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1x00 Pilot: This is the pilot show for the series. Other titles include The X Files and X Marks The Spot
1x01 Deep Throat: Code name of Mulder's informant
-- although the words "Deep Throat"
are never mentioned in this episode, the first
"Deep Throat" was the infamous Watergate
informant
1x02 Squeeze: Description of Tooms' special ability
1x03 Conduit A conduit is "a means of transmitting or distributing" -- the boy was a conduit through which aliens were attempting to communicate?
1x04 The Jersey Devil: The name is lifted from
the myth of the 'Jersey Devil' that has
haunted New Jersey for centuries
1x05 Shadows: The title is descriptive of the
ghost-like qualities of one of the main
characters - ghosts were once known in some parts
as Shadows
1x06 Ghost in the Machine: A phrase coined by Descartes as a way to explain consciousness. The ghost is our soul, the machine our bodies.
1x07 Ice: The worms came from down in the ice
1x08 Space: Where some of this episode took place
1x09 Fallen Angel: The title is the codename for a crashed UFO
1x10 Eve: Name of the female clones. The males were called Adam.
1x11 Fire: This ep was full of it
1x12 Beyond the Sea: Named for the song that played
during Scully's parents' wedding, and
the song that played at her father's funeral
1x13 Genderbender: Descriptive of what the monsters-of-the-week can do
1x14 Lazarus: Named for the biblical character
Lazarus, who was resurrected by Jesus
Christ (an act which was paralleled by the 'resurrection'
of Willis on the operating table)
1x15 Young at Heart: The title of a song -- having
to do with the newly youthful nature of the
Monster-of-the-Week in this episode
1x16 E.B.E.: acronym for "Extra-Terrestrial Biological Entity"
1x17 Miracle Man: Description of the main-guest character
1x18 Shapes: the people shape-shift into werewolves
1x19 Darkness Falls: The insects come out when Darkness Falls
1x20 Tooms: Eugene Tooms was the mutant in this ep
1x21 Born Again: Usually used to describe someone
who has found religion, this episode
title relates to the reincarnation of the main
guest-character
1x22 Roland: Named for the main guest-character
1x23 The Erlenmeyer Flask: A common laboratory
container -- in this episode Scully was
afraid it contained "monkey pee". Contrary to
popular belief, it's not the container with the alien foetus in.
2x01: Little Green Men Commonly used slang term for an alien from outer space
2x02 The Host: Fluky was looking for a host to help reproduce
2x03: There was lots of it, and the main character was afraid of it.
2x04 Sleepless: Descriptive of the main character
2x05 Duane Barry: The alien abductee
2x06 Ascension: Named for Scully's "Ascending to the Stars"
2x07 3: Named for the vampire characters, representing
the father, the son, and the holy
spirit. They needed 3 members to be strong
2x08 One Breath: Named for a phrase used when Scully's father is speaking to her. Scully is 'one breath' from death.
2x09 Firewalker: Named for the robot used to film inside the volcano
2x10 Red Museum: Name of the cult in this episode
2x11 Excelsius Dei: Spelled Excelsis Dei in the
episode -- Latin for "Glory of God", it is
also the name of the retirement home
2x12 Aubrey: Location where this episode took place
2x13 Irresistible: Pfreaky Pfaster found hair and fingernails irresistible.
2x14 Die Hand Die Verletzt: German for "The Hand
that Wounds" -- a phrase uttered
during the 'prayer' in the teaser
2x15 Fresh Bones: Chester was piad more if he could get fresh bones for the voodoo rituals
2x16 Colony: Descriptive of what the aliens are starting to form on this planet
2x17 End Game: Name of a chess move. Help..!
2x18 Fearful Symmetry: Named for a phrase from William Blake's poem "The Tyger"
2x19 Død Kälm: Norwegian-ized version of "Dead Calm" (not an exact translation)
2x20 Humbug :A humbug is a deception, a hoax, or one who attempts to trick or deceive
2x21 The Calusari: Named for the Romanian priests in this episode
2x22 F. Emasculata: Genus/Species name for the
bug that caused the problems in this
episode.
2x23 Soft Light: The type of light that Dr. Banton needed, so that he wouldn't cast a shadow
2x24 Our Town: Chaco describes the town as "our town".
2x25 Anasazi: Named for an Indian tribe that disappeared 'without a trace'. Another translation is "ancient aliens" - some of which were in the train car, or were they?
3x01: The Blessing Way Named for the Indian healing ritual performed on Agent Mulder
3x02 Paper Clip: As explained in the episode,
'Paper Clip' was the code name for the project
to bring Axis power scientists to America after
World War II
3x03 D.P.O.: Named for the antagonist, Darren
Peter Oswald, whose initials on the video
game led Mulder & Scully to him
3x04: Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose: No explanation necessary
3x05 The List: The main focus of this episode, the list of those who are to die
3x06 2Shy: Internet alias of the fat sucking guy.
3x07 The Walk: Named for one thing that the antagonist couldn't normally do
3x08 Oubliette: "medieval dungeon having a trap
door in the ceiling as its only means of
entry or exit." It is derived from the French
word 'oublier', to forget.
3x09 Nisei: 'Nisei' is the Japanese word for a
person born in America or Canada to
Japanese parents (who were born in Japan). Translated
literally, it means 'second
generation'.
3x10 731: Camp 731 was a germ warfare research
station in Manchuko (Japanese occupied
Manchuria) by General Shiro Ishii (the Japanese
Mengele). Hideous experiments were
performed there on P.O.W.'s, including Americans.
After the war, Ishii and his crew were
recruited into the American bio-war research
establishment.
3x11 Revelations: Book of the bible. It is possible that revelations are being made about the characters. It is thought that this was the planned name for one of the later conspiracy episodes.
3x12 War of the Coprophages: A play on the title
"War of the Worlds", it is literally "War
of the Dung Eaters".
3x13 Syzygy :As explained in the episode, a configuration of planets in a straight line
3x14 Grotesque: The title is pretty descriptive
of the actions taking place and of the
drawings in this episode -- also, gargoyles that
do not serve as drains are known as
'grotesques'.
3x15 Piper Maru: Named for the first and middle
names of Gillian Anderson's daughter,
Piper Maru. Her middle name, Maru, was particularly
fitting for this episode, since it means
'ship' in Japanese (and it means 'flower' in
Polynesian -- no, Gillian didn't name her
daughter after a boat).
3x16 Apocrypha: "Writings of dubious authenticity".
'Apocrypha' are also books of the bible
excluded from the Jewish and Protestant canons
of the Old Testament.
3x17 Pusher: The episode was named for the title
character, or more specifically, what the
title character preferred to be called
3x18 Teso Dos Bichos: "Teso" is Portuguese for
"burial ground". "Bichos" means "small
animals"
3x19 Hell Money: As described in the episode,
Hell money is used to pay off ghosts in the
Chinese Festival of the Hungary Ghosts
3x20 Jose Chung's "From Outer Space": This title
represents the book written by the
interviewer, Jose Chung, in this episode.
3x21 Avatar: An "avatar" is the human incarnation
of a deity. The word has also been
popularized more recently as a computer term
for a person's on-line graphical
representation (first used in Neal Stephenson's
book "Snow Crash").
3x22 Quagmire: A quagmire is land with a soft,
yielding surface, or a difficult or irksome
situation
3x23 Wetwired: It has been suggested that the
term "Wetwired" comes from the short story
"Johnny Mnemonic" by William Gibson (who has
written an X-Files episode named "Kill
Switch"). In the story, Johnny's brain is "wetwired"
to a computer hard drive. The term is
being popularized as referring to a brain consisting
of living and mechanical parts.
3x24 Talitha Cumi: Aramaic for "little girl arise".
The phrase is used in the Bible (Mark
5:41), spoken by Jesus when he raises the young
daughter of a Jewish leader from the
dead.
4x01 Herrenvolk: Nazi/German word for "master
race", which was Hitler's plan for creating
a race of perfect, blue-eyed blonde people
4x02 Unruhe: As explained in the episode, 'Unruhe' is German for unrest
4x03 Home: There could be multiple meanings for
this title. This is writing team Morgan &
Wong's first episode after returning to the show
(which would make it their "home-coming"
episode). Then again, maybe it is just a reference
to the home of the people at the center of
this story.
4x04 Teliko: "Teliko" were ghostly spirits in Africa.
4x05 The Field Where I Died: From Mulder's point of view. He believes he has had a past life.
4x06 Sanguinarium: "Sanguinary" means carnage,
bloodthirsty, consisting of blood.
"Sanguinaria" means bloodroot. Sanguinarium is
Latin for 'place of blood'.
4x07 Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man: The title
is a straightforward analysis of what
happens in this episode. But were they real,
or just musings?
4x08 Paper Hearts :What the killer kept (although
his hearts weren't paper). Perhaps this
title also refers to the figurative frailty of
the human heart.
4x09 Tunguska: Tunguska is the location in Siberia
where an object (asteroid? UFO?) struck
the earth in 1908. The blast leveled over a half
million acres and was hundreds of times
stronger than the blast of an atomic bomb. In
this show it is a prison camp were experiments of the black oil are carried
out.
4x10 Terma: "Tyurma" (pronounced Terma) is Russian
for prison or jail, also a Latin
conjunction of 'death'. It has also been suggested
that the title refers to the Tibetan
Buddhist term "Terma", meaning hidden or buried
truth. Of course, in the episode, it was
the name of a location in North Dakota.
4x11 El Mundo Gira: "The World Rotates" in Spanish
-- possibly a play on the soap opera
title "As the World Turns", since Scully described
this episode as a "Mexican soap opera"
4x12 Kaddish: A Kaddish is a prayer recited by mourners after the death of a close relative
4x13 Never Again: Rumored to be titled for the
likelihood that the writing team of Glen
Morgan and James Wong will ever come back to
the X-Files again (this was their final
episode as they were leaving to create a new
show titled "The Notorious"), the phrase was
also uttered by 'Betty' the tattoo.
4x14 Leonard Betts: Name of this episode's guy who loses his head. Tee hee.
4x15 Memento Mori: Latin for "The dead are no longer lonely." Sniff.
4x16 Unrequited: Means "not avenged"
4x17 Tempus Fugit: 'Time flies' in Latin -- probably
refers to the 9 minutes that keep getting
lost in various ways on this show, as well as
the airplane connection.
4x18 Max: Max Fenig, who first appeared in season one's 'Fallen Angel' gets an episode named after him
4x19 Synchrony: A synchronous occurrence -- probably
refers to the elder and younger
Jason running into each other a few times
4x20 Small Potatoes: A phrase meaning 'not a big
deal, not overly important' -- it is how
Eddie thought of himself (and possibly how his
father described him)
4x21 Zero Sum: "Zero Sum" describes a game where someone wins by someone else's loss.
4x22 Elegy: (formerly Tulpa, then Revenant) "Tulpa"
-- in Tibetan mystic practice, a
ghostly manifestation of a "thought-form" produced
by the mind. "Revenant" is one that
comes back following an absence or one who returns
after death. An elegy is a poem
expressing grief for someone who is dead.
4x23 Demons: A secondary definition for 'Demon'
is "a persistently tormenting passion" --
Mulder said that he wanted to exorcise his demons
4x24 Gethsemane: "Gethsemane" is the place where
Jesus was betrayed by Judas --
probably a reference to Scully's (apparent) betrayal
of Mulder, or the FBI's betrayal of M&S over the last 4 years.
First few episodes have various running orders around the world.
5x01 Unusual Suspects: A play on the phrase 'Usual
Suspects', which is also the title of a
movie containing unreliable narratives
5x02 Redux: "Redux" means brought back, as following
retirement, illness, or long
inactivity; resurgent. Fitting for a 'Mulder
back from the dead' episode, don't you think? (of
course) -- although in this case the "back from
the dead" part references Scully rather than
Mulder.
5x03 Redux II: Someone in the episode names department ran out of ideas.
5x04 Detour: A detour is a road used temporarily
instead of the main route, or a deviation
from the direct course of action - the agents
unscheduled stop.
5x06 Post-Modern Prometheus: The title is a homage
to Mary Shelley's famous book
'Frankenstein' -- which is actually titled 'Frankenstein:
Or the Modern Prometheus'.
Prometheus was a demi-god who made men out of
clay, and is probably best remembered as
being the one who stole fire from Olympus and
taught men how to use it -- an act that got
him punished by Zeus. His punishment was to be
chained to a rock and to have an eagle eat
his liver every day.
5x05 Christmas Carol: Named for the popular Dickens classic "A Christmas Carol"
5x07 Emily: Emily is the name of Scully's daughter
5x08 Kitsunegari: "Kitsune-gari" is Japanese for
"Fox hunt" (with "Kitsune" meaning
"fox", and "Gari" meaning "hunting").
5x09 Schizogeny: "Schizogony" (spelled slightly
differently than the title) means
reproduction by multiple asexual fission
5x10 Chinga/Bunghoney (non US): "Chinga"
is reportedly equivalent to "the f-word" in Mexico
(apparently it means different things or nothing
depending upon which type of Spanish you
speak). "Chinga" is also the name of a meteorite
found in Siberia in 1913. Reportedly
(although it was never mentioned in the episode)
'Chinga' was the name of the little girl's
doll. Reportedly, Fox made Chris Carter change
the name of this episode after they
discovered the "bad" nature of the word. Too
late to change it as it aired in USA and
Canada, overseas the name was changed to "Bunghoney".
Supposedly Carter did not want
to change the name, so he changed it to this
perhaps-equally distasteful but non-sensical
word.
5x11 Kill Switch: a 'kill switch' is usually a
button or switch that shuts something down
completely, and may or may not be the normal
method of turning something off (it is
sometimes meant to be used only in emergency
situations)
5x12 Bad Blood: Dealing with vampires, the title
"Bad Blood" might be a clever reference
to the animosity between Mulder & Scully,
or between Ronnie and the other, new style of
vampire (the good neighbor, tax-paying kind)
5x13 Patient X: (formerly Bloodlines) "Patient
X" is a term used to describe a patient who
will remain anonymous (in this case, that patient
was Cassandra Spender). In the next season she is referred to as Patient
Zero. Make of that what you will :-)
5x14 The Red and the Black: There has been a huge
amount of speculation over this title.
Suggestions on what "Red & Black" could refer
to include things such as a checker board,
a roulette wheel, Russians & Oiliens, red
dwarfs & black holes, red blood vs. oilen blood,
and perhaps a reference to the American Civil
War's "the Blue & the Grey".
5x15 Travelers: "Fellow Travelers" were Americans
who were sympathetic to the
Communist cause during the McCarthy era
5x16 Mind's Eye: This title refers to how the blind girl (Marty) was able to see
5x17 All Souls: "All Souls Day" is a holiday with
its roots in the ancient "Pagan Festival of
the Dead", which celebrated the Pagan belief
that the souls of the dead would return for a
meal with the family. Candles would be placed
in the windows to help the dead find their way
home, and an extra place would be set at the
table for them. The act of "Trick or Treat"ing
on Halloween can be traced back to the early
celebration of "All Souls Day" in Britian. On
this day, the poor would go begging and the housewives
would give them special treats,
called "soulcakes" in exchange for a promise
to say a prayer for the dead. In the episode,
father Gregory described "good" as losing the
struggle for "all souls".
5x18 The Pine Bluff Variant: Title - Pine Bluff
is a city in Arkansas. Perhaps the "variant"
part of the title refers to a disease or viral
strain -- much like Ebola Reston is a variant of
the Ebola virus named for the place it was discovered,
Reston, Virginia.
5x19 Folie A Deux: French for "madness shared by two"
5x20 The End: There have been many rumors concerning
exactly what this episode will be
"the end" of (including the end of the X-Files
and the end of the Mulder/Scully partnership),
but one real "end" is the fact that this episode
is the last episode of the X-Files to be filmed
in Vancouver, British Columbia, thus bringing
an end to the 5 year relationship with the
excellent Vancouver crew.
6x01 The Beginning: A fitting follow-up to the
previous episode (titled "The End"), this
episode brought many new beginnings to the X-Files
show we know and love.
6x02 Drive: Mulder had to keep driving to keep the guy alive.
6x03 Triangle: (formerly Ghost Ship, Love Boat and various others) The ship is stuck in the Bermuda Triangle
6x04 Dreamland: Title - the name "Dreamland" is
a nickname for the infamous Area 51 in
Nevada. "Dreamland" actually stands for "Data
Repository Establishment and
Management Land".
6x05 Dreamland II: Um, duh.
6x06 Terms of Endearment: Endearment means 'love'.
6x07 Rain King: The Rain King can supposedly control the weather. In fact, it is not him doing the controlling - he is not the real rain king.
6x08 How the Ghosts Stole Christmas: A play on
the popular Christmas tale "How the
Grinch Stole Christmas"
6x09 Tithonus: Tithonus is a character from Greek
mythology. A mortal man, Tithonus fell
in love with the goddess of Dawn, Eos, who begged
Zeus to grant Tithonus immortality.
Zeus consented, but neglected to give him eternal
youth. Tithonus continued to shrivel and
grow feeble as he aged. Eventually Eos turned
him into a grasshopper. Scully looks away from death - so is she immortal?
6x10 SR 819: The name of the toxin in Skinner's blood that could be switched back on at any time...
6x11 Two Fathers: IMHO, this refers to the two fathers in the ep - Spender's (CSM) and Mulder's.
6x12 One Son: By the end of the ep, only one of the two sons is left alive.
6x13 Arcadia: "Arcadia" is "A region in ancient Greece held to be an ideal of rural simplicity and peacefulness". The name of the 'perfect' town in the episode is The Falls at Arcadia
6x14 Monday: (formerly Mobius) A mobius is a thing that never ends. The 'bad day of all bad days' was Monday.
6x15 Agua Mala: Title - Spanish for "Bad Water".
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