Primer for X-Files,
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
X-Files is set in our present; however, its paranoid premise is that the world is secretly being run by oppressive secret agencies intent on keeping the populace ignorant about "the truth," which Fox Mulder still believes to be "out there." What that "truth" is remained a mystery through most of the series, ranging from government propaganda to real alien invasion to god.
 
     

 

  

X-Files Facts
     
FOX MULDER:
   Fox Mulder is particularly interested in proving the existence of aliens since he believes that his sister was abducted by aliens when he was a little boy.
     
THE CIGARETTE-SMOKING MAN :
   A prominent continuing character is the “Cigarette-Smoking Man,” a member of a secret government agency who appears to have power over the FBI and even the government.
     

 

  

Cultural References
     
ESTABLISHING SHOT:
   The opening sequence is a reference to the first scene of Lucas’ Star Wars. The entire episode includes most of the stereotypes of 40s and 50s B-movie science fiction.
     
LORD KINBOTE:
   Lord Kinbote is a reference to Nabokov’s Pale Fire, specifically the character, Charles Kinbote. Pale Fire is also about the difficulties of determining the difference between fiction and reality, or the contention that, as Jose Chung puts it, “truth is as subjective as reality.”
     
ALIEN AUTOPSY:
   Alien Autopsy is a show that aired on Fox previous to the airing of “Jose Chung” and got enormous ratings. The autopsy scene in this episode is a parody of that show.
     
CLOSE ENCOUNTERS:
   The potato-mashing scene (in the Diner) is a reference to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).
     
TWIN PEAKS:
   Fox’s pie-eating episode appears to be a reference to David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, in which the main character loves to eat pie (though the writer has claimed that that was not his intention).
     
THE BODY:
   Jesse (“the Body”) Ventura, who appears as a Man in Black (itself a reference to a comic strip that later became the film, Men in Black), is best known as a wrestler (as in the World Wrestling Federation), although he later became the Governor of Minnesota.
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