“Triangle” – Season 6 Ep. 3

Mulder: Hey, Scully.

Scully: Yes?

Mulder: I love you.

Scully: Oh, brother…

Written by: Chris Carter

Directed by: Chris Carter

Original Air Date: November 22nd, 1998

Principal Setting: Bermuda Triangle, Atlantic Ocean

Episode Summary:

Mulder goes in search of the Queen Anne, the famous British luxury liner, that mysteriously disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle in 1939. After being shipwrecked, he gets pulled aboard and sent back to the Queen Anne by a crew that believes they are still in 1939. Meanwhile, at the FBI, Scully tries to get the Lone Gunmen and Skinner to help her locate the lost Mulder. All the main characters play a very interesting role in this alternate reality that leads Mulder to many near death experiences by the hand of the Nazis.

Personal Commentary:

I could write an entire blog post on how amazing the camera work is in this episode with the one take technique that follows behind the actors for several minutes at a time. It feels like a mini-movie and it really immerses you in the story. Before Birdman, there was “Triangle” :).

The episode itself is just so well acted as everyone is playing an alternate character, but all similar to the characters they play on the show. It felt a lot like Indiana Jones with the Nazis and it being set in 1939. I love the moment Mulder and the character Gillian Anderson is playing kiss after Mulder realizes this is not reality. I love how Skinner helps them get away from the Nazis like he helps them get out of binds on the show. Also, CSM plays a fantastic villainous Nazi. Such a gem of an episode that is in my top 10 favorite episodes.

Episode Grade: A+

Featured Video:

Fun Facts:

So many interesting facts on this one!

• Many of the costumes used in this episode were costumes from Titantic borrowed by the Fox wardrobe department.
• Toward the end of the whole sequence with Scully in the beginning trying to find information on where Mulder is, she is running out of Fowley and Spender’s office and going around the corner toward the elevator. She slips and almost falls. It’s quite obvious, you can hear her slip and also see Gillian Anderson’s arm shoot out to catch herself. She’s quite lucky that she didn’t fall because if she had, since they filmed the entire scene in real time, they would have had to start back at the very beginning of the scene and do it all over again.
• The first four acts of this episode are each comprised of one very long, continuous shot (called a one-off) and the fifth is split between two series of one-offs, employing a split-screen. Such long one-offs are very difficult, considering an entire set must be constructed, all the lines must be said correctly, and the camera movements must be continuous (and usually handheld). Some cuts are hidden in whip-pans and when the screen goes dark. Chris Carter intended this as an homage to the Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller Rope, which used a similar technique.
• Mulder tells the Captain that the world in 1998 is at peace. He says that there’s a little trouble at the White House, but that it will “blow over, so to speak.” Mulder is referencing the Monica Lewinski scandal.
• In Season 5 “The X-Files” began filming in 1.78:1 wide-screen, the now-common ratio for TV programs. However, for approximately ten minutes the ratio switches to approximately 2.20:1, which is almost the ratio of most standard action films. This was done in order to fit more action into those scenes.
• Most of the interior ship scenes were filmed aboard the Queen Mary: the former British ocean liner built in Scotland that entered service in 1936 and which, since the late 1960s, has been permanently moored in Long Beach Harbor as a museum and hotel.The plot topics of troops and ghosts also extend to the Queen Mary’s history. The actual ship was used as a troop transport during World War II and (since its use as a hotel/museum) has become notorious as a haunted ship with several paranormal-themed tours being offered by its operators.
• The alternate version of Scully is identified as an OSS agent, but the OSS did not exist in 1939. (OSS being the precursor to the CIA)
• Most of the Nazies are played by real Germans in order to sound more real when they speak. Skinner, as well, hasn’t any problem speaking German due to his spending some time in Germany when he was a child.
• Near the end, Mulder and alternate Scully enter and run down a hallway and are stopped by a Nazi. The scene was shot aboard the Queen Mary and the hallway they are in runs down the spine of the ship almost from end-to-end. While the ship is at dock, this hallway is curved upwards at the front and back, because the ship was designed to flex a considerable amount while on the open water. While the ship was in use, children used to sit at either end of the hallway and wait for the middle of the ship to flex upwards, turning the hallway from an elongated U shape into a straight flat line. When this happened, the children at the ends of that hallway would be able to see each other briefly before the ship flexed downward again.
• This episode we see the first of 4 on-screen kisses between Mulder and Scully, although in this case Scully is an alternate version of herself.
• All the characters in their alternative version of 1939 are similar in their loyalties to what we know about them in 1998: the bad guys are the nazies (CSM, Spender and Skinner, who from the shadows helps Mulder and Scully), Kerns is an instrument of the bad guys, his secretary is an ornament and Scully is the good girl who helps Mulder.

Faces You May Recognize:

Nobody recognizable that we haven’t seen before in this one.