Ice

"Ice" is the eighth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, premiering on the Fox network on November 5, 1993. It was directed by David Nutter and written by Glen Morgan and James Wong. The debut broadcast of "Ice" was watched by 10 million viewers in 6.2 million households. The episode received positive reviews at large from critics, who praised its tense atmosphere. The plot of the episode shows FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) investigating the deaths of an Alaskan research team. Isolated and alone, the agents and their accompanying team discover the existence of extraterrestrial parasitic organisms that drive their hosts into impulsive fits of rage. The episode was inspired by an article in Science News about an excavation in Greenland, and series creator Chris Carter also cited John W. Campbell's 1938 novella Who Goes There?, the inspiration for the films The Thing from Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982), as an influence. Although the producers thought that "Ice" would save money by being shot in a single location, it ended up exceeding its own production budget. Plot A mass murder–suicide occurs among a team of geophysicists at an outpost in Icy Cape, Alaska. FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) head for the outpost, accompanied by physician Dr. Hodge (Xander Berkeley); toxicologist Dr. Da Silva (Felicity Huffman); geologist Dr. Murphy (Steve Hytner); and Bear (Jeff Kober), their pilot. Along with the scientists' bodies the group finds a dog, which attacks Mulder and Bear. Scully notices black nodules on its skin and suspects that it may be infected with bubonic plague; she also notices a rash on its neck and movement beneath its skin. Although Bear, who was bitten by the dog, becomes ill and develops similar nodules on his body, autopsies reveal no such nodules on the bodies of the scientists.