This is one of my favorite episodes, and defnetly the best ep of the first season.

Nits - why wasn't the driver f the truck armed with anything more then a Shot gun, when ALIENS were involved?

I was wondering. Langly looks an awful lot like Garth from "Wayne's World". Are they played by the same actor?

Email him and ask about it - deanh@deanx.com

Garth is played by Dana Carvey, of SNL fame. Carvey has said this himself in the "SNL Book". (also Dean Haglund was never a SNL regular).

In the book, the Chief lists the date as "spring training" 1994 based on Deep Throat's line about pitchers and catchers reporting. While the date is technically accurate, it can be pigeon-holed down to probably around mid-February, as pitchers and catchers report several weeks before the rest of the players.

Wouldn't that be under "Nitpicking the Nitpickers' Guides"?

Where is that? I know that the other boards have one specifically for the book about their show, but I didn't notice one for the X-Files.

Wow, this is quite the episode for X-Files/Stargate actors! Nearly everyone in this episode would later appear on Stargate.
-The ticket agent at Dulles was played by Ellie Harvie, who later went on to play Dr. Lindsey Novak, the hiccuping engineer, on Stargate SG1 and Atlantis.
-The truck driver Ranheim (aka Frank Druce) was played by Peter LaCroix, who appeared twice on Stargate SG1, most memorably as the Ashrak assassin sent to kill Jolinar the Tok'Ra, who happened to be possessing Sam Carter at the time. -Since this is his first time appearing on X-Files, I'll list him here; Bruce Harwood appears as John Fitzgerald Byers, the least odd of the Lone Gunmen. He would later play Dr. Osbourne in the SG1 episode "Frozen", which had SG1 trapped in an icy research facility.
-Chief Rivers in this episode was played by Allan Lysell, who would return as Able Gardner in the X-Files episode "End Game" as well as playing Del Tynan in the SG1 episode "Space Race."
-We've also got Roger R. Cross playing Officer Green. He would go on to play Lieutenant (later Captain) Connor in two episodes of SG1, "The First Commandment" and "Spirits" as well as returning to the X-Files three more times, each time as a different character.

The fake identity that Mulder uses to get into the power facility is Tom Braidwood, the actor who plays Frohike as well as an assistant director on many X-Files episodes.

When Rannheim/Druse is first "attacked" by the UFO at the episode's beginning, his truck's AM/FM radio starts acting up. A view of the radio shows the device rapidly scanning through the commercial FM frequencies. But Rannheim had been listening to an AM station, not FM, when the interference began. The radio should have been scanning through the AM frequencies.

Fairly early on, Scully tells Mulder that she learned that the name Rannheim is a fake, that the trucker's real name is Frank Druse. Yet for the rest of the episode, both continue to refer to him as Rannheim. Why?

When Deep Throat tells Mulder that "they" can still hear him, Mulder ransacks his apartment till he finds a bug inside an electrical box. When Scully arrives, she & Mulder act out a fake script to fool whoever's listening into thinking that the agents have decided to give up the pursuit of the E.B.E.

First off, if the bug is sensitive enough to pick up conversations through a wall plate, those listening must have heard Mulder tearing his place apart. They then would have heard him unscrewing the wall plate (since it's right on top of the bug, it would have been quite audible), and then...nothing. Scully comes in, there are long awkward pauses (while they communicate by pen & paper), and then the fake conversation. If these guys are surveillance experts, it seems impossible that they wouldn't twig to the fact that Mulder's on to them. Second, why don't they bug Mulder's office? That's where all the really juicy stuff goes down.

Also, while I'm on the subject of Deep Throat's people being experts, why was the fake photograph so easily debunked? If it was "prepared by the very best," shouldn't the FBI's people have a hard, if not impossible, time of finding anything wrong with it?

Omer: Nits - why wasn't the driver f the truck armed with anything more then a Shot gun, when ALIENS were involved?
That's not really a nit but it is a valid question. Perhaps a shotgun has shown to be the most effective against aliens, or the shells (or gun itself) he used was modified in some way to make it more effective.

GL: I was wondering. Langly looks an awful lot like Garth from "Wayne's World". Are they played by the same actor?
Although I'm sure you've found this out by now no, Langly is not played by Dana Carvey.

ScottN: Wouldn't that be under "Nitpicking the Nitpickers' Guides"?
Probably but like MikeC I too haven't spotted a NtNG thread for the X-Files

Why was nothing ever done about the radioactive sample Mulder took from initial semi incident? I took that scene to mean that it was actual alien tissue and for one Mulder puts it in a plastic evidence bag, even though it was radioactive, but secondly I don't believe it was even brought up again.

After everything that goes on in this ep Deep Throat still seems surprised that Mulder doesn't trust him. For example at the end when Mulder is trying to look into that chamber and DT stops him saying "you won't find what you're looking for" or somesuch. He claims that the alien is dead, implying that there's a corpse in there, but the dang thing is empty!