Dæmonicus
Encyclopedia
"Dæmonicus" is the 185th episode of the science fiction
television series The X-Files
. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on December 2, 2001 on Fox
and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written and directed by executive producer Frank Spotnitz
. It is a Monster-of-the-Week episode, literally meaning a stand alone episode.
"Dæmonicus" follows Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) helping Monica Reyes
(Annabeth Gish
) and John Doggett
(Robert Patrick
) investigate a series of bizarre killings that seem to be due to demonic possession but which Doggett believes is a hoax. The episode earned mediocre Nielsen household and syndication ratings when compared to other episodes during the season. It had a generally mixed reception by fans and critics alike.
with Satanic ritual
overtones, John Doggett
(Robert Patrick
) and Monica Reyes
(Annabeth Gish
) are offered the case. Doggett and Reyes asks Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) to do an autopsy
on the murder victims. The agents comes to the conclusion that one of the murder victims was somehow tricked into killing his wife, while evidence at the scene indicates that there are two perpetrators. When Reyes tells Doggett and Scully that while investigating she felt the presence of evil, Doggett responds with great irritation. Dr. Monique Sackheim calls them, saying that the two recent murders may be connected to their escaped mental patient, Dr. Kenneth Richman, and his prison guard, Paul Gerlach.
Meanwhile, in a wooden area, the two perpetrators, who are wearing demon masks, face each other some twenty paces apart. From out of nowhere, one of the perpetrators suddenly raises his gun and shoots. At the mental institution, the two agents interview Josef Kobold, the neighbouring patient of Kenneth Richman. The answers Kobold gives are unsettling for the agents, as he says that one of the perpetrators has killed again, showing them the location and warning them of "something horrible" at the location. Scully does an autopsy, and it is revealed that the victim was the prison guard, Paul Gerlach.
Later, the two agents return to the institution to ask Kobold for help finding the last perpetrator. When speaking to Kobold, he suddenly speaks in a strange backward whispering and erupts in convulsions after a while. Reyes hears the word: "medicus," which means "physician." Before leaving, they set Kobold under the protection of prison guard, Custer. Doggett and Reyes race to Sackeheim's home where they find her dead body, with a dozen hypodermic needles jammed into her face. Doggett returns alone to the asylum to interview Kobold. Kobold does not respond as Doggett had hoped, and instead teases him with information about Doggett's personal life which he could not possibly know. Doggett loses him temper and grabs Kobold, but suddenly Kobold begins to throw up. When meeting his colleagues, Doggett tells them that Kobold is playing some sort of game, then the power suddenly goes out in the mental institution. Officer Custer than approaches the cell door and looks through the window, were he sees Kobold turning into a demon.
Later, Doggett phones up Scully to tell her that Kobold claims Richman is at an old marina. Scully drives to the location, but a man wearing a demon mask closes in on her. Doggett and Reyes arrive soon after. When Doggett demands to know where Scully has been taken, Kobold smiles. A gunshot rings out, and Doggett discovers the masked demon, Dr. Richman, who is lying dead on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Scully explains that he was holding her at gunpoint until they arrived, then he shot himself. After Scully's lecture to FBI cadets, Doggett explains to her and Reyes that Kobold planned the entire ordeal as a game, and got away with it.
, and since season nine was promoted as the "new" X-Files, it was important to set up the new settings to the show. One of these new settings was to move Dana Scully
from the X-Files office
to the FBI Academy at Quantico
, the FBI Academy was shot at a lecture hall at UCLA. Frank Spotnitz felt he "needed to show how Doggett and Reyes worked together." He wanted to create a villain
that "could help", and not a character that would just tell the viewers again "what The X-Files
was again. But instead tell the viewers something about the show during its ninth season."
According to Spotnitz, the creation of the character, Josef Kobold, "who is the devil, in a cell." When creating him, Spotnitz was looking through all kind of crime, until he came across the name Caryl Chessman
who had been sentenced to death on a technical charge of kidnapping. He was than able to connect the word "chessman" to the idea that for Kobold, it was all a game.
, had to have his mouth open during the shooting of the sequence.
of 5.5, with a 8 share. It was viewed by 5.803 million households and gathered a total of 8.700 million viewers in the United States
alone. On December 2, 2001 the episode premiered on American and Canadian television on Fox
(both nations) and Global Television Network
(Canada only) the same time and day as Fox did. In the United Kingdom
and Ireland
, it made its first appearance on British television on somewhere on June 27, 2002 on Sky1. The episode did not make it to the list of the ten most watched television shows that week on Sky1.
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on December 2, 2001 on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom. It was written and directed by executive producer Frank Spotnitz
Frank Spotnitz
Frank Spotnitz is an award-winning American television writer and producer, best known for his work on The X-Files television series.-Biography:...
. It is a Monster-of-the-Week episode, literally meaning a stand alone episode.
"Dæmonicus" follows Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) helping Monica Reyes
Monica Reyes
Special Agent Monica Reyes is a fictional character in the American FOX television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence...
(Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish is an American actress known for starring roles in Shag, Mystic Pizza and Double Jeopardy. She is best known for her roles as Special Agent Monica Reyes on The X-Files, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on The West Wing and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama Brotherhood.-Personal...
) and John Doggett
John Doggett
FBI Special agent John Jay Doggett is a fictional character in the American Fox television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of alien existence...
(Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick
Robert Hammond Patrick, Jr. is an American actor, known for his leading and supporting roles in a number of films and television shows....
) investigate a series of bizarre killings that seem to be due to demonic possession but which Doggett believes is a hoax. The episode earned mediocre Nielsen household and syndication ratings when compared to other episodes during the season. It had a generally mixed reception by fans and critics alike.
Plot summary
After finding a crime sceneCrime scene
A crime scene is a location where an illegal act took place, and comprises the area from which most of the physical evidence is retrieved by trained law enforcement personnel, crime scene investigators or in rare circumstances, forensic scientists....
with Satanic ritual
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
overtones, John Doggett
John Doggett
FBI Special agent John Jay Doggett is a fictional character in the American Fox television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of alien existence...
(Robert Patrick
Robert Patrick
Robert Hammond Patrick, Jr. is an American actor, known for his leading and supporting roles in a number of films and television shows....
) and Monica Reyes
Monica Reyes
Special Agent Monica Reyes is a fictional character in the American FOX television series The X-Files, a science fiction show about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence...
(Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish
Annabeth Gish is an American actress known for starring roles in Shag, Mystic Pizza and Double Jeopardy. She is best known for her roles as Special Agent Monica Reyes on The X-Files, Elizabeth Bartlet Westin on The West Wing and as Eileen Caffee on the Showtime drama Brotherhood.-Personal...
) are offered the case. Doggett and Reyes asks Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) to do an autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
on the murder victims. The agents comes to the conclusion that one of the murder victims was somehow tricked into killing his wife, while evidence at the scene indicates that there are two perpetrators. When Reyes tells Doggett and Scully that while investigating she felt the presence of evil, Doggett responds with great irritation. Dr. Monique Sackheim calls them, saying that the two recent murders may be connected to their escaped mental patient, Dr. Kenneth Richman, and his prison guard, Paul Gerlach.
Meanwhile, in a wooden area, the two perpetrators, who are wearing demon masks, face each other some twenty paces apart. From out of nowhere, one of the perpetrators suddenly raises his gun and shoots. At the mental institution, the two agents interview Josef Kobold, the neighbouring patient of Kenneth Richman. The answers Kobold gives are unsettling for the agents, as he says that one of the perpetrators has killed again, showing them the location and warning them of "something horrible" at the location. Scully does an autopsy, and it is revealed that the victim was the prison guard, Paul Gerlach.
Later, the two agents return to the institution to ask Kobold for help finding the last perpetrator. When speaking to Kobold, he suddenly speaks in a strange backward whispering and erupts in convulsions after a while. Reyes hears the word: "medicus," which means "physician." Before leaving, they set Kobold under the protection of prison guard, Custer. Doggett and Reyes race to Sackeheim's home where they find her dead body, with a dozen hypodermic needles jammed into her face. Doggett returns alone to the asylum to interview Kobold. Kobold does not respond as Doggett had hoped, and instead teases him with information about Doggett's personal life which he could not possibly know. Doggett loses him temper and grabs Kobold, but suddenly Kobold begins to throw up. When meeting his colleagues, Doggett tells them that Kobold is playing some sort of game, then the power suddenly goes out in the mental institution. Officer Custer than approaches the cell door and looks through the window, were he sees Kobold turning into a demon.
Later, Doggett phones up Scully to tell her that Kobold claims Richman is at an old marina. Scully drives to the location, but a man wearing a demon mask closes in on her. Doggett and Reyes arrive soon after. When Doggett demands to know where Scully has been taken, Kobold smiles. A gunshot rings out, and Doggett discovers the masked demon, Dr. Richman, who is lying dead on the floor of an abandoned warehouse. Scully explains that he was holding her at gunpoint until they arrived, then he shot himself. After Scully's lecture to FBI cadets, Doggett explains to her and Reyes that Kobold planned the entire ordeal as a game, and got away with it.
Writing
Since "Daemonicus" would become the first Monster-of-the-Week (meaning stand alone) episode of the season nineThe X-Files (season 9)
The ninth season of The X-Files commenced airing in the United States on November 11, 2001, concluded on May 19, 2002, and consists of twenty episodes. The X-Files is an American serial science fiction-horror-thriller television series. Season nine took place after Fox Mulder's leave after the...
, and since season nine was promoted as the "new" X-Files, it was important to set up the new settings to the show. One of these new settings was to move Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
from the X-Files office
X-file
On the television series The X-Files, an X-File is a fictional case that has been deemed unsolvable by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The files constitute an unassigned project outside the Bureau mainstream that is more or less concerned with unexplained phenomena. -First X-Files:The very...
to the FBI Academy at Quantico
FBI Academy
The FBI Academy, located in Quantico, Virginia, is the training site for new Special Agents of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was first opened for use in 1972 on 385 acres of woodland. It is a relatively small government academy, housing three dormitory buildings and...
, the FBI Academy was shot at a lecture hall at UCLA. Frank Spotnitz felt he "needed to show how Doggett and Reyes worked together." He wanted to create a villain
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
that "could help", and not a character that would just tell the viewers again "what The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
was again. But instead tell the viewers something about the show during its ninth season."
According to Spotnitz, the creation of the character, Josef Kobold, "who is the devil, in a cell." When creating him, Spotnitz was looking through all kind of crime, until he came across the name Caryl Chessman
Caryl Chessman
Caryl Whittier Chessman was a convicted robber and rapist who gained fame as a death row inmate in California. Chessman's case attracted worldwide attention, and as a result he became a cause célèbre for the movement to ban capital punishment.-Crime and conviction:Born in St...
who had been sentenced to death on a technical charge of kidnapping. He was than able to connect the word "chessman" to the idea that for Kobold, it was all a game.
Filming
Frank Spotnitz had not intended to have as many shots of Josef Kobold throwing up, but the editor at that time, Chris Cooke, "cut it that way." Spotnitz felt that it "was so completely over the top." To create the throw up scene, they needed to create tubes which were flat under the appliance, and the actor, James RemarJames Remar
James Remar is an American actor and voice artist. He has appeared in movies, video games, and TV shows. He is perhaps best known as Richard, the on-off tycoon boyfriend of Kim Cattrall's character in Sex and the City, as Ajax in The Warriors, as the homicidal maniac Albert Ganz in the 1982...
, had to have his mouth open during the shooting of the sequence.
Reception
The episode earned a Nielsen household ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 5.5, with a 8 share. It was viewed by 5.803 million households and gathered a total of 8.700 million viewers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alone. On December 2, 2001 the episode premiered on American and Canadian television on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
(both nations) and Global Television Network
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
(Canada only) the same time and day as Fox did. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, it made its first appearance on British television on somewhere on June 27, 2002 on Sky1. The episode did not make it to the list of the ten most watched television shows that week on Sky1.