Shapes (The X-Files)
"Shapes" is the nineteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on April 1, 1994.
The show centers on FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files.
Investigating the case, the agents find that the dead man, and those that he attacked, may be capable of shapeshifting into ferocious beasts—a phenomenon which was documented in the first X-File.
"Shapes" was written after executives at Fox had suggested that the series should feature a "more conventional" type of monster, and producers James Wong and Glen Morgan began looking into Native American legends of the Manitou to form the basis of the episode's concept.
FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder travel to Browning, Montana, to investigate the killing of a Native American man, Joseph Goodensnake, by local rancher Jim Parker.
The killing appears to be motivated by a dispute over the ownership of a tract of land, although Parker claims that he fired on a monstrous animal rather than a human.
The investigation is complicated by the hostility Mulder and Scully face from the Native American population, stemming from their experience with the FBI during the 1973 Wounded Knee incident.
The local sheriff, Charles Tskany, permits Scully to make a cursory examination of Goodensnake's body but forbids a full autopsy.
Mulder tells Scully of a similar incident in the area forty years previously, which was investigated by J. Edgar Hoover and became the FBI's first X-File case.
As the agents watch Goodensnake's body being cremated in a traditional ceremony, Mulder shares with Scully his belief that the culprits in both the current case and Hoover's investigation are werewolves.
He found the plot to be unoriginal, believing that it existed "more out of a sense of tradition than any real desire to tell a specific story"; however, he praised the acting in the episode, especially that of guest star Michael Horse.
[3] Matt Haigh, writing for Den of Geek, described "Shapes" as being "a very basic and slightly drawn-out werewolf and detective story", though overall finding that the episode's visual effects and atmosphere meant that it "mostly comes out good in the end".
