War of the Coprophages
Encyclopedia
"War of the Coprophages" is a 1996 episode of The X-Files
television series
. It was the twelfth episode broadcast in the show's third season. "War of the Coprophages" surrounds a small town being plagued by deaths related to cockroaches.
(David Duchovny
) is coincidently nearby, investigating a series of colored lights that have appeared in the sky. Mulder talks to partner Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) who is at her home with her dog Queequeg. Two other deaths have been reported, causing people to believe cockroaches are behind them. Nearby a trio of teenagers drink beer
and huff methane
generated by filtering fumes from burnt manure. One of them sees a roach crawl underneath his skin. Trying to get rid of it, he slices himself to death with a razor. Scully provides Mulder with a logical explanation (that this is a case of Ekbom syndrome
or delusional parasitosis) but he finds a cockroach on the ground. Later, another death occurs when the medical examiner is found dead, also covered with cockroaches. Scully attributes his death to cerebral aneurysm
.
Mulder goes to a local government facility when the town sheriff theorizes about whether the government has been breeding killer cockroaches. Inside he sees the walls rippling and is surprised by Dr. Bambi Berenbaum, a USDA researcher who is studying cockroaches. Berenbaum has great interest in insects and believes that UFOs are actually nocturnal insect swarms. Yet another death occurs in Mulder's hotel. By this point Mulder believes Scully's theories about the people dying more logical deaths, although now it is Scully who is wondering what is going on and decides to head up there herself.
Mulder brings a cockroach he finds to Berenbaum, who thinks it may be mechanical. Mulder visits the nearby Dr. Ivanov, a wheelchair-using scientist who works on insect-like robots, and renders the man speechless- informing Mulder that the specimen is, technology-wise, vastly superior to anything he's ever seen before. Scully soon arrives in the town, finding it overrun with panic over the roaches. Scully's attempts to get people to calm down fail. Mulder catches another roach to bring to Berenbaum, but this time it is a seemingly normal cockroach. Scully finds out that Eckerle was researching methane and importing animal dung, which may have brought the roaches over.
Mulder goes with Berenbaum to see Eckerle at a facility, who is overrun with fear, pulling a gun on him. Scully arrives on the scene and meets Berenbaum. When Mulder's phone rings Eckerle shoots at Mulder, releasing methane gas. The agents flee as the facility explodes, covering them in the animal dung. Dr. Ivanov arrives and meets Berenbaum, and the two leave with each other discussing their interests in insects and robots. That night Mulder writes his report on the case, wondering how humanity would react if insect-like robots visited Earth. Mulder finds a bizarre looking bug by his food, which he crushes with an X-File.
was inspired to write the episode when he saw a cover of a magazine featuring insect like robots created by robotist Rodney Brooks
. He also wanted to do an episode featuring mass hysteria, like War of the Worlds. A famous case of hysteria from the 1930s was planned to be discussed by the sheriff during the episode, but was cut due to time. Director Kim Manners
felt that the producers were very lucky with the cockroach
es used in this episode. The show's animal trainer, Debbie Cove, used around four hundred cockroaches for this episode.
The town this episode takes place in, Miller's Grove, is a reference to Grover's Mill
from Orson Welles
's broadcast of The War of the Worlds. In this episode Dana Scully
reads the book Breakfast at Tiffany's
, a reference to David Duchovny
's Final Jeopardy! question when he appeared on Jeopardy!
Writer Darin Morgan ended up being unhappy with the final product, saying "The other day my girlfriend was saying, 'I never understood that episode,' and I guess I don't either. It was an episode that had a lot of what I thought were really good ideas and never quite got it to work. I was really disappointed with that episode. Some people love it. For example, Gillian Anderson rated the episode one of her favorite episodes of the third season.
Author Phil Farrand rated the episode as his second favorite episode of the first four seasons in his book 'The Nitpickers Guide to the X-Files.'
This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.1, with a 16 share. It was viewed by 16.32 million people.
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...
television series
Television program
A television program , also called television show, is a segment of content which is intended to be broadcast on television. It may be a one-time production or part of a periodically recurring series...
. It was the twelfth episode broadcast in the show's third season. "War of the Coprophages" surrounds a small town being plagued by deaths related to cockroaches.
Plot
An exterminator comes to a Dr. Eckerle's house to kill cockroaches, but clutches his heart and collapses. Later Eckerle finds the exterminator's body, with cockroaches crawling over him. Agent Fox MulderFox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) is coincidently nearby, investigating a series of colored lights that have appeared in the sky. Mulder talks to partner 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...
) who is at her home with her dog Queequeg. Two other deaths have been reported, causing people to believe cockroaches are behind them. Nearby a trio of teenagers drink beer
Beer
Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...
and huff methane
Methane
Methane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, the principal component of natural gas, and probably the most abundant organic compound on earth. The relative abundance of methane makes it an attractive fuel...
generated by filtering fumes from burnt manure. One of them sees a roach crawl underneath his skin. Trying to get rid of it, he slices himself to death with a razor. Scully provides Mulder with a logical explanation (that this is a case of Ekbom syndrome
Delusional parasitosis
Delusional parasitosis is a form of psychosis whose victims acquire a strong delusional belief that they are infested with parasites, whereas in reality no such parasites are present...
or delusional parasitosis) but he finds a cockroach on the ground. Later, another death occurs when the medical examiner is found dead, also covered with cockroaches. Scully attributes his death to cerebral aneurysm
Cerebral aneurysm
A cerebral or brain aneurysm is a cerebrovascular disorder in which weakness in the wall of a cerebral artery or vein causes a localized dilation or ballooning of the blood vessel.- Signs and symptoms :...
.
Mulder goes to a local government facility when the town sheriff theorizes about whether the government has been breeding killer cockroaches. Inside he sees the walls rippling and is surprised by Dr. Bambi Berenbaum, a USDA researcher who is studying cockroaches. Berenbaum has great interest in insects and believes that UFOs are actually nocturnal insect swarms. Yet another death occurs in Mulder's hotel. By this point Mulder believes Scully's theories about the people dying more logical deaths, although now it is Scully who is wondering what is going on and decides to head up there herself.
Mulder brings a cockroach he finds to Berenbaum, who thinks it may be mechanical. Mulder visits the nearby Dr. Ivanov, a wheelchair-using scientist who works on insect-like robots, and renders the man speechless- informing Mulder that the specimen is, technology-wise, vastly superior to anything he's ever seen before. Scully soon arrives in the town, finding it overrun with panic over the roaches. Scully's attempts to get people to calm down fail. Mulder catches another roach to bring to Berenbaum, but this time it is a seemingly normal cockroach. Scully finds out that Eckerle was researching methane and importing animal dung, which may have brought the roaches over.
Mulder goes with Berenbaum to see Eckerle at a facility, who is overrun with fear, pulling a gun on him. Scully arrives on the scene and meets Berenbaum. When Mulder's phone rings Eckerle shoots at Mulder, releasing methane gas. The agents flee as the facility explodes, covering them in the animal dung. Dr. Ivanov arrives and meets Berenbaum, and the two leave with each other discussing their interests in insects and robots. That night Mulder writes his report on the case, wondering how humanity would react if insect-like robots visited Earth. Mulder finds a bizarre looking bug by his food, which he crushes with an X-File.
Production
Writer Darin MorganDarin Morgan
Darin Morgan is an American screenwriter best known for several offbeat, darkly humorous episodes of the television series The X-Files and Millennium. His teleplay for the X-Files episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" won a 1996 Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Drama...
was inspired to write the episode when he saw a cover of a magazine featuring insect like robots created by robotist Rodney Brooks
Rodney Brooks
Rodney Allen Brooks is the former Panasonic professor of robotics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Since 1986 he has authored a series of highly influential papers which have inaugurated a fundamental shift in artificial intelligence research...
. He also wanted to do an episode featuring mass hysteria, like War of the Worlds. A famous case of hysteria from the 1930s was planned to be discussed by the sheriff during the episode, but was cut due to time. Director Kim Manners
Kim Manners
Kim Manners was an American television producer, director and child actor best known for his work on The X-Files and Supernatural.-Early life:...
felt that the producers were very lucky with the cockroach
Cockroach
Cockroaches are insects of the order Blattaria or Blattodea, of which about 30 species out of 4,500 total are associated with human habitations...
es used in this episode. The show's animal trainer, Debbie Cove, used around four hundred cockroaches for this episode.
The town this episode takes place in, Miller's Grove, is a reference to Grover's Mill
Grover's Mill
Grover's Mill is an unincorporated area within West Windsor Township, New Jersey made famous in Orson Welles' 1938 radio broadcast of The War of the Worlds, where it was depicted as ground zero for a Martian invasion, on October 30th of that year....
from Orson Welles
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...
's broadcast of The War of the Worlds. In this episode 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...
reads the book Breakfast at Tiffany's
Breakfast at Tiffany's (novella)
Breakfast at Tiffany's is a novella by Truman Capote published in 1958. The main character, Holly Golightly, is one of Capote's best-known creations and an American cultural icon.-Plot:...
, a reference to David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
's Final Jeopardy! question when he appeared on Jeopardy!
Jeopardy!
Griffin's first conception of the game used a board comprising ten categories with ten clues each, but after finding that this board could not be shown on camera easily, he reduced it to two rounds of thirty clues each, with five clues in each of six categories...
Reception
Co-Producer Paul Rabwin said that the episode had some of the funniest material in the X-Files as well as some of the most horrific, such as the scene where a cockroach crawled into someone's arm.Writer Darin Morgan ended up being unhappy with the final product, saying "The other day my girlfriend was saying, 'I never understood that episode,' and I guess I don't either. It was an episode that had a lot of what I thought were really good ideas and never quite got it to work. I was really disappointed with that episode. Some people love it. For example, Gillian Anderson rated the episode one of her favorite episodes of the third season.
Author Phil Farrand rated the episode as his second favorite episode of the first four seasons in his book 'The Nitpickers Guide to the X-Files.'
This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.1, with a 16 share. It was viewed by 16.32 million people.