Jump the Shark (The X-Files)
"Jump the Shark" is the fifteenth episode of the ninth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files.
The show centers on FBI special agents who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files; this season focuses on the investigations of John Doggett (Robert Patrick), Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson).
In this episode, Doggett and Reyes attempt to locate a female friend of The Lone Gunmen after former Area 51 Man-in-Black Morris Fletcher appears and claims that she is actually a super-soldier.
The episode proved difficult to make because, after the cancellation of The Lone Gunmen television series, Fox was adamant that the characters not have a featured role back on The X-Files.
The episode begins with Morris Fletcher (Michael McKean) on a boat in the Bahamas, where he is accosted by armed men and his vessel is blown up.
When he is rescued and detained, he approaches FBI agents Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) and John Doggett (Robert Patrick) with information related to the Super Soldiers in exchange for his release.
His research had been funded by Harlow's arms dealing father, who had commissioned Fletcher to find her and prevent her from stopping his biological terrorism plot.
They realize that they lack the time to destroy his virus-filled organ and therefore pull a fire alarm, causing large emergency doors to seal shut, simultaneously containing the virus and entrapping them with it.
Their sacrifice earns them a final resting place in Arlington National Cemetery, where Fletcher, Doggett, Reyes, Harlow, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), and Jimmy Bond (Stephen Snedden) pay their respects to them.
[5] Executive producer and co-writer Frank Spotnitz had to fight to get the episode made, as the studio was not interested in bringing the characters back for the ninth season.
"[6] Spotnitz later said, "I can't say I regret killing them off, as you know, no one really dies in The X-Files [...] But I do feel tonally it was a mistake to end the episode on such a somber note.
[13] Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five, and noted that "there's nothing celebratory" about the entry.
Crang, in his book Denying the Truth: Revisiting The X-Files after 9/11, criticized the "goofy tone" of the episode, saying it felt "very out of place" within the context of the series.
