"The X Files" Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (1996)

Director:

James Wong

Writers:

Chris Carter (creator)
Glen Morgan (written by)

TV Series:

"The X Files" (1993)

Original Air Date:

17 November 1996 (Season 4, Episode 7)

Genre:

Drama | Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi | Thriller

Plot:

Mulder and Scully are called to meet with The Lone Gunmen. It is there that Frohike reveals an uncovered history of the infamous Cigarette-Smoking Man...

Plot Keywords:

Assassination | Conspiracy | FBI | FBI Agent | Alien

Cast

David Duchovny	...	Fox Mulder (voice)
Gillian Anderson	...	Dana Scully (voice)
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Dean Aylesworth	...	Young Bill Mulder
Tim Bissett	...	Agent Cook
Tom Braidwood	...	Melvin Frohike
William B. Davis	...	Cigarette Smoking Man / CGB Spender
David Fredericks	...	The Director
Peter Hanlon	...	The Aide
Jerry Hardin	...	Deep Throat
Bruce Harwood	...	John Fitzgerald Byers (voice)
Paul Jarrett	...	James Earl Ray
Laurie Murdoch	...	Lydon
Chris Owens	...	Young Cigarette Smoking Man
Donnelly Rhodes	...	General Francis
Morgan Weisser	...	Lee Harvey Oswald
Dan Zukovic	...	Agent

Runtime:

Argentina:60 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Stereo

Certification:

Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Dealey Plaza - 500 Main Street, Dallas, Texas, USA

Company:

20th Century Fox Television

Trivia:

The young CSM is played by Chris Owens, who goes on to play the recurring role of Agent Spender later in the series. Agent Spender is the CSM's son.

Quotes:

The Cigarette Smoking Man: Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else left to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an English toffee. But they're gone too fast and the taste is...

Movie Connections:

References Forrest Gump (1994)

Well...

I never really liked Musings a lot. For me Its kinda like Travelers(slow); there's no Mulder and Scully dialog in it. We only hear them talk a couple of times in the whole episode. On the other hand its nice to finally get some background info on CSM and how he became so evil. Deep Throat is back for a short while I like that.

and Mulder does say something funny. Mulder: "Who would want to kill you, Frohike? You're just a little puppy dog." or something like that.

I like the whole thing about him being a good guy and not smoking before the government( or whoever that is) meddled in his life. He loved writing and he was all happy (like a little boy eating ice cream) when he was talking about the book trying to sell it. It seems he actually had feelings before they changed the ending of his story but then they did change it and hes all sad.

I like the flashback to the pilot and the fact that CSM has a lot of Mulders and Scullys conversations on tape not knowing how much he really knows about them. The ending where he is aiming at Frohike saying "I can kill you whenever I please" it shows how much power he has over their lives.

The first time I saw Musings I had no idea of what was going on(maybe thats just me) maybe thats why I'm not a big fan of it. All in all Musings is only OK IMO and I really miss Mulder and Scully.

I'm gonna join Scully and give it a 6/10