page_title: Tunguska (The X-Files)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Tunguska (The X-Files) / Production
caption_attribution_description: Español: Vista microscópica de la estructura interna del ALH84001 English: Structures on ALH84001 meteorite Français&#160;: Un fragment de la météorite w:ALH84001. Il révèle par w:microscopie électronique à balayage des structures ressemblant à des w:bactéries, possibles formes de w:vie sur Mars. voir aussi&#160;: Category:Alien et Category:Astrobiology
context_page_description: "Tunguska" is the eighth episode of the fourth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premièred on the Fox network on November 24, 1996. It was directed by Kim Manners, and written by Frank Spotnitz and series creator Chris Carter. "Tunguska" featured guest appearances by John Neville, Nicholas Lea and Fritz Weaver. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "Tunguska" earned a Nielsen household rating of 12.2, being watched by 18.85 million people in its initial broadcast.
  In the episode, FBI special agent Fox Mulder travels to Russia to investigate the source of a black oil contamination. His partner Dana Scully and assistant director Walter Skinner are summoned to attend a United States Senate hearing on Mulder's whereabouts. "Tunguska" is a two-part episode, with the plot continuing in the next episode, "Terma".
  "Tunguska" was inspired by reports of evidence of extraterrestrial life possibly being found in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite, while the gulag setting was inspired by the works of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
context_section_description: "Tunguska" and its follow-up "Terma" were conceived by the writers when they were trying to conceive a "big and fun canvas" to tell stories. They decided to create a story connected to the Russian gulags, which led to the "natural" idea that the Russians were experimenting separately from the Syndicate to create a vaccine for the black oil. Series writer John Shiban felt it was natural to create an arms race-like story between the United States and Russia, being that the Cold War had ended a few years earlier. The writers desired to expand the series' mythology globally, a concept that continued into the fifth season and the series' 1998 feature film adaptation. The idea of a conspiracy with a global reach was first broached in the series' second season,  and it was felt that this two-part story was a good place to expand upon this, allowing the production crew to "stretch the limits" of their resources and imagination. The inspiration for the oil-containing rocks was NASA's announcement of possible evidence of extraterrestrial life in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite; while the gulag scenes were based on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's books The Gulag Archipelago and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich.
  The scenes featuring the SWAT raid on a terrorist cell found to be harbouring Alex Krycek were filmed in a single night, requiring sixty individual film setups split between three camera crews working simultaneously. By dawn, only four of the sixty required shots had not been filmed, and these were later completed on a sound stage. Additional scenes shot for the episode featuring The Smoking Man and the Well-Manicured Man were cut due to time constraints.  A scene featuring Scully briefing Skinner on the events of the episode was also cut, as it was felt that it was "redundant" within the narrative, repeating information that had already been shown to the audience. David Duchovny's father was present during production of the episode, leaving the actor to enjoy the shoot; although the crew described production as expensive and "stubbornly trouble-plagued". "Tunguska" marked the fourth appearance in the series by Malcolm Stewart, who had previously appeared in "Pilot", "3" and "Avatar".
caption: The possible discovery of life in the Allan Hills 84001 meteorite inspired the episode's script.
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