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The X-Files Season 1 Episode 8

Ice

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AIRED: 11/5/93

When an Arctic research team mysteriously kills each other and themselves only days after drilling deeper into the ice than ever before, Mulder and Scully accompany a team of doctors and scientists to investigate. They discover an organism which infects living creatures and amplifies the host's feeling of anger and paranoia, and the new team starts to deteriorate as they wonder who among them are killers.moreless

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Fan Episode Reviews (42)

Parasitic worms

10

By 7dixob, Aug 17, 2012

This is the best episode of the season which shows Mulder and Scully going to Alaska to investigate a missing team that mysteriously vanished and it turns out that they have been infected by some kind of worm that makes you angry and want to attack people and two worms are in a human and they are both fighting they both die which is why all the team died.Mulder and Scully go with two other people and when the pilot is bitten by a dog that has the worm he gets it and it kills him and everyone thinks Mulder has it.moreless
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Ice - A wonderful episode

10

By arkanitoo, Jul 08, 2012

What a GREAT episode! Making a clear homage to the horror classic "The Thing" (John Carpenter), are almost 45 minutes of pure mistrust, isolation, fear and a lot of blood! Full of twists and pure tension, the story takes on a basis of experiments in Alaska, where the pair will investigate the death of a group of scientists who apparently went mad and killed each other. As the plot develops, many questions arise in the air, like how much we can trust each other, to what extent our confidence may go without betraying us. The monster of the week would be a small worm that enters the bodies of people and makes them aggressive and inhuman, unable to defend themselves. The worm would be something unknown, something that invades us and makes us altogether, not making us accountable for our actions, let alone establishing limits for them, something uncontrollable. Scully and Mulder are very victims of the enemy and completely discreet, but destructive. Pro final, there is still more conspiracy theories about government and its handling of information, to relieve all that pauleira suspense before. A very complete episode.moreless
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Ice was awesome!

8.5

By TrueTvWatcher, May 26, 2012

Ice was another great episode of The X-Files and I really enjoyed watching this episode because there was a lot of action intrigue, drama and mystery. It was interesting to see the bad guys or villains in this episode were actually parasitic worms which take control of the host body. I liked how the story lines played out. This episode was definitely a tribute to the movie entitled "The Thing" and it was certainly well done. I look forward to watching what happens next!!!!!!!moreless
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My first X-Files ever

9.5

By elanouil, Feb 04, 2012

This is the first episode of the x-files I have ever watched back in the days. This is a really well written, played and directed scary story. Just watched it again recently and this episode has not aged a single bit compared to most of the episodes of the first season. Great episode to get into the xfiles
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The catch phrase from this episode, "We are not who we are", has echoed down the seasons with an increasing resonance as we encountered the strangers-behind-the-masks in "Shapeshifter", "Irresistible", and Colony/Endgame". Issues of trust and faith are central to "The X-Files", and never more so than in this early and revealing episode.moreless

8.0

By MattMTRUSTNO1, Sep 17, 2011

When it first aired, "Ice" was part of a younger, considerably less sure-of-itself show. Viewers had had little insight into the characters of Mulder and Scully, and even less into their personal relationship. The first time I saw it, I was disappointed with the imitative plot, but the texture and richness of the characterizations gave it a depth unusual in television prime time.

By now, virtually everyone is aware that "Ice" borrows heavily from John W. Campbell's "Who Goes There?", which was subsequently made into two movies, both called "The Thing". With minor variations, the story is the same: an alien menace frozen in the polar ice for thousands, perhaps millions of years, is accidentally uncovered by a research team. The organism invades its host, turning the victim into a stealth killer while retaining the outward human form. It becomes impossible to tell who is friend and who is foe, even by reliance on that oldest of human skills, intuitive understanding of another human being. The puzzle becomes a race against time to flush the alien killer from hiding before all the humans are killed off one at a time. Granted that it is a familiar story, there is an artful subtext here that transcends the contrivance.

From the riveting opening sequences, where a fight to the death becomes a mutual suicide pact between two desperate men, this is a very tight story of paranoia and trust. We have seldom seen so claustrophobic a setting in which to work out the dynamics of a relationship. For Dana Scully and Fox Mulder, this is the first real crisis testing their professional and personal relationship. Kudos to Glen Morgan and Jim Wong (may their shadows never grow less) for a subtler script than would appear on the surface. Two absolutely legendary scenes in this episode define the X- Files team's alliance and their interdependence better than anything else in the first season shows.

The first scene, where Dana Scully and Fox Mulder are caught up in the paranoia of the situation, has them actually holding guns on one another. In most professional law enforcement relationships, this would be the end of this partnership. Few law enforcement agents could ever again work with a partner who had aimed a loaded weapon at them. In this excruciatingly intense scene, anger, fear, and something deeper than mere disappointment wash across David Duchovny's face to show us the struggle taking place within Fox Mulder. At last we see him really giving way to an emotion connected with his partner. Significantly, it is Agent "Trust No One" Mulder who lowers his weapon first. After those first few moments, he never again believes Dana Scully is infected by the alien organism, although clearly she believes he is. For such an innately suspicious man, it is a remarkable act of faith. In the same scene, Gillian Anderson gives us a highly emotional Agent Scully, struggling courageously to maintain her calm and her reason in the face of overwhelming fear. Remember, Mulder is supposed to have had several years of confronting the highly unusual and the downright spooky: Dana Scully is still getting used to the idea that this is not all some weird practical joke of Mulder's. When the mortal danger of her situation finally sinks home, her normal cool facade falls away. We see her true qualities begin to shine through: courage, determination, her trust of science, and most of all a commitment to justice. She will not, for example, make Mulder an involuntary guinea pig if there is some other way. At risk to herself, she goes in alone to his holding cell to try to reason with him.

The scene between Mulder and Scully in the holding cell is incandescent. Scully's barely masked terror, Mulder's anger at and absolute trust in her, are two of the high points not of the scene or even the episode, but of the series. This is a crucial moment in the character's lives, when they will lose or re-establish the trust that binds them as investigators and as friends. I remember that on my initial viewing, I was astounded at the depth Anderson and Duchovny achieved with so few lines, such a short scene. If I had not been an admirer of the show until then, I would have been afterwards. Their mutual physical examination radiated a repressed sensuality that spoke of the unacknowledged attraction between the two, while witnessing a fundamental trust that words could not have accomplished. It was a superb combination of writing and acting, the first indication (to me) that this show had extraordinary staying power.

Interestingly, it is the team which does not question one another, Dr. Hodge and Dr. DaSilva, which is flawed at the heart. From the outset these two present a united front against the government agents they distrust, yet as the crisis deepens their fragile alliance, built on cynicism and a shared enemy, begins to fragment. Yet until the very last, Hodge is willing to trust Dr. DaSilva more than anyone else. His basic mistake is that his allegiance is based on the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend; Mulder and Scully's partnership is based on faith in one another. Like mirror twins, each pair reverses the image of the other.

I think of the scene when, after re-establishing their belief in one another, Mulder and Scully stand in the doorway of the holding cell, clearly a team, clearly together again as partners and friends. Like paired electrons, Scully and Mulder spin in opposite directions yet are tightly bound in their mutual (if eccentric) orbit around their search for truth. It takes enormous energy to pull them apart, and the result is likely to generate both heat and light.

If it had had a more original script, this would have earned a 10. As it is, the mounting tension, taut writing, excellent characterisations, and outstanding acting earn it a strong 8.moreless
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Cast & Crew: STARS

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David Duchovny	Special Agent Fox Mulder
Gillian Anderson	Special Agent Dana Scully

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Cast & Crew: RECURRING AND GUESTS

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Xander Berkeley	Dr. Hodge	Guest Star
Felicity Huffman	Dr. DaSilva	Guest Star
Steve Hytner	Dr. Murphy	Guest Star

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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TRIVIA (8)
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- Principal setting: Icy Cape, Alaska.
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- Continuity: When Scully is tossing the clips outside, you can see Dr. Da Silva's sleeves are bunched up. When the shot changes back, her sleeves are down.
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- Prop goof: In this episode, Mulder is carrying around a Glock 19. When the caged dog startles him and he raises his weapon, there is the sound of a hammer being cocked. However, the Glock has an internal hammer, so the only way to cock it is by pulling the trigger or racking the slide.
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- Plot hole: If the parasite stimulates the production of a violence hormone, why was the infected member of the team able to act so calm until the point when the others discovered that person was infected?
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- Geographical Error: In the opening scene, the arctic station is given as being "...250 miles north of the Arctic Circle." Later, when Mulder shows Scully the base's location on a map, he points to a location on the Seward Peninsula.
  
  The Seward Peninsula is the location of the city of Nome. Its northernmost point is well below the Arctic Circle.
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- Plot Hole: When the team tries to restrain Bear, they notice a rather large knot moving under his skin. This is supposed to be the parasite. Later on, we find out that the parasite is actually rather small and could never cause a lump that large.
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- Revealing Mistakes: At the end of the episode the agents and Dr. Hodge are supposed to be cold in the freezing temperatures of Alaska, and acting like it's freezing. But we don't see their breath on camera when it should be highly noticeable.
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- Continuity: Richter's message in the teaser is slightly different from when Scully and Mulder watch it later in his office.
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QUOTES (17)
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- Mulder: It's still there, Scully. 200,000 years down in the ice.
  Scully: Leave it there.
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- Scully: Come take a look at this. The larvae from two different worms killed each other. An individual worm will not tolerate another invading it's host. It does to the invader what it did to humans. It makes them kill.
  Hodge: It doesn't make sense for a species to kill its own, it needs another to procreate.
  Dasilva: Worms are hermaphroditic. It can reproduce itself.
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- Scully: Mulder, if we don't kill it now, we run the risk of becoming Richter and Campbell with guns to our heads.
  Mulder: But if we do kill it now, we may never know how to stop it or anything like it in the future.
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- Mulder: We're all wired and hypersensitive, it'll be good to get a fresh start in the morning.
  Scully: Mulder, I don't want to waste a second trying to find a way to kill this thing.
  Mulder: I don't know if we should kill it. This area of the ice sheet was formed over a meteor crater. The worm lived in ammonia. It survived sub-zero temperatures. Theorists in alternative life-designs believe in ammonia-supported life systems on planets with freezing temperatures.
  Scully: No.
  Mulder: The meteor that crashed here a quarter of a million years ago may have carried that type of life to earth.
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- Murphy: Hypothalmus... what was that again?
  Scully: It's a gland that secretes hormones although I don't know why a parasite would want to attach to it.
  Hodge: Hypothalmus releases acetlycholine, which produces violent, aggresive behavior. That might be a connection. Everybody that's been infected certainly seems to act aggresively. Maybe the worm feeds on the acetlycholine which floods our capacity to control violent behavior.
  Scully: Well, a parasite shouldn't want to kill it's host.
  Hodge: It doesn't kill you until it's extracted. Then it releases a poison.
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- Mulder: This is Agent Mulder, we have a serious biological hazard. Request air pick-up and quarantine procedures, over. Come in, Doolittle Airfield.
  Radio: We copy, Agent Mulder. This area is under a heavy storm and no aircraft can get out for the next day. Maybe the military base in Kotzebue can set up a quarantine. Advise immediate evacuation, the arctic storm is bearing in your direction, over.
  Mulder: We were told we would have three clear days of weather, over.
  Radio: Welcome to the top of the world, Agent Mulder. Over.
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- Murphy: Maybe the organism in the ice core somehow got into the men.
  Dasilva: Come on, nothing can survive in sub-zero temperatures for a quarter of a million years.
  Mulder: Unless that's how it lives.
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- Murphy: Alright, this is the Icy Cape area. It approximates the depth of the ice sheet to be about 3,000 meters thick.
  Mulder: I also found this data and if I'm reading it correctly, the team actually found the ice sheet to be twice that depth.
  Murphy: That's very good. The numbers indicate the topography to be concave. Looks like they were drilling inside a meteor crater.
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- Bear: You folks the ones going up to Icy Cape?
  Mulder: Yeah.
  Bear: Then I'm the one flying you. My name's Bear. The plane's across the way, provisions are loaded. Grab your gear.
  Hodge: Oh, could we see some credentials?
  Bear: Credentials. The only credentials that I have is that I'm the only pilot willing to fly you up there. You don't like those credentials... walk.
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- Hodge: Can I see some identification?
  Mulder: What for?
  Hodge: I just want to make sure we are who we say we are. That's me.
  Murphy: That's you. It's me.
  Hodge: It's you.
  Mulder: It's me!
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- (The men start to strip for a physical exam)
  Mulder: Before anyone passes judgment, may I remind you, we are in the Arctic.
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- Mulder: San Diego? Do you get much of a chance to study ice down there?
  Dr. Murphy: Just what's around the keg.
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- Mulder: The National Weather Service reports a three day window to get in and out before the next Arctic storm. Bring your mittens!
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- Hodge: Alright, parasitic diagnostic procedure requires that each of us provide a blood and a stool sample.
  Bear: A stool sample?
  Murphy: Well, this kind of travel always makes that kind of tough... for me.
  Mulder: Okay, anyone got the morning sports section handy?
  Bear: I ain't dropping my cargo for no one.
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- Scully: What happened up there?
  Mulder: So far, nobody's been able to reach the compound because of bad weather. Obviously, they think we're either brilliant or expendable because we've pulled the assignment.
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- Mulder: Now, I don't trust them. I want to trust you.
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- Mulder: Scully! For God sakes, it's me!
  Scully: Mulder... you may not be who you are.
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NOTES (4)
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- The character of Campbell was named after John W. Campbell, Jr. who was the author of the sci-fi classic Who Goes There? on which the plot of this episode is loosely based. The story was adapted for the films The Thing From Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982).
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- The character of Richter is played by Ken Kirzinger, the stunt coordinator during the early seasons of the show.
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- Previous episodes had gone slightly over budget, so Fox asked the producers to create an episode that was set in a confined space so only one set had to be built.
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- The dog in the episode is the father of David Duchovny's dog Blue.
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ALLUSIONS (2)
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- Literary Reference: Othello
  
  The words "we are not who we are" may have be inspired by Shakespeare's Othello.
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- Episode Plot: Hidden creature in arctic base
  
  The plot of this episode is an homage to the John Carpenter movie The Thing (1982) which in turn was inspired by the classic science fiction film The Thing From Another World (1951). Several features of the episode follow the 1982 movie including the mistrust and paranoia of people at the base, the locking up infection suspects, the attempts (by visual exam and blood work) to somehow prove who is who, or in this case who is not who he is.
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