page_title: Hell Money
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Hell Money / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Chinatown entrance, Vancouver, Canada Français&#160;: Entrée du quartier chinois, Vancouver, Canada
context_page_description: "Hell Money" is the nineteenth episode of the third season of the science fiction television series The X-Files and 68th episode overall. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on March 29, 1996. It was written by Jeffrey Vlaming and directed by Tucker Gates. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Hell Money" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.9, being watched by 14.86 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly mixed to positive reviews from television critics.
  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 a murder in San Francisco's Chinatown involving masked intruders, strange Chinese symbols, a lottery, and the clandestine selling of body parts.
  The premise of the episode was based on three major ideas: a pyramid scheme involving body parts, a lottery in a small town, and the corporate beings assembling the destitute in Chinatown.
caption: Exterior shots for the episode were filmed at Chinatown, in Vancouver.
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon PowerShot A560", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "180", "Image YResolution": "180", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image DateTime": "2008:07:23 17:01:18", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "196", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "180", "Thumbnail YResolution": "180", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "5108", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4313", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/1600", "EXIF FNumber": "71/10", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:07:23 17:01:18", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:07:23 17:01:18", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "5", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "341/32", "EXIF ApertureValue": "181/32", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "11/4", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "29/5", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "3072", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "2304", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "Interoperability RelatedImageWidth": "3072", "Interoperability RelatedImageLength": "2304", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "3334", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "40960/3", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "2304000/169", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}