So, this is where it all started. Like a lot of these reviews, I'm writing this in retrospect, but for some reason it seems a lot harder to do that with the pilot episode. Here goes anyway.

As pilot episodes go, this one was fantastic. It established the main themes of the series while still providing an engaging plot and, although it has been surpassed by other episodes, deserves classic status simply for being the very first episode of the phenomenon that is The X Files.

Scully's interview with Section Chief Blevins was a nice way to give us a concise history of Scully's career and some details about Mulder as well. I preferred the shots of Mulder's office as a way of introducing him though, as the camera panned over the now famous I Want To Believe poster and various photos of UFOs. His first line, "Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted," effectively conveyed his "me against the world" attitude. When Mulder and Scully met, she was immediately friendly and cordial, while he was hostile and spoke to her sarcastically. Admittedly he was entitled to doubt her motives and objectivity, but I still think Scully came across as more likeable because she remained courteous and kept smiling at the end of their first meeting and other occasions when he made sarcastic or derogatory remarks to her. This was despite the fact that she was the sceptic and therefore the one the viewers knew had to be wrong most of the time. Also, Mulder seemed less endearing because of the way he was constantly testing Scully to see if she was genuinely a good agent, for example in this exchange, after which Scully was still smiling:

Mulder: That's pretty good Scully.

Scully: Better than you expected or better than you hoped?

Mulder: I'll let you know when we get past the easy part.

Mulder was also patronising, telling Scully "I don't think you're ready for what I think" and although his attitude was easy to understand, it made him instantly dislikable. I really liked Scully's statement of independence ("I'm not a part of any agenda"), telling Mulder that she was her own person and not controlled by the people who gave her the assignment.

Just a small thing I noticed: it was Mulder who began the trend of calling each other by their surnames. Maybe because he thinks if he uses other people's last names, they'll use his and he won't have to be called Fox?

Something that annoyed me about Scully though: I thought she missed the point of Mulder's question "Do you believe in the existence of extra-terrestrials?" and answered instead the question "Do you believe that extra-terrestrials have visited earth?" It's perfectly possible to answer yes to the first and no to the second, but her rationalisation applied only to the latter. It annoys me when people get the two confused because then they think that anyone who thinks it's likely that there is life elsewhere in this vast universe we inhabit also believes in little green men whizzing around in flying saucers and abducting earthlings.

I hate to say it, but Mulder really did come across as something of a lunatic during much of this episode. His barely contained joy at losing time made him look like a crackpot, and his account of his sister's abduction, while tragic, also made him sound obsessed in the way he told it. And as for that little speech at the side of the grave, well, if we weren't supposed to think he was bordering on crazy, they would have left it out:

"That's the reason the kids come to the forest, because the forest controls them and summons them there and, and…and the marks are from, from some kind of test that's being done on them and, and that maybe causes some kind of genetic mutation which would explain the body that we dug up…It was Billy Miles who took her there, summoned by some alien impulse. That's it!"

Mr. Alright In The Head? I think not. I really couldn't blame Scully for laughing, it must have seemed so surreal to her - there she was, standing in a cemetery in the pouring rain, listening to the obsessed ranting of a madman. She must have believed herself to have cracked up too!

I liked the first sign of doubt in Scully, the way she panicked over the mosquito bites. It would have been nice of Mulder not to laugh, but I guess he was quite enjoying the fact that she was less sure of her science and anyway, he did ask if she was alright. It wouldn't look good though, a female agent in her dressing gown going into her male partner's room J . It did strike me that Scully was a dedicated investigator, typing up her report before taking a shower despite being soaked through.

I liked the lights and silhouette in the forest during Scully and Mulder's first trip there, they made a good red herring UFO and alien. I wasn't sure about the lost time shots though, but they had to do something and I can't think what else they could have done to show time disappearing.

I really liked Scully's report to Blevins at the end, the way she stood by her own beliefs but didn't simply discredit Mulder, making it clear that she was not going to be their puppet in their attempt to bring him down. This proved she was sincere in what she had said to Mulder and really meant it when she told him "You've got to trust me," and although she seemed to win his trust a little too quickly, you have to make some concessions for the fact that it's just a TV show. By the end of the episode, the beginnings of their alliance had been established.

Not surprisingly since this was the pilot episode, we got some nice firsts: the first instance of an event happening at 11:21, in this case Mulder phoning Scully. And of course, there was the first hint of the conspiracy as the Cigarette Smoking Man filed away the nasal implant.

As I said, the pilot was hard to review in retrospect, knowing as I do how the show and its characters developed in the following years, but I think it did a good job of establishing what The X Files was all about and how it wanted to tell its stories.

Scully: I'm Dana Scully, I've been assigned to work with you.

Mulder: Oh isn't it nice to be suddenly so highly regarded? So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?

Scully: Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you.

Mulder: Really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me.

Scully: Do you have a theory?

Mulder: I have plenty of theories. Maybe what you can explain to me is why it's Bureau policy to label these cases as unexplained phenomena and ignore them.

Scully: What I find fantastic is any notion that there are answers beyond the realm of science. The answers are there. You just have to know where to look.

Mulder: We lost nine minutes!

Scully: We lost what?!

Scully: Time can't just disappear, it's a universal invariant!

Mulder: Not in this zip code.

Mulder: You gotta love this place. Every day's like Hallowe'en.

Mulder: It all fits the profile of alien abduction.

Scully: This fits a profile?!

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