TV - The X-Files Season 3, The Top 5

Steve Taylor-Bryant, is back with his continued journey through the The X-Files vault. Today it's the Top 5 from Season 3...

Season 3 of The X-Files is a strange one to try and compile a Top 5 from. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that it is the pinnacle of the show, the best season that Chris Carter and the team produced, leaving me with no weak episodes to cast to one side whilst the strong ones come to the fore. I spent the last two weeks watching the entire run twice and yet still I want to include every episode. From the mythology point of view the long game went up a notch in this season, whilst the Monster of the Week stand-alone episodes improved in both style and writing. The success of the first two seasons obviously made someone high up at the network add more dollars to the budget and, whilst it was still filmed in standard definition, some of the scenes throughout the show are visually stunning, the desert scene with all it's glorious red rocks in The Blessing Way/Paper Clip, and the lightning effects in D.P.O are all worth a watch.

But it is my job to come up with a list and so here it is.

5 - Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose.

Clyde Bruckman: "You know, there are worse ways to go, but I can't think of a more undignified way than autoerotic asphyxiation."

Mulder: "Why are you telling me that?"

Clyde Bruckman: "Look, forget I mentioned it. It's none of my business."

Scully and Mulder are called into the investigation of a series of murders where the victims were all psychics of some sort. A tea leaf reader, tarot card reader and palm reader are all the apparent victims of a serial killer. The local police have brought in a well-known TV psychic that Mulder finds laughable. He does come across Clyde Bruckman, an insurance salesman who may be a genuine psychic. While Scully is appropriately skeptical, Mulder realises that Bruckman can only see one thing - how people will die.

4 - D.P.O.

Fox Mulder: "I found it between Miss April and the Women of the Ivy League."

A local teen discovers he has gained great electrical powers after surviving being struck by lightning.

3 - Piper Maru/Apocrypha

Commander Johansen: "Conscience, it's just the voices of the dead trying to save us from our own damnation."

Scully and Mulder investigate the case of the crew of a French salvage ship who are all, with one exception, suffering from severe radiation burns. Mulder is particularly interested in the case as the ship was working at the coordinates he believes is the site of a UFO crash. Evidence at the home of the one salvager who escaped the radiation burns leads Mulder to Hong Kong where he meets Krycek, who he believes killed his father. It's also obvious that the entity, black oil, is transferring itself from one person to another. Meanwhile, Scully is upset to learn that the police will shut down the investigation into the murder of her sister Melissa. Assistant Director Skinner assures her he will pursue the matter but he is warned off by representatives of the intelligence community.

With Assistant Director Skinner in the hospital recovering from his gunshot wounds, Scully and Mulder pursue various leads. Scully meets with a retired naval officer, a friend of her father and learns that this is not the first time men have suffered severe radiation burns while investigating that part of the ocean. She fears for Skinner's life when she learns he is being transferred to another hospital. Mulder meanwhile learns the location of the UFO, an abandoned missile site but the Cigarette Smoking Man proves to be a major obstacle. While Mulder pursues his leads on the UFO, Scully continues her investigation into the shooting of her sister and learns that the gun used to kill her was the same as that used on Skinner.

2 – Nisei.

Mulder: "You think that believing is easy?"

After Mulder buys an alien autopsy video from a mail order house in Allentown, Pa. he thinks he may be onto the real thing. He goes to Allentown with a skeptical Scully to find that the man who distributed the videos has been murdered. They arrest a trespasser in the house only to learn from Assistant Director Skinner that the man is a senior Japanese diplomat. The papers he was carrying however point to the use of rail cars as rolling laboratories as well as the recovery of what was supposed to be a Japanese submarine. Scully meanwhile meets a group of women with whom she may have a particular affinity.

1 - The Blessing Way/Paper Clip.

Scully: "What kind of business are you in?"

Well Manicured Man: "We predict the future. And the best way to predict it is to invent it."

A furious pursuit of Agent Mulder is underway, and more importantly, the government wants the data tape he carried. Agent Scully, against all odds, searches to uncover his whereabouts, persisting that he is alive when all others deny it.

Mulder returns to Skinner and Scully while the deadly pursuit is still at hand. Led by an old photograph of his father and a group of scientists, he and Scully discover more than they could imagine in an old West Virginia warehouse. The truth, of course, may kill everyone.

Quotes and synopsis - IMDb.

Image - XFiles Wiki.