The creators did a reasonable job making it look like the street scenes, filmed in L.A. , look like Washington DC. Street signs were correct, the Bureau is in the vicinity of the corner of 8th and E Street in Northwest Washington. In an early scene, right after Mulder passes by the car and the girl says "he never did that before", there is a shot from her viewpoint thru the windshield of Mulder crossing the street. In the distance, down the street, you can clearly see what I believe is the Los Angeles City Hall building. You know, the one the Martians blew up in the movie version of "War Of The Worlds"!!! A goof, or a joke?

Instead of muttering "he's got a bomb" to himself, couldn't Mulder have shot Bernard in the head? Granted, he could have missed and hit the dynamite, but he was going to set it off anyway.

On the previous post, I was referring to the second to last repeat of the loop.

So, do you think whoever wrote this one rented Groundhog Day recently? Or perhaps saw that Star Trek episode where they relive the destruction of the Enterprise again and again?

Okay, first things first, why the hell doesn't Mulder have Direct Deposit? I work for the government and it's all but mandatory.

Is Skinner their boss again? Good. That other guy had all the character of a cardboard box.

Mulder's waterbed was leaking from the top. Get up off it and the leak stops without the pressure to drive the water out.

When Pam finally convinces Mulder not to go into the bank, why doesn't she stop Scully when she goes in looking for him?

And did anyone else spend half the episode going "shoot him!"?

Good catch, Jared. Took my best nit right away from me. :-)

Ill take it as an unsolicited further insight into Fox Mulder's personality that, not only did he keep the waterbed his alter ego got in "Dreamland", but he kept the ceiling mirror as well.

I don't think government employees get paid on Monday. I once spent a few months under the U.S. Government's employ(but I'll deny it in public), and I remember getting those teensy little checks on Thursdays.

In several of the iterations, we see Bernard's girlfriend predicting what people will say. Later, though, she admits that "Little details, they change," so shouldn't she have noticed at least some of her guesses being off the mark sometimes?

As for the plot, yes, blatantly stolen from "Groundhog Day" and ST-TNG's "Cause and Effect". And why do I have the feeling we'll see it reused yet again someday? ;-)

Pam should have been able to stop this pretty easily. Here's a sampling of ideas, I'm sure there are more.

Why didn't drugging Bernard's coffee work? Shouldn't it have at least delayed him a lot?

What about hiding his gun or dynamite?

Why didn't calling the police work? Don't they usually take bomb threats seriously?

Why didn't she tell Mulder that Bernard had a bomb?

---------

On an unrelated note, what was it that went so terribly wrong that time had to repeat itself? Was it that M & S died?

Of course, this episode bears a striking resemblance to the Star Trek TNG episode "Cause and Effect."

On that last loop when Mulder realized that Benard had a bomb, who here could not resist the temptation to say "come on Mulder say it so everyone else can hear." I espiecally liked how in every loop there was a different variable. We finally get to see his bedroom. Just where did he get that waterbed?

I can't believe I got on so early. Aren't temporal anomalies fun? And they are so difficult to nitpick.

Just a couple of comments, no nits.

Hey, everybody he DOES have a bedroom! The waterbed is one thing,... mirrors on the ceiling? How cliche!

Scully wonders when he got a waterbed. Does she know this is new because of past conversations or has she been in his bedroom before to know otherwise? Hmmmmm.....

Star Trek, The Next Generation: Cause and Effect,... or "Groundhog Day." In other words, it's been done, but it's fun to watch in a different venue.

Actually I do have a nit. I'm either a light sleeper or Mulder is a heavy one. If I was sleeping in a pool of water, I would have woken up a long time ago. It was a cute bit but a bit unrealistic.

Who else figured out after Pam had her first real on-screen talk with Mulder that he and Scully weren't the variables, but SHE was. She really wasn't the variable, she was the constant, the anchor holding it all together. Eliminate the anchor and the ship sails away.

Last week: Leviathon
This week: Groundhog Day
Next week: ?????

He got the waterbed in dreamland, where he and the other guy switched bodies. I liked how he kept avoiding the topic of how he got it.

And yes definitly the plot was basically stollen from "cause and effect" and "goundhog day". the "Only one person remembers it and can fix it" being from groundhog day and the "everyone dies" being from cause and effect.

In the loop where Mulder shoots him, why did he just stand there while he blew up the bomb saying 'blowup blowup' (or whatever he said), he should have shot him dead there before he could detonate the bomb!

Otherwise cool episode though, even if it 'borrowed' cool but used plot elements from other series.

The episode's still running but thanks to the commercial break, I thought of checking in here ... wow, lots of comments already.

Nice that Mulder kept the waterbed w/ ceiling mirror that alt-Mulder of Dreamland got. Apparently he kept it. And he didn't even try to find out where it came from. It's a "gift maybe"? Well, I suppose either he didn't tell his landlord about the waterbed or there's no waterbed insurance requirement in his place. I think there's waterbed insurance where I'm at.

I'm wondering why the elec. cord didn't spark with water aimed at it.

Ok, be right back.

I'm back again.

Actually Chris, I think at that point Mulder was trying to "record" onto his subconscious the words "He's got a bomb" by repeating it over and over again so the next iteration, he'd remember as a deja vu thing. They got it right the 52nd time I see. ;-)

Nice episode. Looking forward to next week ... M&S as Rob and Laura I believe.

Tonight: GROUNDHOG DAY AFTERNOON! See you after the episode's over.

Doesn't Scully's recent experience in "Tithonus" suggest clearly that fate DOES exist? That prostitute certainly seemed fated to die, somehow.

I wonder why Pam never tried other methods, such as convincing the teller not to sound the alarm. After all, that convinced him to blow the place more than anything. Anyway, aren't you supposed to wait till after the robbery's over to sound the alarm?

Scully says Pam approached her "not ten minutes ago". Shouldn't she have been in the office at that time? It must have been within the last 3-5 minutes.

So Scully knows Mulder's PIN? He sure does trust her.

Ok True this episode was taken from several other movies and films. But everyone seems to be thinking "Cause and Effect" or Groundhog day but to be fair the writer could have been thinking something else

Yeah, Richie? Like where? Seems to me there are only two major influences for this ep.

Does anyone know who played Pam? Carrie Hamilton, Carol Burnett's daughter.

Also, how do you guys learn the names of the eps? They're not in the openings, like with Trek, say, so I sometimes wonder how anyone knows the eps names.

Rodnberry, they are listed at the Official Website, which I think is at www.x-files.com, or something like that.

This episode was pretty good. All actors played their parts well. I guess Spender is no longer with the FBI (or dead) because he wasn't at the meeting.

My favorite part was the second loop, and noticing the little details that changed. The best detail was Bernard writing "THIS IS A HOLD-UP" instead of "THIS IS A ROBBERY".

Why didn't the girl just kill Bernard? Perhaps she just couldn't do it, or didn't have the means.

The episode never explains why there was a time loop, so obviously (a) There was no time loop. Mulder is dreaming; (b) There was no time loop. The girl is insane, and Mulder has a psychic moment; (c) The time loop is a government experiment; (d) Some higher power wanted to make sure the girl dies, and Bernard is arrested; or (e)--the most plausible. This is an example of what Chris Carter does to scripts that are less than satisfactory. He sends them back over and over...

That part where Mulder kept remindimg himself that Benard had a bomb made me think of in cause and effect where the constant of three kept popping up.

I think Bernard's girlfriend was wrong when she assumed that Mulder dying was what went wrong. Things seemed to get unstuck when she died.

True story from the Hoover Era: One summer in Texas an FBI agent went into a bank at lunchtime to deposit his paycheck. When the man in front of him got to the teller the man pulled out a gun and said "This is a stick-up!" The agent pulled out his gun and arrested the man on the spot without incident. From this incident the agent received both a commendation and a reprimand. The commendation was for the arrest. The reprimand was for making the arrest while not in full uniform. The agent had left his hat in the car when he went into the bank!

Have you ever heard of a short story and movie called 12:01 (I think that was it)? Same plot again.

Murray, Pam does say she "tried everyone else." Might that mean she tried to talk to the teller about not setting off the alarm?

Although how effective, really, do you think that'd be: "Hey, my boyfriend wants to rob the bank and kill everyone. Be a dear and don't try to alert the cops, would you?"

I think it'd be a tough sell.

I thought this was an OK episode.

I've had quite a few Mondays like Mulder had, execpt for the getting shot part.

The Time Loop started to wear a little thin on me after the second time around.

This episode had a good plot and did a good job at time loop, but I have to say Groundhog Day did a better job a making each loop entertaining.

I also wondered why they didn't shoot Dogboy once he opened his coat. It seems a little ovious to me.

As for government paychecks. My dad works for the US NPS (National Park Service) he direct deposits his checks because if he didn't they would be weeks late if he didn't. I know when I worked for the NPS my checks were always late.

ANP

I couldn't really find that many things wrong with this episode, it was pretty good.
1. I kind of wanted an explanation for this whole thing, what caused this riff in the space-time continuum?
2. What was this meeting about? Random Boring Statistic Providing Guy #1 was talking about homicide rates rising and he kept mentioning the DoJ, were Mulder and Scully actually needed in this meeting? What was Mulder's report goiong to be about? Is he going to provide the death rate caused by unexplained activity?

What I kept thinking about were all the relived days that we didn't see, where little things change:
-Scully brings the wrong woman in the bank
-Bernard actually gets knocked down by the courier
-Pam tries to stop Mulder by seducing him, and so on...

Andrew--I guess you haven't been to a lot of meetings. I often get invited to meetings that include lots of boring, irrelevant information. Besides, the point of the statistic geek's speech was to point out that you can't predict the future because of statistical anomolies. This was a metaphor for the times when M&S couldn't stop the bomb, even though there were small changes each time in the course of events.

I figured Mulder didn't have direct deposit because he's a suspicious guy who wants to decrease his exposure to government spying (i.e., access to his bank account). Direct deposit is involuntary.

S. Donaldson--that was the point; the variable wasn't Mulder or Scully, it was Pam. She said she had tried everyone else (remember, she only badgered Skinner in the beginning).

Amos--you don't shoot a man wearing explosives because he might have it wired to a dead-man's switch (i.e., it'll explode if he dies). Like a good FBI agent, M&S tried to control the situation with a minimum of fatalities, Bernard included.

I suspect most of Pam's warnings went unheeded because everyone thought she was crazy. Just look at her: emaciated, stringy hair, sunken eyes, disjointed conversation. She looked like a heroin addict. Even "I Want to Believe" Mulder had a hard time understanding.

How did Pam find time to get on the tour of the FBI and see Scully? From the time Bernard leaves her in the car to the point Bernard enters the bank can't be more than a half hour, 45 minutes. She'd have to walk to the FBI building, sign up for a tour, then skip out and find Scully. Also, Scully would have to take the elevator down to Fox's office, talk, then Mulder goes up, walks to the bank, and then wait in line until Bernard snaps. Pretty tight timing.

Murray--Scully didn't need Mulder's PIN to make a deposit. She would have to use the ATM, but she was standing in the teller line.

My favorite part was Scully's reaction everytime when Mulder said he had a waterbed.

I almost thought the waterbed had something to do with the temporal anomaly, seeing as it's the result of another temporal anomaly (see "Dreamland" pts 1&2).

Why, when Scully got a recording on Mulder's cell phone number, didn't she call his home number?

Shirlyn--when the water first landed on the outlet, it must have tripped the breaker. That's why there were no sparks.

Mike K.
Yeah, I know it would trip the breaker, but at least a little spark. I had a leak on the ceiling once and that caused a nasty spark/burn on my outlet before I was left in the dark.

You're absolutely right. Also, the zzzt!spark noise should have woken up Mulder, unless he really is a VERY heavy sleeper.

Other people have referred to this, but Mulder should have used direct deposit.

I find it implausible that the bank would have only one ATM. Also, maybe the FBI building has an ATM where Mulder could deposit his paycheck.

I have a question for persons familiar with Washington, D.C. Is the Capitol building visible from the intersection of 8th and E Streets?

If Morris in Mulder's body purchased the waterbed, wouldn't the transaction show up on Mulder's checking account or credit card statement?

Why would Mulder and Scully be expected to attend that particular meeting? Also, the actor running the meeting looked very much like Sebastian (A.K.A. Jack the Ripper)on Babylon 5.

It is also implausible that the robbery story would be on the front page of the newspaper or that Pam's picture would be printed. More likely, the robbery story would appear in the local or metropolitan section of the paper.

This also brings to mind perhaps why Mulder didn't sleep in his bed to begin with besides the obvious storage problem, btw, what did he do with all those boxes of stuff?
It looks like he's going to stop sleeping in his bed from now on....

Hans, I think that Morris (alt-Mulder) either got the waterbed for "free" by showing off his FBI badge (I noted his apparent joy in getting good service with that in Dreamland) or he charged it to his own account. I think that the body switch didn't make him able to sign "Fox Mulder" accurately. And even if he could copy the siggy on Mulder's credit card, I think he still charged it to Morris' account thinking that he'll let Mulder-as-Morris worry about the bill. ;-)

There is a slight problem with your theory, Shirlyn. alt-Mulder would have to have his credit card or a check to buy the waterbed. However, If he paid cash, it works. Of course, Mulder would hvae to keep large amounts of cash lieing around his apartment. But, he is parsnoid enough to do that.

Hans--my bank has only one ATM.

As to the meeting, this could have been a task force that Skinner assigned M&S to. I'm sure they have other FBI duties besides the X-Files.

I always thought fake Mulder from Dreamland just trashed all the boxes. Most of them were porn, anyway.

Charles, good catch. But, if he knew his credit card number by heart (incl. exp. date), he could've done on-line shopping eh? ;-) I know, I'm stretching it. Just having fun with the idea.

Here's for my first posting.

As a DC resident, I am happy with the improved DC scenes (i.e. DC police cars). Nevertheless, the street signs for 8th and E should say NW on them. As to Hans's question on seeing the capitol, that's a no go. Nevertheless, I feel a need to visit that corner to see what the area actually looks like.

I do agree with Hans's other nit about Pam on the front page only if, which is most likely, Mulder was reading the Washington Post. It would be more likely to happen if Mulder gets some other DC area paper, which is also possible.

I agree Richie. Mulder actually stated the premise that the writers were trying to portray: that even if you could rewind a day, who's to say that it wouldn't turn out the same? This is what happened until Pam was able to make it turn out different because she was the only one who knew what happened.

Groundhog Day's premise was similar in that Bill Murray's character had to learn to be a better person before the rewinding ended.

And speaking of Groundhogs Day, I was wondering why Pam stayed around the bank and wallowed every day. Why not go do stuff you've always wanted to do like Bill Murray? She knows the people will come back the next day. They are not really dead. This would probably get old after a while, but it seems like all she ever did was try to stop the explosion.

Also, if little things could change, it seems a little unreasonable that the paper boy would deliver Mulder's paper at the same exact time every day.

At one point, Scully describes Pam to Mulder as thin, 5'8", with green eyes and dyed hair. While that was a thorough description, it might have been better to mention hair color, or length. I had this vision of Mulder asking women on the street, "Excuse me, ma'am, is your hair dyed?"

Murray, I saw an episode of Showtime's "30 Minute Movie," and it was of "12:01," starring Kurtwood Smith, the father on "That '70's Show." Good episode.

BTW, Richie, I stand corrected here. That minimovie could've also been an influence on this ep.

I suppose it is possible that Morris in Mulder's body used Morris' credit card number to buy the waterbed. However, Morris (returned to his own body) would have some explaining to do to his wife.

I wonder how Assistant Director Skinner became apprised that Mulder and Scully might be hostages in the bank.

To Rick Nunes:

A comment on the paper being delivered at the same time every day. Yeah, I agree highly unlikely, but did you notice that sometimes the paper deliverer was delivering walking to the camera and sometimes away from the camera? I thought that was interesting.

Come to think of it, this episode represents Mulder's great achievement ever. Aliens are nothing compared to this. Think about it... time was repeating, presumably, all time everywhere! Without Mulder, the universe is completely doomed to repeat the same few hours forever!

I wonder if at times we all experince time loops, cuz I sure get these little deja vu's every now and then, a couple times which were really powerful ones.

*sings* "Tell me why / I don't like Mondays..."

When watching a tape of the episode, I did notice that Skinner's secretary called him out of the meeting. That doesn't explain for me, however, how the secretary knew or might have known something was wrong at the bank.

OK, everyone is asking "what caused the time loop"? In "Cause and Effect", it was a temporal rift blah blah technobabble. Begin theory:

The Almighty Higher Power (God, if you prefer), realized that this incident in the bank shouldn't have happened. Bernard thwarted Fate, perhaps Pam should have died at an earlier date or some such, and the result (the death of a certain person, not neccessarily M&S) was so contrary to the Divine Plan that God(?) gave everybody a chance to set it right. Pam was the focal point of this disturbance; by eliminating her, things went back to As They Should Be.

P.S. to Anonymous: You like The Boomtown Rats? Coolies!

Mulder must have more than one watch. The watch he wears in this episode is different from the one he wears in "Arcadia."

Someone asked above, what other show besides Star Trek and Groundhog Day had this copied, well Xena already has an episode like this.

Just an observation, not a nitpick. Was I the only person who noticed that Pam's boyfriend was played by Darren E. Barrows, who played the leather-jacket-clad native american filmmaker in "Northern Exposure"? I totally loved Northern Exposure... same goes for Groundhog Day.

Way back to Mandy's Feb 28 1999.

Yeah. This ep is a cross between the two. You have Groundhog Day with Pam being aware of the repetition. You have Cause And Effect(TNG) with everyone else, and with Mulder sending the next iteration of himself a message with the "he's got a bomb" muttering.

And, of course, Stargate SG-1 did "Groundhog Day" with their episode "Window of Opportunity".

Someone asked why didn't Pam do some things within each loop, like Bill Murry's character did in "Groundhog Day". I thought she just wasn't that type of person. O'Neil's character was, and I guess Teal'c in some way since he followed along probably took the opptunity, but Pam was just someone who just got depressed about the whole situation.

I was also wondering why was this happening to Pam? Someone else here mentioned that her death was a factor to stop the loop. The thing is, I still have a hard time believing that was why the loop was occuring to her in the first place. This loop seemed like a living hell for Pam. What did she do to deserve it? Bernard was the cause of hurting people, not her. She wasn't even an accomplice. It could be even said that she still didn't have a good idea that her boyfriend was robbing the bank, just that the bank explodes at the end. She could have just found out when Scully brought her in in the last loop. Maulder tells Bernard that he was responsible for causing the loop to Pam. I am wondering what sort of thought provoking significance should be assumed here about Bernard causing the loop to Pam? Why was this loop happening to Pam, and why was it suppose to be her death to stop it? It never explains it, and I didn't see any clues or hints that would.

Maybe it's Pam's death that stops Bernard killing himself, and Bernard's the centre of the time loop. Maybe he gets arrested, goes to jail, does his time where he agonises over Pam's death, comes out a reformed character, becomes a motivational speaker, writes a best-selling book, the majority of the profits of which he donates to charity and so on, and all that means someone else in the future does something important rather than becoming a criminal themselves.

Mulder's waterbed. I'm wondering if Morris-Mulder bought it with Mulder's credit card, but when time rewound at the end of Dreamland, Mulder's card was never charged with the bed, but the bed stayed behind (same as the fused coins) - although that would probably require a lot of influence from the pixies of out-there.

And surely the police would start off by trying to get the robber to surrender, using megaphones, or trying to call him - just like Bernard thought.
Guess it was just his luck that the police officer in charge was a gung-ho type that wants his SWAT guys to grab the glory immediately, and Skinner obviously couldn't dissuade him from that course of action.

Not X-Files related, but...

In "Breaking Bad", Gus leaves money for his granddaughter in safe deposit box at... Craddock Marine Bank.

Nice easter egg by Vince Gilligan.

Time in Dreamland was not undone. "Lost Time" happened. Also, the way Mulder and Morris looked after the rubber band sprang back showed recognition to each other in both's faces. The reason Scully's termination likely didn't happen is that CSM made sure any documentation, etc. was undone as it was in their best interest. Scully is skeptical enough to discredit she experienced "lost time" while Mulder likely knew (the next question would be why he chose for once to keep his mouth shut for once? :P ). But it was established at the end of Dreamland Mulder noticed the changes in his apartment and thus that's why we see the waterbed again. It happened.