What a lousy birthday present for Scully. She has to go searching through a plane crash of a 134 people for survivors. Tempus Fugit is a good whodunit/whatdunit mystery. Mulder suspects an alien UFO, but of course no one goes along with it. Tempus Fugit has some cute Mulder/Scully moments, especially during Scully's birthday scene. It was interesting to see Scully joke about her implant. I don't think she's ever shown a sense of humor regarding that before. A good look by Mulder is when he glances over at Scully when asked if his theory is the official FBI position. The visuals for the plane crash site are spectacular. I think it says on the special features how the locals mistook it for a real crash site and phoned the authorities. Rob Bowman, the director, knows how to give his mythology episodes the look and feel of a full-length movie. It's incredible. While watching this episode, you don't feel as if you're just watching a TV show. Tempus Fugit also has a double cliff-hanger with someone's life being in the balance and Mulder in danger as well, leaving you to want to watch the second part immediately.
9 Reviews
You sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday.
Sanpaco1324 December 2007
Warning: Spoilers
The return of Max Fenig. I enjoy this two parter. It is among the better ones. We start with Scully's birthday and the origin of the Apollo 11 keychain which we will learn more about later. I enjoy the group of people that come together in this episode. The man in charge of the plane crash investigation does well as a skeptic who is willing to go with what evidence he has. I enjoy how he completely blows Mulder off in the beginning but later tells him that they never would have found the evidence to explain the crash if Mulder hadn't helped them know what to look for. He remains skeptical but later actually sees a UFO directly above him and finds Max's sister returned from being abducted herself. Max is one of my favorite characters and it is a sad moment when Mulder IDs the body and finds his business card with Max's belongings. Another very sad moment in this episode comes at the end when Scully runs into Agent Pendrell in the bar who is obviously very drunk and showing his obvious interest in Scully. Moments later he is shot by the man trying to cover up the evidence in the crash who means to shoot Scully but Pendrell steps in front of the bullet at the last second. I don't quite understand how the bullet wound ends up being fatal for Pendrell as he is hit in the right shoulder far away from his heart but I guess there may have been an artery or vital organ hit as well. Poor Agent Pendrell. The episode finally ends with Mulder finding a dead grey while scuba diving in an area where the UFO has been recently spotted. Cliffhanger moment! It doesn't quite have the element that would make it a favorite of mine but it is a good one. I give it a 9 out of 10.
Memorable mythology episode
SleepTight66623 November 2008
Warning: Spoilers
This episode is a lot better than I give it credit for. Although it might not be the storyline i'm most interested in. The beautiful and realistic scenery of the crash sight makes it a very memorable mythology episode. It looked almost a little too real.
In this episode Season 1's character 'Max' returns. Unfortunately he doesn't stay for very long as we only see him alive in the teaser right before something happens to the plane. He appears as a dead body in the rest of the episode. We do meet his sister, which is also a very likable character. She gets abducted and then returned.
One of my favorite scenes of the episode is when what's-his-face sees his first UFO. That scene looked so fantastic and shows how much the technology has improved since 'Deep Throat', which was also a great episode.
The episode ends with the cliff hanger of Mulder finding the second space craft and poor Pendrell getting caught in the middle of the crossfire.
FOUR stars.
In this episode Season 1's character 'Max' returns. Unfortunately he doesn't stay for very long as we only see him alive in the teaser right before something happens to the plane. He appears as a dead body in the rest of the episode. We do meet his sister, which is also a very likable character. She gets abducted and then returned.
One of my favorite scenes of the episode is when what's-his-face sees his first UFO. That scene looked so fantastic and shows how much the technology has improved since 'Deep Throat', which was also a great episode.
The episode ends with the cliff hanger of Mulder finding the second space craft and poor Pendrell getting caught in the middle of the crossfire.
FOUR stars.
We've seen it before...
sebastianhoward6825 November 2011
This is a very good mythological episode of the X-Files and its part of a two parter. Its got everything a good episode of the X-Files has, Mulder trying to solve a mystery and he's sure aliens are involved. Scully denying him at every turn, government trying to cover it all up. The problem is we've seen all this before and I haven't seen the next episode yet but i'm sure its going to end the same way all X-Files episodes do. Nothing is answered and there's a thousand more questions. They can't even build suspense with the aliens anymore because we've already seen aliens all over the show. We've seen dead aliens, people being abducted by aliens, aliens being attacked by other aliens, we've seen aliens do just about everything. We've already seen their ship in past episodes. I mean one of the things about this show is the mystery that it builds around the aliens but this far into it the mysteries pretty much gone just because we've seen so much of the aliens. Still a very good episode and I like the story of Mulder and Scully trying to keep the government agent alive. Acting is great per usual and it does a good build to the next episode.
Another exceptional episode.
Sleepin_Dragon7 August 2022
Mulder has a meeting arranged with a known Alien abductee, but when his plane goes down, Mulder suggests he was done away with by The State.
Really did enjoy this, an interesting case with a sense of intrigue and mystery, a few nice touches of humour, and some great moments between Mulder and Scully.
I loved the scene where Mulder have Scully a birthday celebration, the pair looked so wonderfully awkward.
I loved the scene where Mulder was ridiculed, talk about being made to eat your words later on.
That ending sets us up nicely for the next episode, it was quite a moment, with a real sense of threat and danger generated.
9/10.
Really did enjoy this, an interesting case with a sense of intrigue and mystery, a few nice touches of humour, and some great moments between Mulder and Scully.
I loved the scene where Mulder have Scully a birthday celebration, the pair looked so wonderfully awkward.
I loved the scene where Mulder was ridiculed, talk about being made to eat your words later on.
That ending sets us up nicely for the next episode, it was quite a moment, with a real sense of threat and danger generated.
9/10.
"Do you remember the last time you were missing nine minutes?"
classicsoncall27 June 2017
Warning: Spoilers
This episode grabbed me right at the start with it's mention of a location 'somewhere over upstate New York'. I'm a New Yorker myself and live not too far away from a town called Pine Bush, which hosts an annual UFO Festival and Parade each Spring. It's about seventy miles north of New York City, and the location of a fair amount of UFO sightings, though I can't say I've ever had the pleasure myself. Wouldn't mind it though as long as the aliens leave me right where I am. With it's reputation, I'm kind of surprised it was never considered for an X-Files story of it's own, say on the order of the Jose Chung episode.
This one actually takes place a little further to the northeast of Pine Bush in a town called Northville, where a commercial airliner goes down under dubious circumstances. You have to follow the details carefully because it can get confusing, but basically, a UFO in the process of intercepting a commercial flight had been targeted by a military aircraft, with the result that both the UFO and the commercial plane go down with only one visible crash site. That's because the UFO wound up at the bottom of Sacandaga Lake with aliens aboard.
This would be the second story line in a row for Mulder and Scully in which the government is actively involved in a cover up without regard to a large number of human lives considered expendable, but this time in the interest of keeping the existence of extraterrestrials a secret. The prior episode in the series, "Unrequited", involved a government cover up of a former soldier gone rogue on a mission to eliminate officers about to be outed in a major scandal of the Viet Nam War.
A major downer of this episode has FBI Agent Pendrell shot by an assassin attempting to take out Scully at her own birthday party celebration. We become aware of his death in the following episode, a casualty of forces arrayed against the X-Files team for getting too close to the truth of UFO's and EBE's. What I find weird about the cast credit list for this show has to do with the identity of the actor portraying the assassin who has it out for Scully; Greg Michaels has the role of Scott Garret, a name never mentioned in this or the following episode. With the series propensity to name certain individuals with a characteristic like Cigarette Man or Dark Man, you would think he'd go by something like 'The Assassin'.
This one actually takes place a little further to the northeast of Pine Bush in a town called Northville, where a commercial airliner goes down under dubious circumstances. You have to follow the details carefully because it can get confusing, but basically, a UFO in the process of intercepting a commercial flight had been targeted by a military aircraft, with the result that both the UFO and the commercial plane go down with only one visible crash site. That's because the UFO wound up at the bottom of Sacandaga Lake with aliens aboard.
This would be the second story line in a row for Mulder and Scully in which the government is actively involved in a cover up without regard to a large number of human lives considered expendable, but this time in the interest of keeping the existence of extraterrestrials a secret. The prior episode in the series, "Unrequited", involved a government cover up of a former soldier gone rogue on a mission to eliminate officers about to be outed in a major scandal of the Viet Nam War.
A major downer of this episode has FBI Agent Pendrell shot by an assassin attempting to take out Scully at her own birthday party celebration. We become aware of his death in the following episode, a casualty of forces arrayed against the X-Files team for getting too close to the truth of UFO's and EBE's. What I find weird about the cast credit list for this show has to do with the identity of the actor portraying the assassin who has it out for Scully; Greg Michaels has the role of Scott Garret, a name never mentioned in this or the following episode. With the series propensity to name certain individuals with a characteristic like Cigarette Man or Dark Man, you would think he'd go by something like 'The Assassin'.
Preface to the anatomy of an in-flight abduction
XweAponX13 March 2022
Apologies I had posted this on the wrong episode, it is supposed to go here. I will have to clean it all up later...
This episode focusing on Max Fenig sets the stage for the step by step deconstruction of the incident by Mulder in the next episode. However, before he (and we) can go into that, he must piece together what had happened with the meager clues available. They're also must be more information given about Max. We do know a bit about this character from his first appearance in "Fallen Angel", this pair of episodes gets into much more detail.
Meager clues, because some agency, some agent, some unknown person is making evidence disappear. We see short vignettes of this activity, all coordinated by a man who appears similar to the person who had threatened Mulder and Scully in "Deep Throat" with the consequences of "intense indiscretion"- in Deep Throat that person was Stephen McHattie (uncredited and unnamed at that time)... in this episode the character is played by Greg Michaels (as Scott Garrett- but they do not even name this person in the episode, he is just another man in black like McHattie). But the two actors even have the same body type and voice inflections. This man spearheads the cleanup of all evidence that points to military involvement, including silencing both of the military air traffic controllers that saw something.
Meanwhile we didn't know Max had a "sister"... maybe we still do not know that. But we get to meet another person obsessed with alien phenomenon, who is also an abductee. As it turns out both she and Max had become "secret agents" that had infiltrated a government agency that was dealing with various parts of UFOs. That was when the fun started, and unfortunately ended, for Max.
Meanwhile it was Scully's birthday, and all agent Pendrell wanted to do was to buy her a drink, and at least get her to look at him.
But the way this first portion of this story plays out, Scully can't have nice things like coworkers helping her celebrate birthdays or buy her drinks and bars. Because some catastrophic conundrum always interferes.
Because this story involves a plane crash under mysterious circumstances, Mulder applies his expected 2¢, and he is ridiculed by the man who is conducting the investigation.
But it was actually Mulder's unorthodox comments that give this guy a direction as to what to investigate.
The problem is, he can't tell anybody about the evidence that he finds.
The stage has been set, and now Mulder can tell us exactly what transpired. But that will have to wait...
This episode focusing on Max Fenig sets the stage for the step by step deconstruction of the incident by Mulder in the next episode. However, before he (and we) can go into that, he must piece together what had happened with the meager clues available. They're also must be more information given about Max. We do know a bit about this character from his first appearance in "Fallen Angel", this pair of episodes gets into much more detail.
Meager clues, because some agency, some agent, some unknown person is making evidence disappear. We see short vignettes of this activity, all coordinated by a man who appears similar to the person who had threatened Mulder and Scully in "Deep Throat" with the consequences of "intense indiscretion"- in Deep Throat that person was Stephen McHattie (uncredited and unnamed at that time)... in this episode the character is played by Greg Michaels (as Scott Garrett- but they do not even name this person in the episode, he is just another man in black like McHattie). But the two actors even have the same body type and voice inflections. This man spearheads the cleanup of all evidence that points to military involvement, including silencing both of the military air traffic controllers that saw something.
Meanwhile we didn't know Max had a "sister"... maybe we still do not know that. But we get to meet another person obsessed with alien phenomenon, who is also an abductee. As it turns out both she and Max had become "secret agents" that had infiltrated a government agency that was dealing with various parts of UFOs. That was when the fun started, and unfortunately ended, for Max.
Meanwhile it was Scully's birthday, and all agent Pendrell wanted to do was to buy her a drink, and at least get her to look at him.
But the way this first portion of this story plays out, Scully can't have nice things like coworkers helping her celebrate birthdays or buy her drinks and bars. Because some catastrophic conundrum always interferes.
Because this story involves a plane crash under mysterious circumstances, Mulder applies his expected 2¢, and he is ridiculed by the man who is conducting the investigation.
But it was actually Mulder's unorthodox comments that give this guy a direction as to what to investigate.
The problem is, he can't tell anybody about the evidence that he finds.
The stage has been set, and now Mulder can tell us exactly what transpired. But that will have to wait...
Scully: Well, say we do find him. What's that going to prove? Mulder: I don't know... but maybe that one man's life was worth sacrificing a hundred-and-thirty-three others.
bombersflyup6 March 2018
Warning: Spoilers
TempusFugit/Max is about an investigation into the crash of commercial airliner, Flight 549. Among its passengers, our buddy Max Fenig.
This probably didn't need to be a two-part episode, as the second half is a bit of a comedown, a lot of it explanation. The first half though brilliant, up there with some of the best myth arc episodes of the series. I especially like the moment where Mulder sits over Max's remains, seeing a family mourn another victim of the crash and thinks who cared for Max and then finds his business card on him, knowing how much Max thought of him and how little time he had thought about Max. The best moment is the investigation briefing, Mulder posing the question that the flight may have been forced down. Mike: And if any of the capable men and women find... Doctor Spock's phaser or some green alien goo, we'll be sure to give you all the credit. Mulder: All right, then... Scully: You sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday.
Scully: Are you accusing these men of covering evidence? Mulder: These men, no. These men are trained to identify moving parts. Hydraulics, electronics. They're trained to reconstruct those parts and the past and arrive at the present. But they can't do that because somebody has stolen the past from them. Nine minutes of it. Nine minutes that became a lifetime for those passengers, and now for their families. Someone has got to figure out what happened in those nine minutes. Somehow, we've got to get them back.
This probably didn't need to be a two-part episode, as the second half is a bit of a comedown, a lot of it explanation. The first half though brilliant, up there with some of the best myth arc episodes of the series. I especially like the moment where Mulder sits over Max's remains, seeing a family mourn another victim of the crash and thinks who cared for Max and then finds his business card on him, knowing how much Max thought of him and how little time he had thought about Max. The best moment is the investigation briefing, Mulder posing the question that the flight may have been forced down. Mike: And if any of the capable men and women find... Doctor Spock's phaser or some green alien goo, we'll be sure to give you all the credit. Mulder: All right, then... Scully: You sure know how to make a girl feel special on her birthday.
Scully: Are you accusing these men of covering evidence? Mulder: These men, no. These men are trained to identify moving parts. Hydraulics, electronics. They're trained to reconstruct those parts and the past and arrive at the present. But they can't do that because somebody has stolen the past from them. Nine minutes of it. Nine minutes that became a lifetime for those passengers, and now for their families. Someone has got to figure out what happened in those nine minutes. Somehow, we've got to get them back.
Scullys birthday Mulders underwater present
devonbrown-906491 June 2023
Warning: Spoilers
Great set up episode for a hopefully epic reveal.
Mulder and scully are investigating a crash that a repeat abductee was on seemingly carrying something the secret government or aliens wanted so much they were willing to crash two aircraft's to get it.
This episode really a scratched the surface of what really is going on.
Why was max fenig on a commercial flight? What was he carrying? Why was the flight intercepted? Who was trying to assassinate fenig? Why did the same me try to assassinate the air traffic controllers?
I hope all gets answered in the next episode. Also mulder has now seen so many dead aliens that his faith must be unwavering.
Mulder and scully are investigating a crash that a repeat abductee was on seemingly carrying something the secret government or aliens wanted so much they were willing to crash two aircraft's to get it.
This episode really a scratched the surface of what really is going on.
Why was max fenig on a commercial flight? What was he carrying? Why was the flight intercepted? Who was trying to assassinate fenig? Why did the same me try to assassinate the air traffic controllers?
I hope all gets answered in the next episode. Also mulder has now seen so many dead aliens that his faith must be unwavering.
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