The X-Files - 4.

French title: Aux frontières du jamais
translation: At the Border of Never

US Airdate: April 13, 1997

writers: Howard Gordon and David Greenwalt

director: Jim Charleston

STARRING:

David Duchovny as Special Agent Fox Mulder

Gillian Anderson as Special Agent Dana Scully

Guest Cast:

Jed Rees as Lucas Menand

Joseph Fuqua as Jason Nichols

Michael Fairman as Elderly Man

Brent Chapman as Security Cop

Eric Buermeyer as the Bus Driver

Susan Hoffman as Lisa Ianelli

Hiro Kanagawa as Dr. Yonechi

Patricia Idlette as Desk Clerk

Austin Basile as Bellman

Jonathan Walker as Chuck Lukerman

Alison Matthews as Doctor

THE AGENTS SEARCH FOR ANSWERS WHEN AN ELDERLY MAN USES A TECHNOLOGY OF THE FUTURE TO COMMIT MURDER.

Jason Nichols and Lucas Menand, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, become embroiled in an argument as they walk down a city street. They are approached by an elderly man, who warns Menand that he will be run over by a bus at exactly eleven forty-six that evening. Menand tells a campus security cop that the old man is harassing him. The guard places him in the back seat of a sedan and drives away. A few moments later, Menand is run down by the bus... at exactly eleven forty-six.

Mulder and Scully review the facts of the case. Nichols was taken into custody after the bus driver told police that he pushed Menand into the path of his vehicle. But Nichols tells authorities he was attempting to save Menand-as an unidentified old man had forewarned of his colleague's impending death.

The security guard who arrested the old man is found frozen to death. Scully concludes guard was somehow exposed to some sort of chemical refrigerant, as weather conditions are too warm to explain the corpse's frigid internal temperature. Mulder interviews Nichols at the police station. Nichols explains that he and Menand had been arguing because Menand threatened to go public with a claim that he had falsified data on a research paper.

A short time later, the elderly man kills Dr. Yonechi, a Japanese researcher, by pricking him with a metallic stylus. Mulder and Scully examine Yonechi's frozen corpse. Lab tests reveal that the doctor was injected with an unidentifiable chemical compound. The agents approach Nichol's girlfriend, Lisa Ianelli, who is also a researcher. She recognizes the chemical compound as a rapid freezing agent that Nichols had been engineering for years. But she points out that the chemical has not yet been invented. Lisa tells the agents that if Yonechi was injected with the chemical, he may not be dead. With Lisa's help, Scully and a team of medical personnel successfully resuscitate Yonechi. But his body temperature suddenly and rapidly begins to increase, until finally, he bursts into flames. Lisa realizes she made an error when she recommended that doctors remove Yonechi's body from a tub filled with yellowish fluid.

Lisa confesses that it was she who falsified the data to get the research grant (Nichols is in jail because he is covering for her). Those who would have figured out the truth - Menand and Yonechi - are now dead. Police receive a tip that the elderly man is living at a nearby hotel. Inside the elderly man's room, the agents discover a faded color photograph picturing Nichols, Yonechi and Lisa toasting champagne glasses inside the cryology lab. Mulder realizes the photo was taken five years in the future-on the day the researchers successfully synthesized the freezing compound. The elderly man is attempting to alter that future: when he failed to save Menand from being killed by the bus, he killed Yonechi. Mulder also realizes the elderly man is none other than Jason Nichols.

Lisa locates the elderly man and confronts him. The elderly man gathers the courage to inject her with the chemical. But Scully successfully resuscitates Lisa, and remembering the girl's words, immediately returns her body to the tub (to prevent the fire that killed Yonechi). Nichols confronts his elderly self in the computer mainframe room at the cryogenic lab, where the old man has erased all of Nichols' files from the computer. Nichols lunges at the old man, choking him. Mulder, unable to open the lab door, yells to Nichols. He tells him that Lisa is alive. The old man tells Nichols that "it's better that we never were." Wrapping his arms around his younger self, the old man bursts into flames. The fire consumes them both. Later, Lisa sets to work at cryonics lab, attempting to reconstruct the chemical compound.

The whole plotline of this one, namely time travel, is a subject that Chris Carter has always said he would never do. Perhaps he was right. No pun intended, but this ep left me cold. Loved the special effects, but Mulder's leaps of logic were a bit much, maybe this should have been a two-parter, but then again, maybe not.

If you didn't know you were watching "The X-Files", you'd be forgiven for thinking you'd tuned into the movie "Back To The Future", as the opening scene here mimics the movie, right down to the clock tower. And fans of the original classic Star Trek series sited similarities between this ep and one called "City on the Edge of Forever", where Kirk had to choose between the woman he loved and the future of the world, same as Jason did here.

I did get a chuckle out of poor Lucas in the beginning. The driver of the bus that hit him, with an ad for a lottery on the side of it, couldn't see him as his view was blocked by the parking ticket on the windscreen of the car Lucas dropped his papers by. Just not a lucky day for anyone!

Interesting that Mulder didn't jump at the chance to go back in time and stop his sister, Samantha, from being abducted. Of course, then there'd be no angst-filled Mulder to investigate the x-files and, thus, no series, so I don't blame Chris Carter for not going there!

Many of us had a problem with the method the older Jason chose for killing his victims. Why bring a supercooling compound back from the future, something that hasn't been invented in 1996, and kill people with it? Why not use a gun, or a nearby brick? Anything but something that will be a huge clue, not to mention that smarty-pants scientists will be able to study and eventually reproduce. Wasn't the whole point of the older Jason coming back to STOP this compound from being made?! I know, details, schmetails.

Just as a matter of interest, Scully's thesis ("Einstein's Twin Paradox: A New Interpretation") was her *senior* thesis, not her graduate thesis, as Mulder calls it. Check "The Pilot" if you don't believe me. Continuity boys, why don't you grab one of my text file copies to help you remember? :-)

Mulder: "I think the real question is how somebody could have had access to a compound that doesn't exist?"

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Scully: "If he'd lie *for* you, what makes you think he wouldn't lie *to* you?"

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Scully: "If your sister is your aunt and your mother marries your uncle, you'd be your own grandpa."

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Scully: "OK, so this photo that was never taken - when was it never taken?"

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Scully: "So what you're saying here is the old man is..."

Mulder: "Jason Nichols. 'Although common sense may rule out the possibility of time travel, the laws of quantum physics certainly do not.' In case you forgot, that's from your graduate thesis. You were a lot more open minded when you were a youngster."

Scully: "I know what I wrote Mulder, I also know that the laws of physics would permit the theoretical possibility of time travel, but the limits of human endurance would prevent such a trip from ever happening."

Mulder: "Well there's one sure way to prove that theoretical possibility."

Scully: "How?"

Mulder:"Shown this photograph to Lisa Ianelli and ask her if it was ever taken."

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Mulder (to young Jason): "I don’t expect you to be able to get your mind around this completely right now."

Jason: "What?"

Mulder: "The man we're looking for, the old man? He's you."

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Mulder: "Puts a whole new spin on being your own worst enemy, huh?"

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Old Jason: "I don't expect you to understand."

Young Jason: "Understand what?!"

Old Jason: "What she created... what you... we helped to create. A world without history, without hope, where anyone can know everything that will ever happen. I've seen that world."

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Old Jason (as he wraps his arms around Young Jason before they both go up in flames):

"It's better that we never were."

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Mulder (quoting Scully's thesis): " 'Although multi-dimensionality suggests infinite outcomes in an infinite number of universes, each universe can produce only one outcome.' "