S4.E9

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Terma

Episode aired Dec 1, 1996
TV-14TV-14
45m

IMDb RATING

8.2/10

3.7K

YOUR RATING

Crime Drama Mystery

Mulder tries to stop a Russian supersoldier from destroying the site in North America where the black oil virus can be excavated. Scully is jailed after she refuses to reveal Mulder's wherea... Read allMulder tries to stop a Russian supersoldier from destroying the site in North America where the black oil virus can be excavated. Scully is jailed after she refuses to reveal Mulder's whereabouts at a Senate subcommittee hearing.Mulder tries to stop a Russian supersoldier from destroying the site in North America where the black oil virus can be excavated. Scully is jailed after she refuses to reveal Mulder's whereabouts at a Senate subcommittee hearing.

IMDb RATING

8.2/10

3.7K

YOUR RATING

- Rob Bowman
- Chris Carter
- Frank Spotnitz
- John Shiban(story editor)
Stars

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Photos38

Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny in The X-Files (1993)

Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and Mitch Pileggi in Terma (1996)

William B. Davis and John Neville in Terma (1996)

Storyline

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Trivia
The title of this episode also refers to the city where the showdown takes place: Terma, North Dakota.

Goofs
Around 00:11:52, on the right of screen, we can see Krycek and the bald Russian waiting for their scene side by side. Around 00:12:01, the bald man is on the bridge and Krycek is going up to him.

Quotes
Fox Mulder: Why is this so hard to believe? When the accepted discovery of life off this planet is on the front page of every newspaper around the world? When even the most conservative scientists and science journals are calling for the exploration of Mars and Jupiter? With every reason to believe that life and the persistence of it is thriving outside our terrestrial sphere? If you cannot get past this, then I suggest that this whole committee be held in contempt for ignoring evidence that cannot be refuted.

Crazy credits
The tagline in the opening credits reads "E Pur Si Muove," which translates from Italian to "And still it moves," a phrase ascribed to Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei after his arrest, trial, and conviction for defending the Copernican heresy by the Catholic Church. According to legend, he would utter this after his prayers in quiet protest against the Church, although the stories of this occurring did not surface until a century after Galileo's death.

Connections
Featured in The X-Files: The Truth (2002)

Soundtracks
Piano Trio No 2, 3rd Movement
Written by Dmitri Shostakovich

User reviews9

Review

Featured review

7/10

Great direction, but all the inaccuracies made me laugh

The X-files work the best when they maintain a level of self-irony when they don't take themselves too seriously.

While this episode and the previous one "Tunguska" are well-directed lore expanding ones, they still make me laugh at times just because of how nonsensical they are (mostly because of how inaccurate they are in terms of representation).

There are just too many wrong things. The geography is all messed up, British Columbia landscapes don't correspond well with ones in Taiga, Tunguska site is closer to Krasnoyarsk, not Norilsk, Mulder also asks help to get to Saint-Petersburg to leave the country, while Moscow would've been a much closer and more convenient city to fly out. While I give them credit for hiring actual Russian actors with no accents, the dialogue itself is clunky, Krycek accent was funny though.

That GULAG thing was also weird and overly politicized. Russians in the 90ties were not as barbaric as they were shown (horses were ok though because they are much more convenient as transport in Taiga conditions).

What saved these two episodes from just becoming post-cold war shlock was the direction. I'm sure that the ending monologue by Mulder was much easier to accept in the 90ties, but now, in 2020, it just puts a smile on my face.

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