X-Files Thanksgiving Marathon 2017
Those of you who lived through the 90's might remember watching the annual X-Files Thanksgiving marathon on Fox. The marathon consisted of categories like "Favorite Monster episode" or "Best Celebrity Cameo" and fans would vote for their favorites for each category. The episodes with the most votes would air during the marathon.
My family and I have always been big fans of the show and just recently we were reminiscing about how much we miss that tradition. And while I still have some VHS tapes still with hours and hours of episodes taped from those marathons, we decided to bring that tradition back utlizing the entire X-Files catalog available on Hulu.
Feel free to play along at home or let know me which episodes you'd pick for each category.
Best Mulder episode - Bad Blood S5 X 12
After Mulder chases down and kills a young man whom he believes to be a vampire, Scully realizes that his fangs are fake. The agents then return to DC, aware of the mistake they just made. Faced with a lawsuit from the family of the man, they recount each of their sides to the story leading up to the event.
Best Scully episode - Tithonus S6 X 10
Assistant Director Kersh tries to tear Scully and Mulder apart when he partners Scully with a New York agent investigating Alfred Fellig, a freelance police photographer who conveniently shows up to document the scene of a death as soon as it happens. While the young hotshot agent is convinced that Fellig is murdering the people, Scully has other (paranormal) theories.
Favorite Celebrity Cameo episode - Peter Boyle, Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose S3 x 4
In the midst of a psychic sideshow while on a murder case, Mulder and Scully enlist the help of a man who may have a true psychic ability to foresee how people will die to help the agents catch a man killing fortune tellers.
Favorite Monster of the Week episode - Squeeze S1 x 3 + Tooms S1 x 21
Squeeze: One of Scully's friends from the FBI academy, now working in the Violent Crimes Unit, asks her to assist him on a homicide investigation involving no clear point of entry. Mulder realizes that this is similar to a series of X-Files case that have occurred every thirty years, and joins in the investigation to stop the latest cycle.
Tooms: Eugene Tooms, the genetic mutant, is released from the sanitarium and Mulder becomes personally involved to ensure that he is caught in the act of getting the last human liver he needs to go into hibernation for another 30 years.
Scariest episode - Irresistible S2 x 13 + Orison S7 X 7
Irresistible: A mortuary worker who gets his thrills from collecting hair and fingernails from the dead begins killing people to expand his collection sets his seriously disturbed sights on Scully.
Orison: A series of prison breaks bring Agents Mulder and Scully face to face with Scully's former kidnapper, Donnie Pfaster, as Scully is forced to question her faith and confront the clash of morality and religion. But Scully soon learns that Donnie is very keen on going after the one victim that managed to escape him, Dana Scully when Reverend Orison breaks him out of prison...
Best Lone Gunman episode - Unusual Suspects S5 X 3
Set in 1989, the story of the founding of The Lone Gunmen is finally told as we see how a straight-laced federal employee, a sex mad AV expert and a nerdy computer hacker meet Susanne Modeski, a strange woman with evidence of a government conspiracy. When their plan to expose the conspiracy fails and Susanne is captured by a group of men-in-black, led by none other than X, they soon become a paranoid group of government watchdogs.
Best Skinner episode - Avatar S3 X 21
During a one-night stand in the midst of his divorce, AD Skinner becomes a murder suspect, and Mulder and Scully return the many favors that he has done for them by analyzing evidence that someone doesn't want uncovered to prove his innocence.
Funniest episode - Small Potatoes S4 X 20
Five babies in the same town are all born with tails and the local OB-GYN is blamed for tampering with fertilised eggs. However, Mulder discovers the culprit to be a simple man with a genetic deformity who may have the ability to alter his appearance.
Best Post-Mulder Episode - Roadrunners S8 x 4
Scully evades Doggett's help in investigating a vicious murder in a remote area of Utah and she is trapped in the small town by a religious cult that believe a slug-like creature is the second coming of God who needs a human host to survive.
Favorite Mutant episode - Fire S1 x 12
When an old Oxford girlfriend of Mulder's asks for his help in an international case concerning the unexplainable execution of several British dignitaries they encounter an assassin who can produce fire from his bare hands.
Best Mythology episode - S4 x 24 Gethesame
While investigating the discovery of a preserved alien body found in the mountains of Canada, Mulder is contacted by Michael Kritschgau who tells him about a government conspiracy not to keep alien activity a secret, but to make people believe in them without question and Mulder has been the prime target. With the idea that everything he believes is a lie, Mulder appears to take his own life.
Best Doggett and Reyes episode - Daemonicus S9 X 3
Doggett and Reyes investigate the murder of a couple in West Virginia that has all the signs of a satanic ritual killing. They link the murder to a doctor incarcerated in a mental institute and Doggett becomes convinced that the doctor is orchestrating the crimes from within the hospital.
Best Occult episode - Die Hand Die Verletzt S2 x 14
The ritualistic murder of a teenager in a small town gets Mulder and Scully caught up in a secret occult practice within the local school's PTA and a substitute teacher with strange powers.
Favorite Freak episode - Humbug S2 x 20
Mulder and Scully travel to Gibsonton, Florida, a town built and populated by circus and sideshow performers to investigate the death of Jerald Glazebrook, The Alligator Man. While searching for leads on the killer, the agents come across many bizarre characters including the local sheriff who was once known as Jim Jim, the Dog-Faced Boy.
Biggest WTF episode - S4 x 20 Jose Chung's from Outer Space
An alien abduction of two teenagers with different versions of the same facts prompts a science-fiction novelist to write a book about the incident. However no one involved with the investigation can tell him the full story with any accuracy.