8.7/1051 votes#1 - The Erlenmeyer Flask
Season 1 Episode 24 - Aired 5/13/1994
When Deep Throat points out a news story about a fugitive who apparently drowned, Mulder and Scully cannot see what makes the case special but follow it up anyway. With Deep Throat's insistence, they discover evidence of a secret government project code-named Purity Control, which uses human test subjects and infects them with extraterrestrial DNA. However, the evidence and everyone who has seen it is quickly being eliminated.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.5/1039 votes#2 - Anasazi (1)
Season 2 Episode 25 - Aired 5/19/1995
Mulder receives an encrypted computer disk containing the defense department's top secret files on extraterrestrial life and becomes a target. Scully takes him to a Navajo family that unearthed a buried secret to decipher the disk.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.3/1036 votes#3 - The End
Season 5 Episode 20 - Aired 5/17/1998
The Cigarette-Smoking Man returns as Mulder investigates the attempted assassination of a young boy with psychic powers who may be the proof that he has looked for all his life.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.2/1044 votes#4 - Colony (1)
Season 2 Episode 16 - Aired 2/10/1995
After the obituaries of four identical men are e-mailed to Mulder, the agents are contacted by a shadowy CIA agent who tells them about a bounty hunter sent to wipe out the beginning of a colony of clones. Meanwhile Mulder is distracted by the sudden reappearance of his sister Samantha.
Director: Nick Marck
Writer: Chris Carter
8.2/1038 votes#5 - Paper Clip (3)
Season 3 Episode 2 - Aired 9/29/1995
A.D. Skinner and Scully are at a standoff when Mulder bursts in and discovers that Skinner has the digital tape. Reunited, Mulder and Scully travel to a secret vault inside a mine and find an elaborate filing system of medical records which reveals that Mulder's sister may not have been the first choice for abduction. Meanwhile, Skinner deals with the Cigarette-Smoking Man for their safety.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
8.2/1042 votes#6 - Gethsemane (1)
Season 4 Episode 24 - Aired 5/18/1997
Mulder fights to prove that a discovery frozen in the mountains of Canada is an irrefutable evidence of alien life, but his quest for the truth only leads to more lies and an unthinkable conclusion.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.2/1030 votes#7 - One Son (2)
Season 6 Episode 12 - Aired 2/14/1999
The Cigarette-Smoking Man reveals all the government secrets from the past 50 years in order for his son, Jeffery Spender, to join him in his work. Mulder learns that the final stage of the conspiracy will soon begin with the hybridization of the Syndicate members, and he must stop it from happening. Agent Spender deceives his father and arranges for Mulder and Scully to be reassigned to the X-Files, which doesn't sit too well with the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
8.1/1041 votes#8 - Nisei (1)
Season 3 Episode 9 - Aired 11/24/1995
An investigation into a video of an alien autopsy puts Mulder and Scully in the middle of a conspiracy involving WWII Japanese scientists brought to America to continue their experiments which may shed light on Scully's abduction.
Director: David Nutter
Writer: Chris Carter
8.1/1035 votes#9 - Talitha Cumi (1)
Season 3 Episode 24 - Aired 5/17/1996
After his mother suffers a stroke under strange circumstances, Mulder searches for a strange, benevolent alien man that possesses miraculous healing powers. With the help from Mr. X, he learns about the involvement of the Cigarette-Smoking Man and uncovers some secrets kept by his parents.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.0/1046 votes#10 - Duane Barry (1)
Season 2 Episode 5 - Aired 10/14/1994
Mulder is called to a hostage situation involving Duane Barry, a former FBI Agent who claims to be an alien abductee and wants to get back to the abduction site with someone who will be taken instead of him. Unfortunately, the someone he eventually chooses is Scully.
Director: Chris Carter
Writer: Chris Carter
8.0/1036 votes#11 - Piper Maru (1)
Season 3 Episode 15 - Aired 2/9/1996
A French salvage ship searching for a lost WWII fighter plane unknowingly surfaces an alien which appears in the form of black oil and has the ability to jump hosts. Mulder heads to Hong Kong to investigate the salvage broker who sold the information to the French and he encounters Krycek, who has been selling information from the MJ documents. As Mulder prepares to take Krycek back to the US, the alien makes its way to Hong Kong and takes control of Krycek.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
8.0/1042 votes#12 - Herrenvolk (2)
Season 4 Episode 1 - Aired 10/4/1996
With his mother on a deathbed and the alien bounty hunter in pursuit, Mulder decides to put Jeremiah Smith, the alien healer, in mortal danger for a chance to finally uncover the whole truth behind the alien conspiracy. Meanwhile, the Syndicate suspects that they have a traitor in their midst and set up a trap.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
8.0/1036 votes#13 - Tempus Fugit (1)
Season 4 Episode 17 - Aired 3/16/1997
While celebrating Scully's 33rd birthday, a strange woman informs Mulder that NICAP member Max Fenig (see Fallen Angel) has recently died in a plane crash. After a visit to the crash site and finding Max's body with radiation burns on it, Mulder suggests that the plane was intercepted by a UFO and is rapidly being covered up by the military.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
8.0/108 votes#14 - Lamentation (1)
Season 1 Episode 18 - Aired 4/18/1997
Frank and Bob Bletcher hike across a remote snow-covered mountaintop in the spectacular North Cascades region of Washington State. Their trip is cut short when Frank receives an important page from the FBI.
Director: Winrich Kolbe
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1055 votes#15 - Darkness Falls
Season 1 Episode 20 - Aired 4/15/1994
When a group of loggers in the Washington State National Forest disappear in the same way that another group disappeared 50 years ago, Mulder and Scully go along to investigate and find themselves trapped in a cabin surrounded by flesh eating insects that only attack at night.
Director: Joe Napolitano
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1089 votes#16 - Pilot
Season 1 Episode 1 - Aired 9/10/1993
The agents' first case takes them to Oregon to investigate the unsolved murders of several high-school classmates.
Director: Robert Mandel
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1050 votes#17 - The Host
Season 2 Episode 2 - Aired 9/23/1994
A.D. Skinner sends Mulder to investigate a body which washed into the New Jersey sewer from the ocean. Mulder believes that the basic blue-collar assignment is punishment, but by Skinner's own admission, what he discovers is a true X-File.
Director: Daniel Sackheim
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1039 votes#18 - The Blessing Way (2)
Season 3 Episode 1 - Aired 9/22/1995
Scully finds her career with the FBI in jeopardy as Mulder is still missing and the Cigarette Smoking Man is pursuing the stolen files. The Navajo elders find Mulder's body in a cave and perform an ancient ceremony to call the spirit back to the empty vessel.
Director: R. W. Goodwin
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1036 votes#19 - Apocrypha (2)
Season 3 Episode 16 - Aired 2/16/1996
Mulder pursues Krycek (unaware of the alien that has taken over his body) to get back the DAT tape containing the MJ documents. Meanwhile, the shooting of A.D. Skinner uncovers evidence that could lead Scully to her sister's murderer.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1036 votes#20 - Tunguska (1)
Season 4 Episode 8 - Aired 11/24/1996
Mulder is given a tip about potentially dangerous paramilitary operations on the U.S. soil but during the sting operation is surprised to find out the identity of his mysterious informant - it turns out to be Alex Krycek. Suspicious about his true motives, Mulder reluctantly follows the information provided by Krycek. However, soon he discovers a much bigger conspiracy which takes him to a gulag in Tunguska, Russia where prisoners are being used for experiments involving a substance of alien origin.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1036 votes#21 - Redux II (3)
Season 5 Episode 2 - Aired 11/9/1997
The Cigarette-Smoking Man helps Mulder to obtain Scully's cure and also lets him see his real sister who doesn't turn out to be as happy to see Mulder as he would've liked. In return for this, the Cigarette-Smoking Man asks that Mulder quit the FBI and work for him in the Syndicate where he could have power and respect which Mulder turns down, deciding to stay on the side of justice. While Scully's cure appears to have worked, the Cigarette-Smoking Man faces his own enemies and disappears, presumed dead.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1031 votes#22 - The Beginning
Season 6 Episode 1 - Aired 11/8/1998
Mulder is less than thrilled when an Office of Professional Conduct board refuses to reassign him and Scully to The X-Files and even more so when he learns that Agent Spender and Agent Fowley have become their successors. When Gibson Praise reappears and comes to them for help, Mulder and Scully attempt to continue their quest undercover despite having fewer friends and less access and protection than ever before.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1038 votes#23 - Triangle
Season 6 Episode 3 - Aired 11/22/1998
Mulder goes to the Bermuda Triangle when he learns that the Queen Anne, a British luxury liner which disappeared during WWII, has reappeared in the middle of the Sargasso Sea. Mulder's boat is wrecked and after floating in the water, he is hauled aboard the ship which has just been hijacked by the Nazis searching for the man who will build the atom bomb. Mulder tries to convince the crew that they have traveled into the future, but evidence further suggests that it is he who is back in the past.
Director: Chris Carter
Writer: Chris Carter
7.9/1031 votes#24 - Two Fathers (1)
Season 6 Episode 11 - Aired 2/7/1999
While the Cigarette-Smoking Man recites to an unseen listener everything about the work of the Syndicate involving a global conspiracy in cooperation with an alien species, Cassandra Spender reappears and is pursued by the scientists who would rather kill her than keep her alive. Cassandra runs to Mulder's apartment and demands that he shoot her because she is the culmination of 50 years work - a living alien/human hybrid - and colonization will begin if the aliens find out about her.
Director: Kim Manners
Writer: Chris Carter
7.8/1040 votes#25 - F. Emasculata
Season 2 Episode 22 - Aired 4/28/1995
When a plague-like illness kills ten men inside a maximum security prison, Scully tries to get into the quarantine site and discover the cause and origin of the contagion, while Mulder and a group of US Marshals track two escapees who may be infected.
Director: Rob Bowman
Writer: Chris Carter
Popular searches:
The Best Episodes Written By Chris Carter
Every TV Episode Written by Chris Carter Ranked from Best to Worst by Thousands of Voters
Chris Carter Ratings Summary
"The Erlenmeyer Flask" is the best rated episode written by Chris Carter. It scored 8.7/10 based on 51 votes. It was directed by R. W. Goodwin. It aired on 5/13/1994 and is rated 0.2 points higher than their second-best episode, "Anasazi (1)".