Provenance (The X-Files)
The episode was written by series creator Chris Carter and executive producer Frank Spotnitz, and directed by Kim Manners.
The show centers on special agents of the FBI 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).
Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is called into a meeting with Alvin Kersh (James Pickens, Jr.), Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes) and a few unknown men.
After the meeting, Scully explains to John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) that the rubbings are similar to ones she found on a wrecked spacecraft three years prior.
Later, in Calgary, one of the cultists, the Overcoat Woman, sees a newspaper headline about Comer's shooting; she rushes to the dig site and informs Josepho.
With Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and Richard Langly (Dean Haglund) incapacitated, the woman opens the back door of the van to find John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood) holding William.
[5] An interview with Digital Spy described him as "effectively [stepping] into the nicotine-stained chair of the departed Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) as the head of a shady new syndicate, although he was later exposed as an alien.
In order to convert the Los Angeles cityscape into Calgary's, Mat Beck created a matte of the shot; the background buildings were then edited out.
[14] Jeffrey Robinson from DVD Talk concluded that "Provenance", along with its follow-up "Providence", "does a fairly good job without including Duchovny" due to its adherence to "the series' main storyline [about] the government conspiracies.
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.
"[16] Furthermore, Shearman and Pearson criticized the idea to suggest that Mulder died in the episode, due to the fact that Carter announced Duchovny would return for the season finale.
Crang, in his book Denying the Truth: Revisiting The X-Files after 9/11, criticised the plot of the episode, saying that it "throws up many elements that we've seen the series do better elsewhere...in the hope that something will stick".
