page_title: Syzygy (The X-Files)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Syzygy (The X-Files) / Production
caption_attribution_description: Ryan Reynolds Youtube: www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS9He_oR6wU
context_page_description: "Syzygy" is the thirteenth episode of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. The episode first aired in the United States on January 26, 1996, on Fox. It was written by series creator Chris Carter and directed by Rob Bowman. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Syzygy" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.8, being watched by 16.04 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed reviews, with many critics and fans upset by the negative portrayal of Mulder and Scully.
  The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate the murders of high school students in a small town where everyone is acting strangely. They discover that two teens are responsible, due to a rare planetary alignment that affects their behavior.
  The episode's title refers to an astronomical alignment of three celestial objects, usually the sun, the Earth, and a moon or planet.
context_section_description: The episode was written by series creator Chris Carter and directed by Rob Bowman. Bowman was "not a fan of the episode", saying:
  The show proved to be much more difficult than I anticipated, and there wasn't enough time to shoot the show properly because we were so close to the Christmas break. I felt extremely pressured and frustrated, although there are things in it I love, particularly the banter between Mulder and Scully. But overall, I thought the show was very oblique. I don't feel that the characters ever knew what was going on and I don't think it is all that cool that kids are murdering people. I didn't feel like I was shooting an episode of the X-Files, and I think I let Chris Carter down a bit.
  The name of this episode, "Syzygy" refers to a straight-line astrological alignment of three or more celestial bodies in a gravitational system. The name of Grover Cleveland Alexander High School, the setting for much of the action in this episode, references a Jeopardy! question that series co-star David Duchovny got wrong when he appeared on the show. The scene where Mulder sees a Keystone Kops movie on every television channel was originally meant to include the movie A Clockwork Orange (1971), but the rights to the footage were too expensive so the producers settled on another choice. Carter felt that in retrospect it ended up being a better fit.
  Mulder and Scully's fight about Mulder always driving was based on a common nitpicking from fans, many of whom noticed that Mulder was usually the one driving the car; according to series co-star Gillian Anderson this was a nitpick that fans on the internet had made since "the beginning of the show". Mulder's joke about Scully's "little feet" was a joke that Carter had made before at a fan convention in Pasadena, California. Regarding the tone of this episode, Duchovny later explained that the show's comedic episodes were generally more ludicrous than others, saying, "There's The X-Files of the stand-alone, and then there's The X-Files of the mythology, and then there are the comedic X-Files as well, in which the characters are really not quite the characters that we know."
caption: Actor Ryan Reynolds guest starred as a teenager in the episode.[1]
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D80", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "GIMP 2.6.10", "Image DateTime": "2010:09:26 20:20:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "3708", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5300", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "1600", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:09:24 00:29:14", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:09:24 00:29:14", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-2/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "135", "EXIF SubSecTime": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "20", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "20", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "0", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "0", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3572", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "202", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}