Improbable (The X-Files)
Encyclopedia
"Improbable" is the 195th episode overall, and 13th episode of the ninth season
of the science fiction
television series The X-Files
. The episode first aired in the United States on April 14, 2002 on Fox
, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written and directed by executive producer Chris Carter
. The episode is a Monster-of-the-Week episode, meaning a stand alone episode.
"Improbable" tells the story of Monica Reyes
(Annabeth Gish
) and her fellow agents investigating a serial killer who uses numerology to choose his victims. Reyes and Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) meet an unusual man who may prove more of a hindrance than a help. "Improbable" earned a mediocre Nielsen household and syndication rating when looking at the season nine ratings, but it was generally well received by fans and critics.
(Annabeth Gish
) is investigating a series of cases that she believes are linked by numerology. While explaining the case to Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
), Scully spots another possible link - a mark made by the killer's ring on the victims' faces. On consulting a numerologist, Reyes ties the murders together. However, the killer also finds the numerologist, murdering her.
Meanwhile, the killer is shown meeting up with a mysterious man (Burt Reynolds
) who seems to know a lot about him and his murderous ways. He speaks in an enigmatic way, but his words don't seem to make any difference to the killer. Reyes' numerology theories don't go down well at the FBI, but the pattern of the killings, when viewed on a map, seem to show a spiral. Scully and Reyes revisit the murdered numerologist's office and meet the killer in the elevator. Scully recognizes the ring on the killer's hand as the agents exit the elevator, and draws her gun on him. The killer slips back into the elevator and gets to the parking lot first. Reyes and Scully arrive only to see a car fleeing the garage and the gate closing behind it. They are stuck in the garage, alone; or maybe not.
They meet another person hiding in a car and demand that he come out. It is the strange man. To pass the time, Burt engages Reyes and Scully in a game of checkers, whose colors (red & black) are surrogates for Scully (a redhead) and Reyes (a brunette). These are the anticipated hair-colors of the next two victims. The exiting car was assumed to contain the killer, but realizing the killer might still be inside, they search the garage and are surprised by the killer. However, John Doggett
(Robert Patrick
) arrives in the nick of time to shoot him. The mysterious man has completely disappeared. In a nearby Italian neighborhood, a party is in progress. Two men sing a jovial song and lead a crowd through the streets. The camera zooms out to reveal that the entire neighborhood, when viewed from above, suggests the appearance of Burt Reynolds' face.
student Chris Carter
knew. Carter felt that he needed to kill the character "all out of fondness." Before casting Ellen Greene
, Carter had first spotted her on the movie, The Little Shop of Horrors
both in "New York
and Los Angeles
." The first scene shot for Greene's character took a "long day". Carter called her a "trooper" and said she was open to the direction he gave her. She had a lot of information to remember, which made the scene even more difficult. The set for that scene was created by Tim Stepeck who was the set decorator during the ninth season.
This was the last episode filmed by Carter to feature Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) in the FBI autopsy scene at 20th Century Fox
. The different numbers seen in this scene was used to "conceit, this idea that numerology is an important part of our life and plays a part, but it really is just used here to illustrate the idea of patterns, patterns of behavior, of the ways in which numbers rule both the universe and our lives and our ability to solve things, to solve our mysteries of life, to solve these cases, which will lead them, as we'll see as the act comes to a close here, they are both [Scully and Reyes] believers of the numerological episode." The tagline for this episode is "Dio Ti Ama", meaning "God loves you" in Italian, replacing the usual phrase "The Truth is Out There."
, the "whole" idea behind the episode was about numbers and "significance of numbers in our lives starts here on the card table where the players are being dealt a hand each." He continued with "the idea is that we're all dealt hands, genetic hands, and maybe even numerological hands that give us basically the tools with which we deal and/or use for our lives." He further stated that the idea was that it was "free will" and "fate", continued with that fate was determined by our own genetic
s.
The villain
in the story, Mad Wayne, had been dealt a bad hand in life. Because of that, he acts on his bad impulses. "Is it fate that Wayne is about, the character, this is what I was interested in exploring here. As we'll see with the introduction in a moment of a character who throws all of this into question – God – we're going to see what his place is in all of this, or at least explore what Burt Reynolds, playing God here, has to do with the character Wayne." The main idea behind the episode, was that God
knows all the numbers, because it's his numbers and he is laying them down and is in "charge of the big game". Being that God is trying to show "us the game", as it was a "game" to be "won or lost." And Wayne has lost this game.
of 5.2, with a 8 share. It was viewed by 5.486 million households and gathered a total of 8.600 million viewers in the United States
alone. On April 14, 2002 the episode made its debut in Canada
on Fox
and Global Television Network
and made a re-run on American television. The episode subsequently made its debut in Ireland
and the United Kingdom
, but did not make it to the list of the ten most watched television shows that week.
The X-Files (season 9)
The ninth season of The X-Files commenced airing in the United States on November 11, 2001, concluded on May 19, 2002, and consists of twenty episodes. The X-Files is an American serial science fiction-horror-thriller television series. Season nine took place after Fox Mulder's leave after the...
of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. The episode first aired in the United States on April 14, 2002 on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written and directed by executive producer Chris Carter
Chris Carter (screenwriter)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium.- Ten Thirteen Productions :...
. The episode is a Monster-of-the-Week episode, meaning a stand alone episode.
"Improbable" tells the story of Monica Reyes
Monica Reyes
Special Agent Monica Reyes is a fictional character in the American FOX television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence...
(Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish is an American actress known for starring roles in Shag, Mystic Pizza and Double Jeopardy. She is best known for her roles as Special Agent Monica Reyes on The X-Files, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on The West Wing and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama Brotherhood.-Personal...
) and her fellow agents investigating a serial killer who uses numerology to choose his victims. Reyes and Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) meet an unusual man who may prove more of a hindrance than a help. "Improbable" earned a mediocre Nielsen household and syndication rating when looking at the season nine ratings, but it was generally well received by fans and critics.
Plot overview
Agent Monica ReyesMonica Reyes
Special Agent Monica Reyes is a fictional character in the American FOX television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence...
(Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish is an American actress known for starring roles in Shag, Mystic Pizza and Double Jeopardy. She is best known for her roles as Special Agent Monica Reyes on The X-Files, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on The West Wing and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama Brotherhood.-Personal...
) is investigating a series of cases that she believes are linked by numerology. While explaining the case to Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
), Scully spots another possible link - a mark made by the killer's ring on the victims' faces. On consulting a numerologist, Reyes ties the murders together. However, the killer also finds the numerologist, murdering her.
Meanwhile, the killer is shown meeting up with a mysterious man (Burt Reynolds
Burt Reynolds
Burton Leon "Burt" Reynolds, Jr. is an American actor. Some of his memorable roles include Bo 'Bandit' Darville in Smokey and the Bandit, Lewis Medlock in Deliverance, Bobby "Gator" McCluskey in White Lightning and sequel Gator, Paul Crewe and Coach Nate Scarborough in The Longest Yard and its...
) who seems to know a lot about him and his murderous ways. He speaks in an enigmatic way, but his words don't seem to make any difference to the killer. Reyes' numerology theories don't go down well at the FBI, but the pattern of the killings, when viewed on a map, seem to show a spiral. Scully and Reyes revisit the murdered numerologist's office and meet the killer in the elevator. Scully recognizes the ring on the killer's hand as the agents exit the elevator, and draws her gun on him. The killer slips back into the elevator and gets to the parking lot first. Reyes and Scully arrive only to see a car fleeing the garage and the gate closing behind it. They are stuck in the garage, alone; or maybe not.
They meet another person hiding in a car and demand that he come out. It is the strange man. To pass the time, Burt engages Reyes and Scully in a game of checkers, whose colors (red & black) are surrogates for Scully (a redhead) and Reyes (a brunette). These are the anticipated hair-colors of the next two victims. The exiting car was assumed to contain the killer, but realizing the killer might still be inside, they search the garage and are surprised by the killer. However, John Doggett
John Doggett
FBI Special agent John Jay Doggett is a fictional character in the American Fox television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of alien existence...
(Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick
Robert Hammond Patrick, Jr. is an American actor, known for his leading and supporting roles in a number of films and television shows....
) arrives in the nick of time to shoot him. The mysterious man has completely disappeared. In a nearby Italian neighborhood, a party is in progress. Two men sing a jovial song and lead a crowd through the streets. The camera zooms out to reveal that the entire neighborhood, when viewed from above, suggests the appearance of Burt Reynolds' face.
Development
The name Vicki Burdick came from a high schoolHigh school
High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....
student Chris Carter
Chris Carter (screenwriter)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium.- Ten Thirteen Productions :...
knew. Carter felt that he needed to kill the character "all out of fondness." Before casting Ellen Greene
Ellen Greene
Ellen Greene is an American singer and actress. Greene has had a long and varied career as a singer, particularly in cabaret, as an actor and singer in numerous stage productions, particularly musical theatre, as well as having performed in many films – notably Little Shop of Horrors...
, Carter had first spotted her on the movie, The Little Shop of Horrors
The Little Shop of Horrors
The Little Shop of Horrors is a 1960 American comedy film directed by Roger Corman. Written by Charles B. Griffith, the film is a farce about an inadequate young florist's assistant who cultivates a plant that feeds on human flesh and blood. The film's concept is thought to be based on a 1932...
both in "New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
." The first scene shot for Greene's character took a "long day". Carter called her a "trooper" and said she was open to the direction he gave her. She had a lot of information to remember, which made the scene even more difficult. The set for that scene was created by Tim Stepeck who was the set decorator during the ninth season.
This was the last episode filmed by Carter to feature Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) in the FBI autopsy scene at 20th Century Fox
20th Century Fox
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation — also known as 20th Century Fox, or simply 20th or Fox — is one of the six major American film studios...
. The different numbers seen in this scene was used to "conceit, this idea that numerology is an important part of our life and plays a part, but it really is just used here to illustrate the idea of patterns, patterns of behavior, of the ways in which numbers rule both the universe and our lives and our ability to solve things, to solve our mysteries of life, to solve these cases, which will lead them, as we'll see as the act comes to a close here, they are both [Scully and Reyes] believers of the numerological episode." The tagline for this episode is "Dio Ti Ama", meaning "God loves you" in Italian, replacing the usual phrase "The Truth is Out There."
Conception and themes
According to Chris CarterChris Carter (screenwriter)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium.- Ten Thirteen Productions :...
, the "whole" idea behind the episode was about numbers and "significance of numbers in our lives starts here on the card table where the players are being dealt a hand each." He continued with "the idea is that we're all dealt hands, genetic hands, and maybe even numerological hands that give us basically the tools with which we deal and/or use for our lives." He further stated that the idea was that it was "free will" and "fate", continued with that fate was determined by our own genetic
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
s.
The villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
in the story, Mad Wayne, had been dealt a bad hand in life. Because of that, he acts on his bad impulses. "Is it fate that Wayne is about, the character, this is what I was interested in exploring here. As we'll see with the introduction in a moment of a character who throws all of this into question – God – we're going to see what his place is in all of this, or at least explore what Burt Reynolds, playing God here, has to do with the character Wayne." The main idea behind the episode, was that God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
knows all the numbers, because it's his numbers and he is laying them down and is in "charge of the big game". Being that God is trying to show "us the game", as it was a "game" to be "won or lost." And Wayne has lost this game.
Reception
"Improbable" earned a Nielsen household ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 5.2, with a 8 share. It was viewed by 5.486 million households and gathered a total of 8.600 million viewers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alone. On April 14, 2002 the episode made its debut in Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and Global Television Network
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
and made a re-run on American television. The episode subsequently made its debut in Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
and the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, but did not make it to the list of the ten most watched television shows that week.