![]() This project uncovered a myriad of secrets kept from the American public, but one of the most interesting was the secret history of LSD. In the wake of the Watergate Scandal and following the resignation of President Richard Nixon, President Gerard Ford created the President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States to delve into the Agency’s activities on American soil. Some of this taint proved be retroactive. The free love and idealism of the counterculture movement collapsed into a nightmare of urban decay. Progress in civil rights was eroded by a global recession. Utopian thought gave way to a world-weary cynicism. Part of the narrative is the death of sixties idealism. “And take your stinkin’ hippie friend too…” The conspirators sold out mankind early in that decade. Samantha Mulder was abducted in November 1973. Mulder’s first informant was named Deep Throat. Although produced in the nineties, the seventies cast a long shadow over The X-Files. The show returns time and time again to the seventies as a moment of cultural disillusionment Watergate and Vietnam are arguably the twin tragedies that helped shape the series’ cynical attitude towards authority. More than that, G-23 hits on one of the big recurring themes of The X-Files. Emasculata and Terma, it seems like a sound jumping-off point. Given how deeply The X-Files is rooted in paranoid conspiracy culture, and how human experimentation bubbles through episodes like F. Those horrific government experiments upon uninformed civilians have been well-documented and exposed, but still sound like paranoid conspiracy theories. The idea of a government-designed super drug resonates with the origin and development of LSD as part of the MK-ULTRA project. G-23 is perfect fodder for an X-Files case on a number of levels. If Mulder weren’t a little preoccupied right now, he’d have a killer one-liner… The strain from the urban legend is “G-13”, with the “G” standing for “government” and “13” referring to the thirteenth letter, “m.” Of course, “23” is “x.” The eponymous strain is clearly modeled on that familiar urban legend about a strain of marijuana that was specifically designed by the government but managed to escape into the wild. In G-23, Mulder opts for an experimental form of cannabis. In both Field Trip and Babylon, mushrooms are the psychedelic consciousness-expanding vehicle of choice. One of the more intriguing aspects of The X-Files: Season 10 is watching Harris stake out similarly thematic ground to the forthcoming revival in his own way, offering an alternative (and ultimately thwarted) take on reviving The X-Files for the twenty-first century. As with a lot of The X-Files: Season 10, it is quite clear that Joe Harris appreciates and understands The X-Files. With that in mind, G-23 feels very much in keeping with the style and tone of The X-Files, affording Mulder yet another trippy experience right before everything hits the fan. ![]() My Struggle II finds Mulder tripped out and sweaty, as the horrors of the conspiracy are finally unleashed upon the world. Towards the end of the episode, with Mulder reaching a state of blissful communion with the universe, our hero is able to hear the sound of trumpets symbolising divine will and judgment. Babylon finds Mulder taking ( what he at least believes to be) magic mushrooms before embarking on a vision quest and spiritual communion with Shiraz. The pattern holds true even into the revival. Mulder and Scully find themselves literally trapped inside a big hallucinatory mushroom in Field Trip, right before Mulder finds himself driven to madness in Biogenesis and finds himself confronting a number of deeply personal and highly symbolic visions in The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati. As veteran X-Files critic and writer Christopher Knowles has noted, the later seasons of the series tended to put an emphasis on the idea of consciousness expansion towards the end of the season right before the big mythology story. ![]()
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