The cast of characters sacrificed to The X-Files' mythology arc speak from beyond the grave
War is hell. No question about it. Particularly when the conflict in question involves two feuding alien races whose battleground is about to become Earth and a conspiracy to conceal the truth about the future from the inhabitants of the planet. Logically, events of such magnitude are bound to cast innocent (and not so innocent) bystanders in the crossfire. While The X-Files' roster of characters lost in action is substantial when compared to other series, in Chris Carter's dark world of espionage and deceit, it's par for the course. Here's a recap of some of the key figures who have given their lives for the cause.
SUBJECT: AGENT PENDRELL [A.K.A. BRENDAN BEISER]
ULTIMATE DEMISE:
The lovelorn lab tech jumped in front of a bullet meant for Scully in Season Four's "Tempus Fugit"/"Max" two-parter.
CORONER'S REPORT:
Until the past two somewhat �shipper-friendly seasons, proponents of a more-than-platonic relationship between Mulder and Scully counted on Agent Pendrell to prove romance could blossom at the FBI. So when the forensic expert, who backed up Scully's scientific analyses while secretly pining for her, sacrificied himself for his lady love, he could have easily won a nomination for sainthood. But Brendan Beiser, the actor behind the fan-dubbed "Lab boy," wasn't impressed by being shot in the heart in the local watering hole.
"I thought, �What a jerk. What's he doing drinking anyway at four in the afternoon?' That's usually what Mulder does, not me," insists Beiser, a consummate jokester. But he reluctantly concedes, "I suppose it was somewhat heroic. He took a bullet for Scully, that was nice. But she could have leaned over and kissed him at the very least."
While the actor's heartstrings were being tugged on-screen, his future on The X-Files dangled just as torturously off-screen. Rumours about his end ran rampant in the weeks leading up to the filming of what became his final episode.
"It went something like this, if I recall: He wasn't going to be [killed] and then he was going to be and the he wasn't going to be, and it was like a tennis match basically," Beiser explains. "They weren't sure. So one day I finally just got the script. I had heard all sorts of rumours, but then the script was just given to me and there it was."
Not surprisingly, Beiser didn't take the news well. "That's when the drug abuse started, I suppose," he jokes.
In a rare serious moment, the Vancouver resident admits that he does miss his character. He's kept busy with stints in independent films and Canadian television roles, not to mention gardening and visits from his mum. But the actor still dreams of the day when Pendrell will return "with a flowing red cape and a blue shirt with red underwear pulled over his pants and a large �P' on his chest," he enthuses. He even has his own idea for the name of the episode marking the character's resurrection: "The P-Files."
Copyright 1999 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and MVP Media Group
�Aardvark! made its US premiere on March 19, 1998 at the New York Underground Film Festival. Its next stop was the Chicago Underground Film Festival on August 12, 1998. On October 12, 1998, it appeared at the Atlanta IMAGE Film and Video Center, and then the Oshawa/Durham Film Festival from October 19-24.
�Aardvark! actually began as a play. The play was written and directed by Brendan Beiser and Trevor White, two best friends who also happen to be starving actors and amateur playwrights. This was their first attempt at writing. (Go Brendan and Trevor!) The play had a nine night run at the Looking Glass Theatre in Vancouver.
�Aardvark! is about a born-again Christian (Trevor White) and his fall into the underworld of the entertainment industry. It is supposedly very surreal.
�Aardvark! the film also starred Dean Haglund, of Lone Gunman fame.
For more information, see the article below.
Another listing of this movie described it as "an offbeat comedy about a freelance embalmer racing to save his city," under the Feature/Drama cateogory.
It will be Ken Hegan's (from �Aardvark!) first feature film, and should have started filming in early 1998. As well, it will star Trevor White, also of �Aardvark! fame.
Alumni from �Aardvark! also helping to create this film are Trevor White, Brendan's acting buddy, and Ken Hegan, the director of �Aardvark!. Trevor will play "a blue-haired misanthrope" in this movie.
The Vigil will probably start shooting in the spring and be released in about a year.
See this page for more information about Pendrell in the new X-Files game.
Frank Spotnitz - Ohhh... I know. [crowd continues to react]
John Shiban - I didn't do it!
Spotnitz - I felt really bad about that. Actually, that was a tough call. There were drafts of that script where he lived. Um...and I don't know what to say except that the story would work better if he died. That's the other thing about doing a show like this: Chris started establishing it at the beginning by killing Deep Throat at the beginning of season one, is that no one is safe. I think it just creates a level of anxiety for the audience that you can't count on - except for Mulder and Scully, who obviously have to live for the show to continue - you can't count on anybody surviving and I felt bad too.
See also the review of �Aardvark! by the Vancouver Sun.
The assignment sounded simple enough.
Track down Agent Pendrell of The X-Files and find out if he's really dead.
But I didn't reckon on the aardvark. There I was, in a messy upstairs room of what once housed a recovery centre for alcoholics. In front of me sat a young man in a baseball hat.
He'd preface his sentences with the phrase, "To tell you the truth." I knew the truth might be out there, but this man was clearly economical with it.
His name?
Brendan Beiser, 27. Occupation, actor. Originally from Boston. Grew up in Vancouver.Writing partner to Trevor White.
The question was, would he talk?
To tell the truth, once Beiser started, he wouldn't shut up.
Seems he'd co-written and is co-directing a show called aardvark!
He's even starring in it.
What is aardvark!?
"We were initially going to do it in the Fringe and we figured the double 'a' would ensure we would be first on the list," he says. "Since then, we've decided to do it here and keep the name but add an inverted exclamation point to appeal to all the Spaniards out there."
Press releases describe the show as a "black dramedy" in which "a young man gains his independence at the price of his innocence."
Characters are Christian Boy, played by White, and a boxer named Floyd (The Drop) Lincoln, played by Donny Lucas.
Then there's Haley Savage a "vampy ex-ring girl," played by Shelley MacDonald, and The Father, played by John Taylor.
Rounding out the cast are The Protester, played by Lee Jay Bamberry, and Beiser himself, playing the slippery, scheming Mr. Entertainment. Maybe that was a clue.
After all, Beiser had managed to round up a crew of actors, many of whom had won or been nominated for Jessie awards.
"We knew that where the writing sucks, they could make it better -- not that the writing sucks, mind you, but they are all exceptional talents and I have to say that because we're not paying any of them so we have to do something for their careers," said Beiser, disarmingly.
One thing that appears to be factual is that aardvark! opens at the Looking Glass Theatre at 722 Richards St. today at 8 p.m.
And a "mockumentary" film by Ken Hegan on the making of the play airs at 8 p.m. on VTV next Thursday.
The hour-long film also guest-stars people such as Jim Byrnes, Vicki Gabereau, Bernie Coulson and Dean Haglund.
Haglund, you may recall, plays the geeky computer hacker Langley on The X-Files.
And Agent Pendrell?
You'll find him on several weeniebopper web sites on the Net under Shrine of Agent Pendrell.
Note from webmistress: Am I now considered a weeniebopper?
Copyright Vancouver Province 1997
Poor Agent Pendrell. Known to X-Philes as the lab technician with a crush on Agent Scully, Pendrell expired during the course of the "Tempus Fugit"/"Max" two-parter. It's just so sad that the lovable techie, dubbed Lab Boy by Internet admirers, never got to declare his feelings to the object of his adoration.
"He wanted nothing more than to go out with her, to be given the opportunity to see her outside the lab," says Brendan Beiser, the 27-year-old actor who played Pendrell. "He looked forward to her visits. It wasn't bad when Mulder dropped by, but it was always better when Scully did."
So what were Pendrell's secrets? "He had a tremendous frame, he worked out at the gym constantly," Beiser jokes. "You wouldn't believe that torso. It was a really subtle [acting] choice." Come on, wasn't there more to Pendrell than his devotion to science and his passion for a certain red-haired FBI agent? Well, not really - Beiser hypothesizes that Pendrell would just sit around the lab and wait for Scully to come by: "He had a wet bar underneath his microscopes, so he really had no need to go home."
In a rare serious moment, Beiser, a Boston native who moved to Vancouver at age 7, says that the secret of the lab tech's appeal was his readily identifiable plight: "You see someone you like and you want to impress them but you don't want to make a fool of yourself. You can't find anything to say so you just say nothing. That's how I think he always felt. But there's more to him than that."
Such as? Well, Pendrell sure knew a lot of five-dollar words. "Like microlithography?" the actor sighs. "There was a lot of that kind of dialogue - it referred to stuff I've never heard of before in my life and probably never will again."
But now that his character has gone to that big lab in the sky, Beiser sounds like he'll miss his trips to the X-Files set. "I'll miss going back there and seeing those people who I don't see in everyday life," says the actor, whose most recent projects include the Alicia Silverstone comedy Excess Baggage and a Canadian indie film called The Vigil.
Truth be told, however, the powers that be felt some ambivalence about killing off Lab Boy. "We were really unsure of Pendrell's fate there," admits Frank Spotnitz, who co-wrote the two-parter with Chris Carter. "We had drafts where he did get killed, drafts where he didn't get killed. It just felt like it had more weight and was less convenient if he did die and it gave Scully a deeper stake in the story." Adds executive producer Howard Gordon, "It wasn't because it was his time to die, it was that in the context of the story, he was a very important person to sacrifice, ultimately, to the cause."
Copyright 1997 Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation and MVP Media Group
Answer: Not much beyond the fact that he is a native of Boston, made a guest appearance in an episode of "The Sentinel" and has a role in the upcoming film "Excess Baggage," which has its U.S. release in August.