Christmas Carol
Nitcentral's Bulletin Brash Reflections: XFiles: Season Five: Christmas Carol
Agent Dana Scully and her mom are spending Christmas at her brother’s home. Scully receives a mysterious phone call that leads her to the Sim residence. Roberta Sim is dead, in what looks like a suicide. Mrs. Sim had a three-year old adopted child, Emily. Emily has severe anemia and she is the subject of clinical trials supervised by a Dr. Calderon.

An autopsy confirms that Mrs. Sim’s death was not a suicide. Marshall Sim, her husband, is arrested for murder. Scully feels a bond with Emily and even gives the little girl her cross necklace. At first, Scully suspects that Emily could be the biological child of her late sister, Melissa (who died in “Paper Clip”). A preliminary test seems to confirm it. Mr. Sim confesses to murder, but is found dead in his jail cell.

Scully petitions for Emily’s custody. At first her application is denied. However, the social worker in charge agrees to re-review the application when Scully pleads her case. On Christmas Day, while opening presents with her family, Scully receives test results. She discovers that she, and not Melissa, is Emily’s mother.

(synopsis written by Jo-Hanna Goettsche)
By Jack B. on Monday, December 14, 1998 - 4:37 pm:

Ha! First post, as some would say. I'm just here because there should be a wave of comments after it shows next week.

By Jack B. on Saturday, December 19, 1998 - 11:01 am:

At least, I hope there will be a flood of posts. I've been looking at the DS9 board (because DS9 has been reruns for the past couple of weeks) and guess what? No flood.

By Vince Hamilton on Sunday, December 20, 1998 - 11:16 pm:

Didn't Scully get her cross necklace some other way. I'm almost certain it wasn't at Christmas; was it her 16th birthday or something like that?

And Mulder certainly had a major BIMOL in this one, all he said was "Hello? Hello?".

Nice episode overall though. It felt almost new after not having seen it for a whole year.

By K.n.d. on Monday, December 21, 1998 - 4:05 am:

I think that bit about the cross has already been nitted. This ep was really good, and
this time I managed to get it on tape. :-) If I'd of been Scully, I would have shot my
brother at several points during the course of this ep. Sure, *some* of his points were
valid, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't have shot him. Insensitive je

By Omer on Tuesday, December 22, 1998 - 12:06 pm:

I didn't like this one. It was too much Melrose Place. But it was fun seeing Mellissa again, Melinda Mcgrew is one hell of an actress

Nits - well since when can Ghost talk on the phone?

By J. Goettsche on Tuesday, December 22, 1998 - 8:19 pm:

If I had been in Scully's cute little pumps, I would have given Tara Scully the dirtiest of dirty looks. It is insensitive of Tara to gush about the joys of impending motherhood to her single and childless (well, until the end of the episode) sister-in-law. Tara and Bill Jr. deserve each other.

Then again, if I had been Scully, I would have been too polite to say anything.

By The Twelfth Man on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 9:44 am:

But at the point tht she was gushing, neither Tara nor Mom Scully knew that Dana was permanently infertile.

-12-

By J. Goettsche on Wednesday, December 23, 1998 - 6:24 pm:

Ah, Twelfth Man, it appears I took Tara's speech on how she felt that her life was a prelude to her baby personally. A little bit too personally, I am willing to admit.

I will go make myself some nice herbal tea and remind myself not to take TV shows (even good TV shows) too seriously.

Wait a minute...there's no herbal tea in the house. AAARGH!

By K.n.d. on Thursday, December 24, 1998 - 3:52 am:

I don't think anyone bothered to tell Tara. I think she was trying to get Scully's
bioclock to tick loudly, to make her start looking at men while thinking, "Now, he
would make a good father..." In short, she was playing matchmaker!
I still would have become KickButt!Scully.

Happy Holiday

By K.n.d. on Thursday, February 18, 1999 - 5:26 pm:

BTW, according to Cinescapes yearbook, the reason that DD had a BIMOL was that he
was busy promoting 'Playing God' so he asked for a small role. Interesting that people
are drawing major conclusions for this being a Scully-solo, when it was caused by
mere scheduling...

By Lee Jamilkowski on Sunday, April 23, 2000 - 9:58 pm:

I just watched the episode again and noticed that in the scene where the father is hung (hanged?) It looks like they didn't carefully cover up Gillian's birthmark in that scene... it clearly shows up.

By Chris Thomas on Monday, April 24, 2000 - 12:13 am:

Some episodes tend to disguise it; some don't. (We are talking about the one on her face, above her lip, aren't we?)

By John-Boy on Sunday, June 12, 2005 - 7:31 am:

Scullys brother is a real jerk!

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