Colony (The X-Files)

"Colony"
The X-Files episode
Clones from the Gregor series
Episode no.	Season 2 Episode 16
Directed by	Nick Marck
Teleplay by	Chris Carter
Story by	David Duchovny & Chris Carter
Production code	2X16
Original air date	February 10, 1995 (Fox)
Guest stars
Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner Megan Leitch as Samantha Mulder Brian Thompson as Pilot Peter Donat as William Mulder Rebecca Toolan as Teena Mulder Dana Gladstone as Dr. Landon Prince/Gregor Clones Tom Butler as CIA Agent Ambrose Chapel Andrew Johnston as Agent Barrett Weiss Steven Williams as X David L. Gordon as FBI Agent Michael McDonald as MP Capper McIntyre as Jailer Bonnie Hay as Field Doctor James Leard as Sergeant Al Dixon Linden Banks as Reverend Calvin Sistrunk Kim Restell as Newspaper Clerk Richard Sargent as Captain Kim Roberts as Proprietor Michael Rogers as First Crewman Oliver Becker as Second Doctor
Episode chronology
← Previous "Fresh Bones" Next → "End Game"

"Colony" is a 1995 episode of The X-Files television series. It was the sixteenth episode broadcast in the show's second season. Colony concerns Mulder and Scully's investigation of the murders of doctors with identical appearances and the reappearance of Mulder's sister Samantha.

Plot

The episode opens in medias res with Mulder in a hospital in the Arctic. As Mulder is lowered into a tub of water, Scully bursts in, telling the doctors that the cold is the only thing keeping him alive. Suddenly, Mulder's heart monitor flatlines.

Flashing back to two weeks earlier, in the Beaufort Sea, ship crew members spot a light in the sky that soon crashes into the sea. A body is retrieved from the crash, later revealed to be a bounty hunter. Two days later the bounty hunter arrives in an abortion clinic and kills a doctor, Landon Prince, by stabbing him in the back of the neck with a stiletto, then sets the building on fire and escapes. Mulder receives e-mails containing Prince's obituary along two other identical doctors. After interviewing a pro-life priest who had threatened one of the doctors, they are able to use a newspaper advertisement looking for one of the men to trace another one in Syracuse, New York.

Mulder calls Agent Weiss in Syracuse and has him go to the home of the doctor, Aaron Baker. When Weiss arrives, he sees Baker inside, talking with the bounty hunter. When the bounty hunter kills Baker, Weiss bursts in and shoots him, but the bounty hunter's green blood causes him to collapse. Mulder and Scully arrive and meet Weiss, who tells them that no one was at home. Once they leave though, it is revealed that Weiss is dead, and that the bounty hunter morphed to appear just like him.

Skinner terminates the case upon hearing of Weiss's death. Mulder and Scully get an email from another doctor with the same appearance, James Dickens. Mulder and Scully meet CIA agent Ambrose Chapel, who tells them that the doctors are part of a Russian genetic experiment codenamed Gregor. The doctors, who are clones, are being killed under an arrangement with the U.S. and Russian governments. Mulder, Scully and Chapel head to Dickens' house, but when he sees Chapel he jumps out of his window and runs off. Mulder, Scully and Chapel chase him and Chapel, who is actually the bounty hunter, kills Dickens in an alley. Scully arrives too late to witness the killing, but unknowingly steps in the remains of Dickens, a puddle of green ooze, which eats through her shoe.

Scully questions Mulder about Chapel, but given his credentials and experience, Mulder believes him. Scully performs an autopsy on Agent Weiss and finds that his blood has coagulated, and his red blood cell count is excessively high. Mulder meanwhile is summoned to his home due to a family emergency. Scully finds an address on a bag recovered from Dickens' home and heads there, finding it to be a lab, where Chapel is destroying everything inside.

Mulder arrives at his father's house on Martha's Vineyard, where a grown woman claims to be his younger sister Samantha. Samantha claims that she was returned around age 9 or 10 with no memory and that she eventually remembered her abduction due to regression hypnosis. She tells Mulder that the bounty hunter and the clones (her adoptive parents) are actually aliens, being executed because the aliens consider the clones a dilution of their race. She also tells him that the bounty hunter has the ability to change his appearance to that of anyone.

Scully heads to a hotel in order to hide from Agent Chapel. Returning to the lab, she finds four more clones, who claim to be the last ones left. She calls the authorities and transports them to a safe place, but the bounty hunter, who has been observing from a distance, enters and kills them all. At her hotel room, Scully finds Mulder at her door and lets him in, only to receive a phone call from Mulder soon after.^[1][2]

Production

Casting

As in all other episodes of The X-Files at that point, the casting process took eight days.^[3] Megan Leitch the woman who portrayed Samantha Mulder did according to Frank Spotnitz a "phenomenal job".^[3] Leitch would return to The X-Files over the years to portray Samantha or one of her many clones.^[3] She had a lot of lines which were "very hard" and "specific".^[3]

Brian Thompson auditioned for the role in a casting session, where he was competing with another actor.^[3] Frank Spotnitz and Carter hadn't much time to cast this character, but they knew this casting would be important since he intended to be a recurring character.^[3] Thompson was chosen according to Spotnitz because he had a very "distinctive look" about him, most notably his face and mouth.^[3] After casting him, they told Thompson's agent that Thompson needed a hair cut, because at the start the Alien Bounty Hunter was supposed to be a kind of military pilot who'd been shot down.^[3] But when the day came that Thompson came to Vancouver, Canada there had been some "misunderstanding" and he hadn't been told of the "crewcut", so the hairstyle seen in this episode was a "compromise" of sorts.^[3]

Reception

This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.3, with a 17 share and was viewed by 9.8 million households.^[4]

Footnotes

1. ^ Lowry,Brian (1995). The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X-Files. Harper Prism. pp. 199–200. 
2. ^ Lovece, Frank (1996). The x-Files Declassified. Citadel press. pp. 149–152. 
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Spotnitz, Frank (2005). Audio Commentary for "End Game" (DVD). FOX Home Entertainment. 
4. ^ Lowry,Brian (1995). The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X-Files. Harper Prism. p. 249. 

External links

• Colony article at The X-Files wiki.