Well, relatively speaking. This is for Season One, and for the classic fan-fave episode "Ice."
I mentioned before I started 'Shipper Surveys in Season Five, and never really got around to filling out more surveys for the earlier seasons like I should have. Especially since there's a slew of classic episodes that are heavy into the 'shipping. This is one of them.
Ice
1)The episode opens in a darkened lab. There are bodies everywhere. Wires pulled from sockets. Consoles smashed. Coffee cups left stacked in the lounge area. WILL NOONE CLEAN THE DISHES, YOU FIENDS? Your immediate response is:
A)Don't blog angry!
B)AND THEY WERE SERVING ONLY DECAF RAAAAAAGGGGGGEEEEEEEE!
C)Dammit, Fox, if you keep living like a slovenly bachelor, Dana will NEVER hold hands with you!
2)A crazed, blood-covered man sits in front of a working camera and utters “We are not... who we are! We are NOT... who we are!” He's then attacked by another survivor, and they body-slam each other through glass walls until they can separate and each grabs a gun. But rather than shoot each other, the two survivors slowly silently agree to raise their guns to their own heads and... DISCRETIONARY CUT TO A SNOWY EXTERIOR, showing us the lab is in a remote Arctic camp. You take this all in and say:
A)This is Season One! Does Chris Carter even have the budget to make a shapeshifting homage to John Carpenter's The Thing?
B)Did you see that dog? Yup. Gonna be a Thing. Did you see that lifeform in the kitchen sink? Yup. Thing. Did you see that guy with a flamethrower aiming for y... WHOA, HEY, MACREADY, I'M NOT INFECTED I'M NOT (fla-wwwwwwwoooooooosssssshhhhhhhhh)
C)Oooooh, this is gonna be one of those scary date movie type episodes! Quick, get the tea!
3)The FBI is sending a team of expendable warriors, uh a team of expendable scientists to the ice station to find out what happened. Among this team will be
- MULDER!
- SCULLY!
- The quirky geologist with a love of pro football who'll be one of the obvious guys to die early!
- A suspicious-acting doctor who'll conflict with Scully over the medical stuff often enough to make things worse!
- A normal-looking woman toxicologist who will clearly be unimportant to the story's resolution!
- A bossy transporter – this time an angry airplane pilot – who'll be the first infected because it'll isolate everybody in a dangerous deathtrap for the whole episode!
You count six people and realize that most quests MUST start with seven people, so you're guessing the seventh person will be:
A)A trout supplier so Scully can slap everyone with fresh trout for their foolishness early and often.
B)An annoying teenage sidekick who'll guess about half the plot points during the episode and get thankfully killed off when he does something clearly stupid.
C)A priest so Dana and Fox can get married in a small quiet ceremony! Also, in case they need to perform an exorcism if this whole thing turns out to be demonic possession or something...
4)The team arrives to devastation and to an angry dog driven to an uncontrolled rage. He bites the pilot before they can subdue, and then they discover the dog is showing signs of infection with blistered skin and a... thing... wriggling just under the skin. When the pilot discovers while alone in the bathroom that he's got the same infection signs, he freaks. You:
A)Tell him that the sane and rational response is to warn the others, get quarantined and secured immediately, and hope they can develop a medical cure to save you.
B)Encourage him to do what every other stupid zombie infectee does in every horror movie ever: panic, tell nobody about it, and get ready to infect everybody else.
C)Wonder if Dana and Fox will share the bathroom later for a quick shower.
5)The early clues as to what happened in the lab point to the scientists unearthing something from ancient Earth history. They dug too greedily and too deep. Which tells you:
A)Balrog.
B)Aliens.
C)There's nothing 'Shippy about this revelation. Move along.
6)The pilot wants to leave right away even as the evidence is pointing to a biological infection, with Mulder arguing for the need to maintain quarantine. The pilot's anger gets the better of him and he starts attacking Mulder and then everybody else, leaving it to Scully to tackle him like a linebacker. They discover whatever was wriggling in the dog is now in the pilot. Where they didn't want to go poking into the dog, this time they go digging into the pilot. With hilarious results. You realize:
A)Scully could have done well in a Tampa-2 defensive scheme. GO BUCS.
B)Okay, cutting into a dog would be too heart-rending, but cutting into the human you need to fly you out? DIDN'T THINK THIS THROUGH DID YA?!
C)Dana made damn sure NOBODY beats up on her boyfriend! Uh, partner!
7)Okay, here's the situation. The pilot's dead. There's a storm shutting down all air traffic for three days. There's a clear worm infestation that can affect and kill people. There's a possibility more people might be infected as this transmits through body fluids and almost everybody got hit with fluids dealing with the dog and the pilot. Oh, and they're out of coffee. This can mean one thing:
A)NO COFFEE? RIOT!
B)NO COFFEE? RIOT!
C)Dana and Fox are just fine, they're cool. They don't need coffee. THEY DRINK TEA! Oh, wait, that's a future episode, I might be SPOILING things right about here...
8)The team decides they need to perform physical check-ups on each other to see if there's any signs of the skin blisters or the Rage worms. The guys segregate to one room while Scully and the female toxicologist go to another to check each other. As the guys strip for the check-up, Mulder quips “Before anyone passes judgment may I remind you we are in the Arctic.” You:
A)Trout-slap him for lack of confidence.
B)Rage at him for trying to joke during a serious problem. WE'RE ALL INFECTED YOU IDIOT WE ARE NOT WHO WE ARE AND... uh... um... wait, I need to keep it cool. No Rage worms, here, I sw (MacReady opens up with the flamethrower again)
C)FOX! Do not go around disappointing Dana like that!
9)Everyone finds a room to sleep in for the night. Locking doors and barricading the halls. Mulder leaves Scully alone to her room just before the shoves heavy furniture in front of it to make sure, you know. Your response?
A)Smart move, St. Scully.
B)What if the worms can climb through the air vents, EVER THINK OF THAT OH GOD OH NO NOOOOOOOO AAAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE... (MacReady's ever-trusty flamethrower flares up for another purge)
C)NOOOOOOOO They're not sharing a room NOOOOOOOOoooooooooo... So what if it's Season One? IT'S THE RIFT IT'S THE RIFT YOU DAMN NOROMOS (weeps) (gets char-broiled by MacReady)
10)The camera pans across the faces of each character. Nobody is sleeping. The geologist guy is listening to his favorite Chargers football game. The suspicious doctor is all suspicious. The normal toxicologist looks nervous. Scully is waiting. Mulder is thirsty. When Mulder decides to venture out to get a drink, you think to yourself:
A)Scully should have brought more Margarita mixes.
B)Wait. That geologist is a Chargers fan?! No wonder he's doomed!
C)Fox. Go check on Dana, she's clearly gonna be mixing up some Margaritas soon...
11)Mulder finds the stuffed-into-the-fridge body of (insert any comic book girlfriend), oh, okay bad taste, I apologize, the stuffed body of the geologist. Because he's acting a little freaked out – since he knows this means someone's infected with a Rage worm – the others jump to the conclusion that he's the one infected. When Scully – close to tears – admits “Mulder, you might not be who you are,” you know:
A)Scully's right. She's always right. So stand right there while she administers the cure (TROUT-SLAP).
B)Did anyone check to see if the front door was locked, because you know this is Alaska at night and there are Vampires and Wendigoes and Sasquatches all over the place and...
C)That Dana is crying up because she's worried her one-in-a-billion might be infected with Rage... sniff... (cries)
12)After locking Mulder into a closet as a quarantine method, Scully gets right to work on finding a cure, something to get the Rage worms out of a victim. This forces the remaining scientists to work with her because at this point being alone and out-of-view is not a good idea. Unfortunately, the pressure starts getting to the surviving team, and with tempers flaring you realize:
A)Everyone but Scully is infected. OKAY, TROUT-SLAPS FOR EVERYONE!
B)WE'RE NOT INFECTED WE'RE JUST DEALING WITH A LOT OF PRESSURE OVER HERE AND DAMMIT MACREADY PUT THAT FLAMETHROWER DOWN IT'S NOT HELPI (Fla-whooooooooossssssssshhhhhhhhhhh).
C)DANA LOVES FOX! YAY!
13)Scully notices that in separate jars the Rage worms want to attack each other, so she puts two of them into one jar to see their reaction. Through the use of incredibly poor CGI, the Rage worms head butt (or is that butt butt, these ARE worms) each other until death. Apparently the solution is to re-infect the infected. You respond with:
A)OF COURSE! IT MAKES SO MUCH SENSE!
B)Actually, no it doesn't make a lot of sense. Evolution doesn't work like that. Organisms evolve to coexist not compete, and it's self-defeating to destroy your own kind...
C)Unless the Rage worms, being able to mass-produce as a parasitic in host forms, found it favorable to their evolution to instill that rage to spread infection to more hosts! ...Wait, this isn't a 'Shipper answer, disregard! DISREGARD!
14)After testing the hypothesis on the Raged dog with success – the puppy stops being Mr. Bitey – they prepare the last Rage worm they've got on hand to “cure” Mulder. Scully asks for an opportunity to talk to Mulder first to explain what they're doing, so he wouldn't freak out. The remaining doctors say it's a bad idea. You say:
A)SCULLY KNOWS WHAT'S BEST! (Trout-slap)
B)It's a standard PLOT DEVICE IN HORROR MOVIES! SOMEONE TRIES TO TALK TO THE MONSTER! IT NEVER ENDS WELL! DON'T DO IT SCUL (MacReady lights up the flamethrower one more time)
C)SHUT UP DANA NEEDS SOME ALONE TIME WITH FOX (MacReady opens fire with, well, fire)
15)Scully finds Mulder sitting calm but still acting, well, spooky. Mulder points out he hasn't shown more homicidal rage. Scully mentions that the solution is to put another Rage worm in the victim to kill each other off inside the host. Mulder points out that doing that to a non-infectee is just going to spread the Rage worms and make it worse. You point out:
A)Dammit, Mulder, you always have to find a way to ruin a plan don't ya?
B)That if Mulder ever told the conspiracy people ruining his investigtions to “go stick it in your ear,” there's a layer of irony to this moment, just sayin'...
C)That now's the time for a quickie! Lock the closet door! What...?
16)Scully: “You're going to have to trust us.” Mulder: “I don't trust them. I want to trust you.” You:
A)Trust her then!
B)First, get her blood into a petri dish, then flame it, if a little head pokes up, it means she's a Thing! Ready that flamethrower, MacReady!
C)SQUUUEEEEEEEEEEE (note: if you haven't figured it out almost 20 years later, “Trust” is a sexier word than “Sex” to a 'Shipper)
17)Mulder allows Scully to examine his neck, where the Rage worm usually shows itself. After a few seconds of gentle caressing by Scully, all seems okay. When Scully turns around, Mulder roughly grabs her by the shoulders. With a manly growl, he leans in to nibble on her earlobe as Scully leans back and gushes “Oh my!” And then... and... and... what do you mean, those Harlequin romance novels are all exaggerated?
 |
| for some reason I cannot find an animated GIF or YouTube clip of this scene. This is all you get, 'Shippers. Let your imaginations do the rest... |
19)Well, since I need to wrap this survey up, let's get to the final round: the other two ignore Scully's report that Mulder doesn't have worms, knock Scully out of the way, and try to hold Mulder down so they can stick it where the sun occasionally shines when Mulder tilts his head ever so. But during the struggle, the suspicious doctor notices the normal toxicologist has a wriggly Rage worm in her neck, meaning Mulder is normal (well, relatively speaking). The normal unassuming toxicologist, now the Infected One, goes on a rampage looking for a weapon to either fulfill her destiny or else find a way to spread her infected blood everywhere. Mulder knocks the gun away, and the three uninfected hold the toxicologist down long enough to drop the Rage worm in (that's still got to hurt the damn eardrum!) and help her calm down. Once that's all done, you:
A)Pour out another Margarita, have it named a Scullyrita in your honor, and get damn drunk 'cause you earned it!
B)Worry that there may be other worms out there, hiding in places like, oh, the headset to the dead Geologist's Walkman. (MacReady shows up, flamethrowers the Walkman) Well, it's outdated tech even for 1993, right?
C)Hope Dana and Fox can share that shower for a cool-down after all!
20)Back at base, Mulder wants to head back to the lab to do a more thorough examination for the Rage worms. The suspicious doctor warns him that he'd already heard from the military that the lab has been firebombed into ash. Mulder, enraged like he's got a Rage worm in him – nah, I kid – turns to Scully and gripes that “it's still out there buried under two-hundred-fifty thousand years of ice.” Scully ends the episode by say “Let it stay buried.” You end the episode by:
A)Serving more Scullyritas, the TRUE CURE for Rage worms!
B)Freaking out and GOING INTO A RAGE-INFESTED TANTRUM HOW DARE THEY NOT GIVE US A SEQUEL HOOK HOW D (MacReady uses his flamethrower one last time, lights a smoke) MacReady: “Maybe we shouldn't get rescued...”
C)Re-watching the neck-rubbing scene! AND AGAIN! AND AGAIN! AND... OH GOD I HOPE THEY HAVE STUFF LIKE THIS IN THE SERIES REBOOT!
If you more often than not answered:
A)Then you are a member of the Order of the Blessed St. Scully the Enigmatic, wondering just where the hell everyone else has been the last 20 years. ARE ANY OF YOU STILL ALIVE?
B)Then you are human. You know you are. And you know some of the other survey takers are human too. Otherwise they'd all be jumping you, trying to turn you into a 'Shipper. WELL IT'S NOT GONNA HAPPEN! (flames up) (sets fire to all the Infected 'Shippers in the area)
C)Then you are a 'Shipper. You've been that way ever since the 'Shipper worm got into your ear back when you read Little Women in middle school. DAMMIT ALCOTT, YOU SHOULDA MARRIED JO TO LAURIE AND YOU KNOW IT... Ahem... now, BACK TO RE-WATCHING THE NECK RUB SCENE!
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