01 x 08: Ice

So this episode is the second most expensive to date as far as we are concerned with Mulder and Scully’s expenses. Was this case worth the expense? Not really, especially when you consider their actions nearly led to a worldwide pandemic way worse than COVID.

The episode opens with a video clip from 11/05/1993 (a Friday) with two bloody men at the “Arctic Ice Core Project” in Icy Cape Alaska. For some reason these men have guns, which we’re never provided an explanation as to why firearms are even permitted on a science research facility such as this. It’s even explicitly shown to us that it’s -30F outside, so firearms wouldn’t be used for self defense against the wilderness like bears. I could reasonable believe one scientist might sneak one onto the base, but two? Come on! 

It’s clear that one chief concern leaders of the project was the emotional and psychological toll that isolation on the arctic base for an extended period of time in would have on people. So you wouldn’t reasonable allow the scientists involved in the project to carry guns. It would be like giving the Apollo astronauts firearms to take to the moon. 

Anyway they either shoot each other or themselves. A lot of the pre credit openings of X-files episodes are really just click bait.

Mulder and Scully are lounging in what looks like a computer lab, watching a video of the Ice Core Project. I love this because the video on screen gives us a date that these events take place. 11/5/1993. By the way, where exactly are Mulder and Scully supposed to be in this scene? It’s not their office… Mulder explains they were given the assignment to figure out what happened to the scientists on the base because they all died, all five of them.

Scully suggests the shooting was a result of extreme Cabin Fever but Mulder rules that theory out immediately. 

On 11/12/1993 (a Friday) Mulder and Scully fly to Nome Alaska, a 13h58m flight costs $796 per person. The only flight currently available that flies to Nome Alaska leaves out of BWI, Baltimore Airport. Keep in mind that this also means travel to BWI poses additional expenses. There are 3 probable methods of travel from DC to BWI for Mulder and Scully and I had to pick one for my calculation. They could either 

1. Drive separately from their apartments to BWI, pay for parking for their own cars, 
2. Go to the FBI, requisition a vehicle and drive that to BWI and again pay for parking or finally 
3. Take a Taxi and not be bothered with parking 

The most cost effective and efficient mode of transport I decided would be taxi running about $176.40 for the pair of them. This way they could also stay indefinitely in Alaska or fly back to a different airport if necessary and not worry about their vehicles at the airport.

After flying to Nome Alaska in the episode they go to another airport (Doolittle Airfield) that is non existent; so to their benefit I assumed they flew out of Nome again; which makes my life easier for my calculations.

At Nome Scully and Mulder meet up with their “team” to investigate what happened to the Ice Core Project people. Their new team is rather uninformed and paranoid as to the identities of who’s going to the Arctic base.

The team consists of Dr. Dasilva (a lady)  and Hodge, Dennis Murphy who is a professor of Geology, and Bear their pilot who’s also the lead singer of Aerosmith. While we’re on the topic of the team, I can’t fault Scully and Mulder for the deaths of their team members. It is worth mentioning that of the team; Dasilva and Teddy are married (they’re wearing rings), Bear . While it turns out to not be relevant information for my cost assessment in this case, it had been vital information in past cases (Ghost in the Machine). 

They then fly to Icy Cape Alaska. The stock footage shown shows a plane that appears to be a Cessna 185, which flies around 6 people and averages speeds of about 100mph. Icy cape is 413 miles from Nome Alaska. According to aircharter.com a piston flight on a plane like a Cessna 185 costs about $1200/hr making the flight to Icy Cape run about $4800 each way. 

Scully Mulder and team break into the base. Scully and Mulder each are carrying flashlights ($38.95 each as established previously based on standard issued FBI flashlights). Mulder also breaks into the base using a crowbar ($10.00). Considering Icy Cape is a place in Alaska that literally has ZERO population it begs the question why this research facility needs locks. 

The team investigates the scene before them find that the ice core samples taken by the previous team are in a freezer with the door left open. They discuss what to do with the cores to keep them safe (I dunno, throw them outside where it’s -30F?). Scully meanwhile has this gigantic camera and lens and is photographing the base for evidence ($9.98 for a roll of film).

She also takes notes with a pen ($1.99) and legal pad ($2.99).

While investigating a dog lunges at the team out of nowhere and attacks Mulder and Dasilva and also the pilot who is wounded and bleeding. 

The dog is subdued and the team discusses the possibility that the dog might have rabies but they decide it doesn’t. The dog has developed black nodules similar to those who are infected with bubonic plague. Shortly afterwards Bear develops black nodules under his arms.

Scully offscreen magically performs autopsies on the previous teams’ bodies and determines they killed each other. Quite the accusation for someone who just began performing autopsies. Bear asks if it was the dog’s illness , which made it attack him,  could be the same illness that caused the team to murder each other.

Then they discuss ammonia. It’s present in the dead peoples’ blood and the ice core. And Mulder realizes the ice cores had been taken in an area where there was a meteor crater… so aliens. While a boring piece of information, this episode marks perhaps the first mention of the black oil alien virus which… is kinda cool, but also what the eff. Suddenly aliens are making these people murderous?

Anyway Bear won’t stay on the base with the possibility of getting infected with a virus… even though he knows at this point he is infected. Scully decides no one can leave because she wants to prevent a COVID-like outbreak. 

Bear tries to escape, he attacks Mulder, Scully tackles Bear and they pull a worm out of bear and he dies. The moment they announce Bear is dead there’s a cool bell tone in the score of the episode which is fun.

The financial impact of Bear’s death is extremely important since he was the pilot. So now when the team does eventually fly back to  Nome, two pilots in one aircraft will need to fly out of Nome to Icy Cape. This additional capable pilot will then take the team back. For this I am charging Scully and Mulder $9600 or twice the cost of 1 piston flight to Icy Cape from Nome.

After Bear’s death, everyone’s on edge. That night everyone barricades themselves in their rooms. Mulder hears noises in the main area of the base and investigates. He finds Murphy’s dead and clearly murdered body in another broken refrigerator.  And just at that time the team finds Mulder and assumes he killed Murphy. So now it’s a murder mystery show. Someone on the team is infected and that person killed Murphy. But who is it?!

Mulder does nothing here to convince anyone that he didn’t kill Murphy. In fact he pulls out a gun and points it directly at Scully and tells her he’s not infected with the virus that makes people hostile and angry. Like Jesus Christ Mulder! Do I have to point out that if my co-worker ever pointed a gun at me at work I’d have issues working with them in the future? And then Mulder refuses to do a blood test to prove he’s not infected. What the eff. 

After this we get one of my favorite recurrent X-files things to happen that often gets overlooked on fan sites, and that is an SOS call over the radio. Seriously these things happen a lot on this show. And when they do they are sooooo cheesy; Scully makes an SOS call asking for help and like…  earlier she didn’t want help because she didn’t want to start the next COVID but I guess now she changed her mind. You have to watch for these SOS calls cuz they make them a lot; they’re even cheesier when Mulder makes the calls. It’s actually the second call made in this episode because I skipped the first. 

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The team decides Mulder and Scully shouldn’t have firearms on the base so Scully takes her weapon and ammunition and throws them outside. The standard issue gun for an FBI agent is a Sig Sauer P226 9mm pistol which costs about $1600 and a round of ammunition costs about $29.99.

So somehow the team decides the worms like to live solo, and if there’s a second worm in the same host then the two worms kill each other. And that is why the humans killed each other. As for the “we are not who we are?” quotes in the footage at the beginning of the episode… we’re to assume the change in behavior is what made the scientists say that but it’s a very dumb explanation.

To test the worms-kill-worms theory Scully performs the most idiotic procedure. She puts a second worm into the EAR of the already infected dog so the worm can get to the pituitary gland in the brain. After the worms kill each other, Scully says they will be passed in the stool. This is about as scientific as saying that a stick of bubblegum stays in your stomach for seven years after you swallow it.

She turns out to be right somehow. She then goes on to check Mulder to see if he’s developed black nodules. He hasn’t. Then she gives him this weird non platonic back massage. Awkward. 

The team locks the room they’re in and Scully grabs this giant drill bit behind her and starts banging the door with it to break out. It’s pretty awesome. So it turns out Dr. Dasilva was infected the whole time and not Mulder. Dasilva meanwhile goes bezerk just as Scully and Mulder escape their locked room. Thank God for Scully because she saves the day by sticking a worm into Dasilva’s ear. Now there’s no more infected people or animals and a pandemic has been avoided. Yay. The end.

Everyone flies back to Nome Alaska and the Ice Base is burnt to the ground by the CDC. 

Naturally Scully and Mulder need to fly back to BWI ($796 each) and then taxi back to DC ($176.40). In total Mulder and Scully spent around $24,470.63 in today’s money on this adventure to the arctic. Nearly all of the budget this week was spent on air travel 

It’s a good atmospheric episode to be fair but the plot elements are pretty dumb. 

I can’t wait for next week because they’re going to NASA in one of the worst episodes of all time.