Memento Mori (The X-Files)
It was directed by Rob Bowman, and written by series creator Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.
When Scully is diagnosed with an inoperable nasopharyngeal tumor, Mulder attempts to discover what happened to her during her abduction experience, believing the two events to be related.
She initially tells only Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) of the diagnosis, and is determined to continue to work.
The agents head to Allentown, Pennsylvania, to see Betsy Hagopian, a Mutual UFO Network member who was previously discovered to be suffering from similar symptoms.
When Mulder is called away by Scully, an assassin, the Gray-Haired Man (Morris Panych) arrives and kills Crawford with a stiletto weapon, revealing him to be an alien-human hybrid.
Mulder recruits The Lone Gunmen to help him break into a high security research facility where he thinks he may be able to find more information on how to save Scully.
Carter felt the move would give the show an interesting platform on which to discuss things such as faith, science, health care and a certain element of the paranormal.
This was an ad-lib on Anderson and Duchovny's part, and was removed from the episode as it was something Chris Carter felt he wanted to make use of in the series' film adaptation.
This shot was drained of color entirely, and was combined with a series of blurring and framing effects in post-production to further enhance the intended image—to create the impression of waking from a dream.
Producer Paul Rabwin has noted that achieving these shots was difficult due to the mixture of green and blue light sources in the scene.
She felt that the episode took the uncommon route of tying together several previously-mentioned aspects of the series' mythology, making it "easy to believe the pieces might come together at this point".
Episode writers Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz were nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series.
Art directors Graeme Murray and Gary Allen and set decorator Shirley Inget won the Creative Emmy Award for Best Art Direction in a Series, while actress Gillian Anderson also won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series for her work in this episode and the fourth season as a whole.
