Max (The X-Files)

Plot

Max Fenig, a NICAP member repeatedly abducted by aliens, is found dead among victims of an airplane crash. Investigating, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully learn the plane crashed after being intercepted by a military jet and possibly an alien spacecraft. Mulder dives to the bottom of Great Sacandaga Lake to find evidence of such a craft, while Scully is ambushed by an assassin seeking to kill a military witness, leading to her colleague Pendrell being shot.

Mulder is caught by commandos after swimming to shore. In Washington, Scully tends to the critically wounded Pendrell as Scott Garrett, a Man in Black, escapes. Assistant Director Walter Skinner tells Scully that orders to protect Frisch have been countermanded and Frisch is being arrested for providing false testimony. Scully releases Mulder and explains the official story: Frisch and Gonzales caused the crash by mistakenly vectoring a military fighter craft with the plane, and Frisch lied to cover it up.

Mulder is skeptical, believing the crashed UFO he found underwater was involved. Scully reveals that Sharon is not Max's sister but an unemployed aeronautical engineer who met Max in a mental institution, and that Pendrell died from his wounds. Mulder and Scully watch a tape in Max's trailer where he talks about finding proof of alien existence. The military recovers the crashed UFO and an alien body.

Mulder tells investigator Millar his belief: Max boarded the plane with proof of alien life, a UFO stopped the plane and abducted him, then a military aircraft struck, causing both the UFO and plane to crash.

Production

The writers decided to kill off agent Pendrell in this episode; actor Brendan Beiser had portrayed the character in eight other episodes, first appearing in the third season episode "Nisei". Assistant director Val Steffof was cast as a bartender after telling director Kim Manners he could act. The song "Unmarked Helicopters" by Soul Coughing plays in Max Fenig's trailer; it also appeared on the 1996 compilation album Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by The X-Files.

The first scene was shot in a small tank across the street from North Shore Studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, using wide-angle lenses to make the actors appear to cover more distance than the 10 to 12 feet they actually swam. On the set of the following scene where Mulder reaches shore, it was raining and very cold, and Duchovny struggled to run from the actors playing his pursuers. The alien abduction scene took several days to film; internal cockpit shots were filmed in a real flight simulator, separate from the airplane set.

Exterior scenes were filmed at Vancouver International Airport. Executive producer John Shiban wrote a speech for Garrett inspired by Orson Welles in The Third Man. The scenes of the airplane's final moments included eighty extras, some as young as four years old, though younger children were represented by dolls as a safety precaution. Max's abduction scene, where he is levitated through an airplane door, was achieved by pulling actor Scott Bellis out of the airplane rig with a harness; additional coverage used a stuntman pulled out harder.

Broadcast and reception

"Max" premiered on Fox on March 23, 1997, and first aired in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on January 21, 1998. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.6 with an 18 share, and was watched by 18.34 million viewers during its original broadcast. Critical reception was mixed to positive. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club rated the episode an A−, unconvinced that the story merited two parts but praising the character of Fenig as a paean to lives lost and a story about someone driven mad by visions.

Paula Vitaris of Cinefantastique rated it one-and-a-half stars out of four, praising visual effects but feeling the story would have worked better as a taut one-hour episode and criticizing the final act as out and out bad writing. Robert Shearman, in his book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode four stars out of five, describing it as tightly, satisfying, witty and touching, and calling the two-part arc the most satisfying event multi-parter the series had done.