also had a guiding hand from creator Chris Carter. Carter admitted to two major sources of inspiration, as explained in Jane Goldman's The X-Files Book of the Unexplained. One was a science article about deep ice core drilling in Greenland, while the other was John W. Campbell's 1938 science horror novella, Who Goes There?
John Carpenter's 1982 adaptation is another cult classic from the legendary horror director. Neglected at release, the film is a bloody but thoughtfully accurate adaptation of Campbell's story. In both, there's a small group of people doing their best to thrive in remote Arctic quarters for months on end when a dog brings an intergalactic organism -- and their doom -- into their tightly wound midst. The Thing's nihilistic tones of paranoia and self-destruction made it one of the most effective horror films in history, and Rob Bottin's gory creature effects set a new high bar for the genre.
"Ice," in contrast, had to speed-run a plot that was best told with a slow burn while also reigning in the bloodier parts of the original story. The recipe for its success is in the emphasis on raw paranoia. With a smaller cast of characters than the Carpenter film, The X-Files trims the fat and gets the pilot and guest star scientists to start second-guessing the motives of their FBI allies before they've even arrived at what they know will be a bloody Alaskan research station. The ominous approach of a winter storm ensures they'll be locked in with their fears.
Just as effective is the pre-credits hook, where audiences witness the fate of the final pair of researchers. A once-rational geophysicist is leaving a disturbing message on video, gasping that "We're not who we are." The video Mulder and Scully see after the break is cut off by conflict, but the audience knows what happened. The last two men mutually commit suicide, making the entire sequence an oddly prescient echo of Oscar Isaac's storyline in 2018's Annihilation.
With the clues of the murderous breakdown all around them and a frenzied dog quickly drawing blood on pilot Bear, the only way out of the remote camp, everyone has reasons to be tightly wound. Plot developments familiar from The Thing clip along briskly, from nervous tests to see who might be sick, to Mulder being locked away just like Wilford Brimley's biologist Blair. For savvy fans of The Thing and its source material, the plot twists are sometimes flipped around to keep them just as paranoid as the cast.
Despite its place so early in the series' run, "Ice" is a staple of The X-Files best-of lists. Though there's been critical debate over the derivative nature of its story in the past, the episode's craft still shines through today. And although it's a bottle episode and a monster-of-the-week all in one, the lingering paranoia and a finale that suggests the danger isn't over becomes another hint to the mytharc that would take ever greater prominence over the course of the series.
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