1x07: Ice

[wendelah1]

Our mini-rewatch begins! So, "Ice" has it all: sex, violence, black humor, bad science, plenty of opportunities for scenery chewing, and some of the tensest scenes between Mulder and Scully of the entire series.

My favorite retro-nineties fashion moment from season one is Dana Scully standing there wearing her gigantic puffy coat. She looks all of thirteen in that scene.



Writers: Glen Morgan and James Wong
Director: David Nutter
Originally aired: November 5, 1993

Synopsis: Mulder and Scully are assigned to investigate the mass murder-suicides of a team of scientists at a remote research facility in Icy Cape, Alaska.

Most Memorable Quote:
MULDER: Scully! For God's sake, it's me!
SCULLY: Mulder...you may not be who you are.

Links:
transcript
Entertainment Weekly's X-Cyclopedia: The Ultimate Episode Guide, season one. That magazine's TV critic was so obsessed with this show. Not like us.
Sara Stegall's review
Autumn Tysko's review

Fanfiction:
Everywhere In The Dark by tree.
Summary: A missing scene from Ice. What happened between saying goodnight and Mulder finding Murphy? This is one possibility.

Strange Things Done by Dryad
Summary: The Arctic in eight moments.

Maybe it's time for a reread of Universal Invariants by syntax6.
Summary: This is an AU story in which I play fast and loose with the first season. While I'm just as glad that Ethan got eliminated from the actual show (I don't think he would have added much on the screen) I thought it would be fun to play out the relationship here as Scully gets dragged deeper and deeper into the X-Files.

If anyone wants to rec other post-ep fic for "Ice," leave it in a comment. Don't forget to track this post so you can read everyone's comments.

Comments

[ruuger]

I can't rewatch because I'm on the other side of the coutry from my DVDs but I want to say that this episode is significant to me in that I saw it a decade later than the rest of S1. I only started watching the show from "Eve" onwards and then I missed "Ice" during the reruns three years later (because of a family vacation - I can still vividly remember where I was when the episode aired) and didn't catch it until the 2005 rerun round.

[wendelah1]

You're still travelling? That's too bad. You can follow the comments at least.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

I can still remember exactly where I was when I saw this episode, too. It's like a time capsule for me.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

"Obviously, they think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment."


Scully's face looking at the map says it all: “I didn't sign up for this shit.”

Aww, that coat looks gigenormous on wee Scully.

There's no football on Wednesdays?

Hey, that's Nurse Jackie/Desperate Housewives' Felicity Huffman! Hi Lynette!

OY! TWO medical doctors, not one.

Bear: he looks like Aerosmith's Steven Tyler.

Mulder looks like he's eighteen.

If my dog had something that big crawling under its skin I would jump backwards with a girly scream. Not Dana Scully, Queen of Cool Cucumbers.

Scully in boots is so tiny next to tall Bean Mulder. This is one ep where the height difference is really noticeable. I guess that was before they used the famous apple box.

She didn't shoot him - this time. Brilliant scene.

That scene where they pull at each other's shirt to check their respective necks should be all about trust and serious business, but Damn, it still gives me goosebumps 20 years later. Hawt. IIRC that scene gave birth to a hefty number of smutfic.

The way the light catches on Mulder's lower lip in that scene. Guh.

Lovely little Scully smile of relief after checking Mulder's neck. Or maybe GA noticed something offscreen. I shall let your imagination run wild.

Mulder jumping on Da Silva like a flying Squirrel pretty much saved Scully life. That gun was aimed at her head.

Aw, check out how Scully strokes Mulder's hand while calming Da Silva down. I didn't notice those things back in my Noromo days.

[wendelah1]

There's no football on Wednesdays?

Not American Pro Football, no. The rules and traditions are complicated. But most games are played on Sundays. There's one game on Monday night, and some games are played on Thursdays.

Mulder jumping on Da Silva like a flying Squirrel pretty much saved Scully life. That gun was aimed at her head.

Payback for her tackling Bear after Bear cracks Mulder on the head with the collection jar.

Aw, check out how Scully strokes Mulder's hand while calming Da Silva down. I didn't notice those things back in my Noromo days.

I didn't notice that. I only saw her touching DaSilva... Ha ha.

I have watched The X-Files so much in French that it automatically plays French instead of English.

We are not who we are: Part 1

[wendelah1]

I think this is episode of television works brilliantly on the level of psychological horror, but as science-fiction? Not so much. I have to give the writers credit for being able to create so much tension with a premise that makes no sense whatsoever. The dialogue is great, the music is great, the direction is first-rate, the acting is...serviceable.

The teaser is perfect at setting the scene and getting the viewer hooked: the two guys covered with sweat and blood committing mutual suicide after conveniently recording a video for the outside world.

"It goes no further than this. It stops with here. Right now." These lines get paraphrased by Scully when they stick the worm in DaSilva at the end.

There are so many great throwaway lines in this episode.

MULDER: Obviously, they either think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment. OR BOTH, MULDER!

Morgan and Wong do a wonderful job of establishing character. I love the geologist from UC San Diego who only studies the ice around the keg and listens to his favorite football plays on cassette tapes. Another great scene that introduces characters well is the meeting at the beginning where they are all exchange credentials. Hodge and DeSilva are civilian counterparts to Mulder and Scully: smart, highly educated, as cynical as 5th season Mulder and just as paranoid. Much like Mulder and Scully will in later seasons, they bicker like an old married couple, although they aren't together. Hodge is much too casual about DeSilva being carted away in an isolation bag for that kind of intimate relationship.

HODGE: Well, now that we know who we are, anybody care to take a guess as to why we're going?

And DaSilva's line is even better.

DASILVA: Come on, you're F.B.I. You have to know more than we do.

HA HA. CLEARLY SHE'S NEVER SEEN THE SHOW.

The actor who played Bear is Jeff Kober. I remembered him from the series China Beach as Sgt. Evan 'Dodger' Winslow. His opening lines are great, too.

BEAR: Credentials. The only credentials that I have is that I'm the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don't like those credentials... walk.

Once they get to the site, the real horror show begins. The writers put a lot of "scientific" jargon in the dialogue, and keep the pace fast enough that no one much cares that it's all crazy nonsense.

SCULLY: Mulder, that pilot developed surface symptoms within a few minutes. Within a few hours, that parasite had total control. What would happen if this got into the population? A city the size of New York could be infected within a few days.

An ammonia-based space parasite that survives in ice for hundreds of thousands of years, starts out microscopic and gets big enough to be seen wriggling in the victim's neck, all within a few hours? How did it evolve to survive in oxygen-breathing mammals at all if it was stuck down there in the ice for eons?

It's best not to think about any of this too hard.

[tri-sbr.livejournal.com]

Hodge and DeSilva are civilian counterparts to Mulder and Scully

yes!

starts out microscopic and gets big enough to be seen wriggling in the victim's neck, all within a few hours?

those nodules showed up on Bear within minutes of the dog bite. talk about a speedy little worm.

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

Aren't Hodge and DaSilva employed by the government on this assignment? I'm not quite sure why they're so anti-the man since the man is paying them. They're also (or Hodge is) very dismissive of the CDC. Why were they contacted for this? Where are they from, I wonder? (Why was Hodge even there if Scully did the autopsies?)

We are not who we are: Part 2

[wendelah1]

I always find the Scully/DiSilva exam scene to be the erotic highlight, but I know I'm in the minority there.

SCULLY: Good night, Mulder.
MULDER: Good night, Scully.
SCULLY: At least everyone's okay.
MULDER: Don't forget, the spots on the dog went away.

The little series of bedtime scenes establish character, too. Murphy is in the lab, listening to his radio and eyeing the door. Scully studys the room she's staying in for clues about the former occupant, then bars the door and sits with her back against it. Dr. Hodge is staying up, making notes and trying to figure out the mode of transmission. Mulder is awake in his room, looking disturbed. And DaSilva is in bed, tossing and turning and looking very distraught (Why Look It's A Clue!)

Shirtless Mulder! I love how Duchovny gets to be the eye-candy in this series. He finds the dead man, knows he's innocent, gets accused on the basis of completely circumstantial evidence and gets locked up.

MULDER: Scully! For God sakes, it's me!
SCULLY: Mulder... you may not be who you are.

I love his line to Scully, and the way he glares at her, too.
MULDER: In here, I'll be safer than you.

Agent Scully wearing her scientist hat figures out that two worms in one host will kill each other, not that they have any real proof of that. It's a working hypothesis at best, but she decides it's Mulder's best shot at a cure. Funny, because she doesn't know for certain he's infected yet. Whatever.

The scene where they test her hypothesis on the poor dog is hysterical. They put it in the dog's ear canal, a few moments pass, and we get a miraculous cure. The doctor puts a stethoscope on the dog. Was there something wrong with its heart? And then the worms are passed in the dog's stool. How exactly do these dead worms get from the hypothalamus gland to the intestinal tract?

The scene where Scully goes in to Mulder to try to convince him to get dewormed (or wormed) is tense and well-acted. While I don't find it erotic in the least, it is edge of the seat scary stuff. She's very caring as she examines him but he just grabs her. If she hadn't conspired with the others to lock him up, maybe I'd see it differently. To me, Mulder just seems angry at her and determined to look at her back. Scully seems startled. DD and GA have palpable chemistry, though, so I have no trouble shipping them...

MULDER: It's still there, Scully. 200,000 years down in the ice.
SCULLY: Leave it there.
(She picks up her bag and starts off. Mulder looks into the distance. She looks back at him. He picks up his bag and they walk off.)

[THE END]

Does anyone else think that Mulder and Scully have switched roles a little bit in this episode. He's the one who's really interested in studying the organism. Her scientific curiosity is dormant, over-ridden by fear, perhaps.

OT: I wish I could figure out a way to turn on subject lines for this community.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

You nurses just kill the fun for us English majors. No, not really, because we think of science as an extremely malleable plot device. Accuracy? C'mon.

Right, F. Huffington. One of the joys of X-Files rewatches is noticing all the stars who began as the little people on Fox.

Duchovny once called "Ice" "our first rockin' episode." Whatever he meant, it grabbed attention and was acted without restraint. Lots of yelling. Kind of hormonal teenage science nerd in its demeanor. I loved it. Moments of goosebumps for Fish: the mutual neck exam, of course, and also the moment in which Scully pulls the ammo out of her guns and flings it into the storm. She is very forthright, for a tiny doctor.

This ep emphasizes that Mulder and Scully are not quite there in terms of total trust. Also that, although Scully is right in her caution, Mulder is of course right in his conviction.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I always find the Scully/DiSilva exam scene to be the erotic highlight, but I know I'm in the minority there.

I found it hot too. Just forgot to mention it. I have had a Scully in a tank top fetish since that picture:

Still, the erotic highlight is the neck stroking IMO.

Eye candy Mulder. I need to find a pic of shirtless IWTB Mulder for evidence that there has been some manscaping taking place. I remember him less hairy. Or maybe he was just less pale. His "my lame joke for my small penis" line doesn't really hold water after we all saw him in that Speedo.

[badforthefish.livejournal.com]

I found it weird that Scully - a scientist - would be all "leave it there". It feels out of character that she wouldn't want to study such an organism.

I guess the only explanation that makes sense is indeed that her curiosity was over-ridden by fear. Still, considering how she handled things like a boss in this ep, I'm not really buying Wuss!Scully

[infinitlight.livejournal.com]

One of my all-time favorite scenes in the show is when Scully looks at the photographs in the bedroom she's spending the night in. You can see her start to smile when she looks at the photo of the guy with his family, and then her expression changes as she remembers what's happened to him and where she is. Then she pushes all the photos on his desk over before pulling the desk in front of the door.

[melissaisdown.livejournal.com]

I just wanted to comment and say Ice is one of my favorite episodes. Season 1, in general, is the season I NEVER get tired of watching. The writing in Ice is very good and we get to see !scientist Scully and the whole plot once again tests the limits of their trust in each other. And, I think that the neck touching and the intensity of that scene marked the steep roller coaster climb up angst mountain, at least for me. Ice is classic.

[wendelah1]

Season One is my absolute favorite, too. "Ice" is very gripping and memorable.

[themooselet.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly! I like Season 1 and Ice is probably my favorite. Of course, I was always too engrossed in the Mulder/Scully interaction to notice all the plotholes, but man, that neck touching...

[tri-sbr.livejournal.com]

Oh man, they do look like kids! (cute kids.) I love this episode. I think it was one of the first few I saw, definitely the first one that was really memorable and that got me hooked.

The scene where Scully tackles Bear and she and Mulder pin him down while the others stand and watch cracked me up. Hodge kind of pats DaSilva's arm as they look on from afar. ha!

Also, is DaSilva the doctor or the toxicologist? No matter, she is more grossed out by the worm under Bear's neck than she should be. I mean she must have seen worse things right?

I like how Scully gets to make the leaps in logic - early on that the larvae in the ice core become the worms, and then later to go look at the microscope to see the two worms attacking each other. Yes, the whole thing doesn't make a lot of sense, but I still like that Scully gets to figure it out.

[wendelah1]

Oh man, they do look like kids! But, they were. Jesus, Gillian Anderson was younger in 1993 when she was shooting this series than my grown son is now.

Also, is DaSilva the doctor or the toxicologist? She's the toxicologist.

No matter, she is more grossed out by the worm under Bear's neck than she should be. I mean she must have seen worse things right?

Well, not swimming around in a guy's neck, no. That's pretty shocking under any circumstances. She probably had to dissect a dead cat at some point. Toxicology is a branch of biology, chemistry, and medicine concerned with the study of the adverse effects of chemicals on living organisms. If she was a parasitologist, yes, her reaction might have seemed out of character.

[discordantwords.livejournal.com]

Hodge and DaSilva were both pretty amusing in the physical confrontation scenes. Both the scene you mentioned, where Mulder and Scully jumped into ActionFBI! mode and tackled Bear while they sort of grabbed onto each other and looked worried, and then later when they have Mulder pinned and Hodge notices the worm in DaSilva's neck. He knocks her over and then leaps out of the way to cower against the boxes.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

Thanks for doing this!

Side note: I've been watching later eps, and wow, it's obvious how they lost interest and were just going through the motions.

In no particular order:

- Does anyone know where this was filmed? It really does look COLD!

- I fell in love with Xander Berkeley when he was on '24'. It wasn't until way later that I realized he was in this! (And probably a million other shows I've seen. Check out his Hulu series, 'The Booth On the End'.)

- When I first started watching this show, DD/Mulder's monotone and miles-long exposition annoyed me. But I got used to it and now I find it comforting.

- Tiny little Scully is the first one to tackle Bear after he knocks Mulder out with the jar, while the TWO OTHER MEN just stand there. Hahahaha!

- The overacting in the YELLING SCENES - ouch. Glad they got better!

- Hm, it didn't enter my mind until this viewing, but wasn't it a really bad idea to send a small group of people out to the dangerous middle of freaking nowhere, without any sort of backup/rescue plan in place in case something should, y'know, go wrong?

[wendelah1]

You're welcome.

Side note: I've been watching later eps, and wow, it's obvious how they lost interest and were just going through the motions.


Who, what, when?

Tiny little Scully is the first one to tackle Bear after he knocks Mulder out with the jar, while the TWO OTHER MEN just stand there. Hahahaha!

She is fierce!

The overacting in the YELLING SCENES - ouch. Glad they got better!

Truly.

Hm, it didn't enter my mind until this viewing, but wasn't it a really bad idea to send a small group of people out to the dangerous middle of freaking nowhere, without any sort of backup/rescue plan in place in case something should, y'know, go wrong?

A very bad (and not at all believable in real life) idea that got turned into great television anyway. The authorities apparently thought it was worth the risk. LOL.

[estella-c.livejournal.com]

There probably were later eps neither was interested in doing. But I remember a critic commenting on DD and GA's minimalist style of acting, which later became a trademark. (This fooled many non-watchers into thinking there was no comedy in the show.) There was nothing very subtle in "Ice," however.

[discordantwords.livejournal.com]

This is one of the absolute stand out episodes from the first season for me, and one of the earliest ones I remember seeing on the show's first run. Rewatching this was fun.

Considering this episode borrows so heavily from "The Thing," the opening scene, where the camera briefly follows the dog, has to be a homage to this scene (http://youtu.be/tW4dVh_hHik?t=1m30s). (Starts at 1:30 if the link does not take you directly to it)

"We leave for Nome today"
Yeah, thanks for the advance notice, Mulder. Scully does not look thrilled at all.

I like that we get to know just enough about Murphy's one loveable quirk that we're sad when he's the one killed.

The actor playing Hodge will always be George Mason from 24 to me. And John Connor's stepfather from Terminator 2!

Hodge is really rude through the whole episode. I know it's meant as a red herring, so the audience will think that he's the one infected, but come on. He must be an absolute joy to work with if he's like that all the time. I like that Scully doesn't back down from him, because it seems like he's used to walking all over DaSilva.

Scully is so nonchalant about dropping that worm into a jar full of ammonia.

The oversimplification of each drop of blood containing exactly one worm larva was pretty amusing.

And that neck checking scene. Hooo boy. Such a tense, emotionally charged scene. There's anger there, and fear, and that wonderful spark of something between our heroes. Mulder's "I don't trust them. I want to trust you." line sums up so much of their early partnership. He's the paranoid outlier with trust issues, yet almost from the beginning he does want to trust her, and does invite her into his confidence. And now here they are, having pulled guns on each other. Intense.

[mosinging1986.livejournal.com]

'The Thing' - Oh, wow! Thanks for that tidbit. I had no idea!



The actor playing Hodge will always be George Mason from 24 to me.

Yes!

[(Anonymous)]

So I'm reading the flight scenes in Universal Invariants, and remembered that in fanfiction Scully is often described as being afraid of flying/turbulence/landings. Is this just fanfic shorthand for "afraid to lose control" or was she really that way in the show?

[wendelah1]

Sorry. Your mod is absent-minded. Somehow I missed that your comment was screened. I thought I had made anon comments okay--I will go look at the settings again.

I think Scully is described as being afraid of flying because of the scene in the Pilot. It's fanon, in other words, with no basis for reality at all.

Is this just fanfic shorthand for "afraid to lose control" or was she really that way in the show?

I've never heard her described as easy going. But I wouldn't say that being afraid of flying is shorthand code for something else either. Good writers like Syntax6 reveal character through what their characters say and do and think, they don't have to resort to code--or fanon.

If you're not sure yet what Scully is like, watch more episodes!