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Kill Switch (The X-Files)

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"},"season_article":{"wt":"The X-Files season 5"},"episode_list":{"wt":"List of The X-Files episodes"},"prev":{"wt":"[[Chinga (The X-Files)|Chinga]]"},"next":{"wt":"[[Bad Blood (The X-Files)|Bad Blood]]"}},"i":0}}]}'>11th episode of the 5th season of The X-Files<br>"Kill Switch "The X-Files episodeA virtual Dana Scully attacks a nurse in Fox Mulder's AI-controlled reverie.<br>Episode number"}]]}'>no.Season 5<br>Episode 11Directed byRob BowmanWritten by<br>William Gibson

Tom Maddox

Production code5X11Original air dateFebruary 15, 1998 (1998-02-15)Running time45 minutesGuest appearances<br>Bruce Harwood as John Fitzgerald Byers

Dean Haglund as Richard Langly

Tom Braidwood as Melvin Frohike

Patrick Keating as Donald Gelman

Peter Williams as Jackson

Rob Daprocida as Bunny

Jerry Schram as Gerald Boyce

Dan Weber as Charles Figgis

Kristin Lehman as Esther Nairn

Kate Luyben as Nurse Nancy

Stephen Collins as Cyril Pollard

Steve Griffith as Paramedic

Ted Cole as 2nd Paramedic[1]

Episode chronology

← Previous<br>"Chinga"<br>Next  →<br>"Bad Blood"<br>The X-Files season 5List of episodes<br>"Kill Switch " is the eleventh episode of the fifth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered in the United States on the Fox network on February 15, 1998. It was written by William Gibson and Tom Maddox and directed by Rob Bowman. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Kill Switch" earned a Nielsen household rating of 11.1, being watched by 18.04 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly positive reviews from television critics, with several complimenting Fox Mulder's virtual experience. The episode's name has also been said to inspire the name for the American metalcore band Killswitch Engage.

In this episode, Mulder and Scully become targets of a rogue AI capable of the worst kind of torture while investigating the strange circumstances of the death of a reclusive computer genius rumored to have been researching artificial intelligence.

"Kill Switch" was co-written by cyberpunk pioneers William Gibson and Tom Maddox. The two eventually wrote another episode for the show: season seven's "First Person Shooter". "Kill Switch" was written after Gibson and Maddox approached the series, offering to write an episode. Reminiscent of the "dark visions" of filmmaker David Cronenberg, the episode contained "many obvious pokes and prods at high-end academic cyberculture." In addition, "Kill Switch" contained several scenes featuring elaborate explosives and digital effects, including one wherein a computer-animated Scully fights nurses in a virtual hospital. "Kill Switch" deals with various "Gibsonian" themes, including alienation, paranoia, artificial intelligence, and transferring one's consciousness into cyberspace, among others.

Plot<br>[edit]

At a diner in Washington, D.C., a man tries to access files over the internet with a laptop computer, but is repeatedly denied. Meanwhile, several drug dealers receive anonymous phone calls about the whereabouts of their competitors; they are told that they are at the same diner. Two U.S. Marshals receive a similar phone call about an escaped prisoner. The drug dealers arrive in pairs as the man attempts to gain access to the files. Just as he does, the two Marshals appear and a shootout ensues.

Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) arrive and identify the bodies of the drug dealers. Mulder also identifies the man with the laptop as Donald Gelman, "a Silicon Valley folk hero" who aspired to create an artificial intelligence. Mulder takes Gelman's laptop and finds a CD inside. When he puts it into the car stereo, it plays "Twilight Time" by The Platters while making the car's lighting blink to the rhythm. However, the agents take it to the Lone Gunmen, who discover that the disc contains a large quantity of encrypted data. The trio, however, are unable to decrypt it. Upon Scully's suggestion, they access Gelman's e-mail account and find a message sent by someone named Invisigoth, saying that someone named David is missing.

The message contains a BIC code for an intermodal shipping container, which Mulder and Scully locate. When they approach it, a woman uses a electroshock weapon on the agents and attempts to flee but is captured by Scully. The container turns out to be full of state-of-the-art computer equipment. The woman, the "Invisigoth" (Kristin Lehman) they've been looking for, warns the agents that a laser-armed Defense Department satellite has pinpointed their location. They quickly leave the area as the container is destroyed, supposedly by a "Particle Beam" shot from...