it’s all about the random touch

I’ve been doing a complete rewatch of The X-Files, using a spreadsheet to track how often 57 specific details appear in each episode. I wrote about how and why I started the project here: myxfilesobsession.home.blog/2019/12/05/the-spreadsheet/ I’ve finished the first three seasons, and I thought it was a good time to look at the data I’ve gathered and make some observations.

episode scores

I assign a score to every episode by counting one point for each of the details I find. I don’t track when a detail occurs more than once, because that just gets too difficult. The highest score in Season 1 is the Pilot, with 23 points. In fact, that remains the highest scoring episode in the first three seasons. I’m currently in the middle of Season 4 and I haven’t found an episode that scores higher. I’m still blown away by this fact: so many of the details we find iconic were present in the very first episode! Space and Roland both scored 3 points, the lowest for the season. The remaining episodes averaged about 10 points.

In Season 2 End Game, the first episode penned by Frank Spotnitz, takes the high score at 22 points. The lowest score is F. Emasculata, with 3 points. In between there’s a greater range of scores than in Season 1, from 4 to 17 points, but again the average score is 10 points.

Apocrypha scores the highest in Season 3, with 17 points. Three episodes come in a close second with 15 points each: Nisei, War of the Coprophages, and Grotesque. Hell Money scores the lowest, with 5 points. The average score of the remaining episodes is 8.5 points.

Okay, I’m boring myself with these numbers, so let’s talk about the good stuff.

iconic phrases

Scully doesn’t say “Mulder it’s me” even once in the first season, and Mulder says “Scully it’s me” only twice. This trope starts to take off in season 2, though, and we see Scully using it more often than Mulder. Mulder tends to start talking as soon as Scully answers the phone, whereas Scully will occasionally even say “Mulder it’s me” in person. If you throw in the number of times Mulder calls “Scullaayyy!” they’re about even.

agents in peril

I think the show often gets knocked for over-using the “Scully in peril” scenario, so I found the numbers very interesting. In Season 1 Mulder and Scully are each attacked 8 times, Scully saves Mulder 3 times, and Mulder saves Scully 3 times. Mulder is attacked more often than Scully in Season 2, 12 times to her 10, although her abduction is more significant than anything that happens to him in the season. Scully rescues Mulder twice, and he rescues her 4 times. And then in Season 3, Mulder is attacked 9 times and Scully only 3, and they save each other 1 time a piece. I’m just not seeing a trend that places one agent in danger over the other, although that could change moving forward.

clothing, places, and things

Mulder rolls up his sleeves so often that I get distressed in episodes where he wears a jacket or overcoat the whole time. I know he’s got to be uncomfortable! For Scully, there are quite a few episodes in Season 1 that show her in casual wear (10), usually while she’s writing reports in her apartment. As the show moves away from Scully voiceovers, though, we see less of Scully away from the office and therefore less of casual!Scully (5 times each in Seasons 2 and 3).

Aside from the basement office, we see Mulder and Scully most often in rental cars. I had to make a call in tracking this detail. In many episodes you can see the “Lariat” sticker on the car, and so that clearly counts. (Yes, I have been known to freeze the episode, take a screen cap, and enlarge, just to check for that “Lariat” sticker!) In other episodes we see them driving, but there’s no clear indication that the car is a rental. I count that detail if the case is far enough away from Washington D.C. that they wouldn’t have driven but not if they’re within driving distance of their office.

Flashlights appear too often to be interesting, and I’m almost sorry I included that detail in the spreadsheet. Although the count just solidifies why the flashlights make such an iconic image.

last, but not least, the touches

This category held some surprises for me as well. When I think of Mulder and Scully, I think of him placing his hand on her lower back as they walk out of a room or down a hall. I expect to see that in every scene, or at least every episode. So I was really kind of surprised how seldom that actually happens. It’s fairly common in Season 1, occurring in 13 episodes. But it happens only 6 times in Season 2 and only twice in Season 3!

But that’s okay, because we’ve got the random touch. This is by far my favorite detail to track because there are so many variations on this theme, from a shoulder grab, to an arm squeeze, to a cheek tap, and more. Mulder touches Scully, Scully touches Mulder, in almost every episode. These two are just really touchy, and I’m here for it. Moving into Season 4 and beyond, as their relationship grows, we’ll start to see some of the more personal touches, and those are wonderful too. But these little random touches, which often serve no purpose other than a quick connection, are really the heart of the show for me.

Here’s a link to my spreadsheet if you want to follow along:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1e7CncmlTvT-wUPd8y8Lt3svnJTthhEd83gl-QKKSCZs/edit?usp=sharing

And I tweet #randomtouch pictures almost daily, so check them out. On Twitter I’m CathyG@CatherineGlins2