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

User Rating:

8.8/10   

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

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)

Life is Like a Box of Chocolates

Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man is a fun, interesting episode. For not having Mulder or Scully in it, the episode is pulled off surprisingly well. I like how his cigarette lighter says 'Trust No one'. Each of the segments opens with a quote, the first a Shakespearean quote. Nice touch. I think it's interesting that just one of the two "past" sequences was in black & white. Why? When CSM is on the assignment to assassinate President Kennedy, he tells Oswald he likes movies, although he told Mulder earlier that he hates movies. So the lying begins. I also like how instead of music, real Martin Luther King Jr. speeches were played in the background. It gave the episode a cool feel. I like how the book CSM is writing is called 'Second Chance', paralleling CSM's desire for a second chance in life to not be so evil. It's cool to see CSM in a different light, aspiring to be a writer, trying to quit smoking through the use of a nicotine patch. Even though he is still evil, you garner a little bit of sympathy for him. Although we know that Frohike was fed misinformation, I think it would've been better not to have the army part at the beginning. I think they still could've introduced CSM but kept it with what we knew from Piper Maru and Apocrypha. Another problem I have with the PE is when CSM is with Ronald "Deep Throat". They talk a little bit about Bill Mulder and then Deep Throat kills the alien because that's what the international agreement was. If they automatically have to kill the recovered alien, why was the alien on life support in the first place? Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man is a fun episode that should be taken with a grain of salt and not as gospel truth of CSM's real life.