"Triangle" is the third episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on November 22, 1998. Written and directed by series creator Chris Carter, "Triangle" is a "Monster-of-the-Week" episode, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the overarching mythology of The X-Files. "Triangle" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.8, being watched by 18.20 million viewers in its initial broadcast. The episode generally received positive reviews with many critics commenting on the episode's directing style.
The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work and the two have developed a close friendship. In this episode, Mulder races to a luxury passenger liner which has mysteriously appeared in the Bermuda Triangle. Once there, he realizes he has traveled back in time to September 3, 1939—the outbreak of World War II. German soldiers have boarded the ship in search of "Thor's Hammer", something that could ensure victory in the coming conflict. Scully, after being informed of Mulder's disappearance by The Lone Gunmen, rushes through the J. Edgar Hoover Building, looking for someone who can help find her missing partner.
"Triangle" is filmed in a style inspired by the 1948 Alfred Hitchcock film Rope, with many scenes edited to appear as single takes. In addition, "Triangle" features the main and recurring cast members such as Anderson, William B. Davis, Chris Owens, James Pickens Jr. and Mitch Pileggi, who played their contemporary characters as well as distinctly different characters from 1939 on board the luxury liner. Several of the episode's themes have been critically examined, such as the concept of "dream-nazis", the appearance of modern characters portraying those from the past, and the ramification that the entire episode was a dream.
Plot Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) lies unconscious at sea after wrecking his raft. He is taken aboard a passenger ship, SS Queen Anne, by its British crew members. When he is sent to meet the captain, Mulder tries to explain that Queen Anne vanished in the Bermuda Triangle in 1939 and claims that it has reappeared in 1998. The crew dismisses Mulder's story and suspect he is a Nazi spy. At that moment, Queen Anne is boarded by SS troops under the control of an Oberführer resembling the Smoking Man (William B. Davis), who sets the ship's course for Germany. The crew of Queen Anne lock Mulder in the captain's quarters, where he listens to a radio broadcast announcing the start of World War II. Mulder realizes that Queen Anne did not travel to 1998; he has traveled back to 1939.
In the present, the Lone Gunmen inform Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) that they have lost contact with Mulder, who had set out in search of Queen Anne. Scully first turns to Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), unsuccessfully, then attempts to confront Assistant Director Alvin Kersh (James Pickens Jr.) who is seen with the Smoking Man. She finally threatens Agent Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) before Skinner shows up and provides her with Mulder's location. Scully leaves with the Gunmen to find Mulder. Meanwhile, aboard Queen Anne, a British sailor tells Mulder that the Germans are looking for what they believe is a weapon called "Thor's Hammer." Mulder tells him that Thor's Hammer is not a weapon, but a scientist who will build a weapon. The sailor turns out to be a German spy and locks Mulder in the engine room with the ship's crew. One of the sailors, who strongly resembles Kersh, decides to steer the boat towards Jamaica, but Mulder tells them to sail back where they came from, in order to pass through the time warp and re-appear in 1998.
Eventually, Mulder is taken to the ballroom by the Nazis. Once there, he is ordered to identify the scientist or else the Nazis will begin executing passengers. After they have killed two men, a woman who resembles Scully tells the Nazis that they are killing innocent people for nothing, and that Mulder knows nothing. Mulder tells the Nazis that one of the men they shot was the scientist, but the true scientist steps forward. The Nazis prepare to shoot Mulder and "Scully", but before they are able, the engine is shut down. British sailors descend upon the ballroom and begin fighting the Nazis. In the midst of the chaos, Mulder and "Scully" escape, at one time aided by a Nazi officer who resembles Agent Skinner and appears to be an Allied sympathizer. Meanwhile, Scully and the Gunmen find Queen Anne and board it, only to find that it is an empty ghost ship, unaware that the dimension in which Mulder and the passengers now exist is running parallel to their own.
Back in 1939, Mulder tells "Scully" that she has to turn the ship around and return to the Bermuda Triangle in order to get the ship out of the rift in space. Mulder grabs "Scully" and kisses her, "in case we never meet again." "Scully" punches him, and he jumps overboard. Mulder wakes up in 1998 in a hospital, surrounded by Scully, the Gunmen and Skinner. Mulder attempts to tell them about his experiences in 1939, and that Scully was there with him, but they all think he is delirious. After Skinner and the Gunmen leave, Mulder calls Scully back and tells her that he loves her. Scully thinks his declaration is an effect of the drugs he has been given, rolls her eyes and leaves. As he lies down, Mulder winces as his cheek touches the pillow; the spot where "Scully" punched him in 1939 is still sore and visibly bruised. Mulder breaks into a knowing smile.
Production
Conception, writing, and filming
The X-Files creator Chris Carter developed the idea for "Triangle" while working on the fifth-season episode "The Red and the Black".Meisler (2000), p. 39. While filming the episode, Carter used so much film that the crew made him a mock trophy. This, in turn, inspired him to write an episode that featured continuous action, thereby using as little film as possible. Carter designed "Triangle" in a style similar to Alfred Hitchcock's 1948 film Rope. Initially, Fox executives were hesitant to green-light production for "Triangle" because it was expected to exceed the $2.5 million episode budget. To persuade them, Carter told the executives that the episode would feature elements of Hitchcock's directing style, a move he later called "an easy hook". Carter also cited the 1964 Twilight Zone adaptation of "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" as inspiration.
The scenes taking place on the Queen Anne were filmed aboard the retired British ocean liner RMS Queen Mary, which is moored at Long Beach, California and currently serves as a hotel. Filming on board the ship took place over eleven days. To block out the lights of nearby Long Beach, The X-Files crew erected wrap-around scaffolding on the ship's bridge. To give the effect of rain during the scenes on the bridge, the crew installed large sprinkler systems that provided a constant supply of water. Unhappy with the remodeled style of the ship's corridors and ballroom, Carter had whole portions of the ship redesigned so that the finished episode would have a late-1930s feel.
For authenticity, several British and German actors portrayed the British sailors and Nazi soldiers, whose dialogue was mostly in German. Trevor Goddard, who portrayed the First British Crewman, is English, while Madison Mason, who played Captain Yip Harburg, is American; he affected an English accent for the part. William B. Davis' dialogue was entirely in German, a language which he did not speak. He later explained, "I certainly didn't realize I was going to be speaking a lot of German until I got the script, which just said 'CSM (in German)'." To successfully learn his lines, one of the German cast members recorded all of Davis' dialogue onto a cassette. Davis was given the cassette two weeks before shooting and phonetically memorized his lines; he noted that the method "seemed to work pretty well—at least to non-German-speaking people! It was a little more challenging because there were some real German speakers on the show, which I thought was a little unfair." Tom Braidwood, who played Lone Gunman Melvin Frohike and was an assistant director on the show, called Davis' role "brutal" and noted that "It was really tough for William because he had to learn all this German." Davis later joked that "Maybe we shouldn't try to do two clever things at once. I think it worked fine, but it was a struggle to do it." The only main cast member of The X-Files who already spoke German was Mitch Pileggi. Pileggi had studied in Germany; he had to re-write many of his lines as they made no sense in the context of the scenes.Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 158. The tagline that usually appears after the opening credits of every episode, "The Truth is Out There", was translated into German: "Die Wahrheit ist irgendwo da draußen".
Directing style
Filmed in real time, the episode is designed to look like it was recorded in four uninterrupted eleven-minute takes. Carter explained, "I said [to the cast and crew] 'Wouldn't it be great since we have 44 minutes of programming time if we just did an episode where we did four 11-minute takes and put it all together?' And everyone looked at me like I was nuts."Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 157. To film the episode, camera operator Dave Luckenbach wore a steadicam. The steadicam used could only hold a maximum of four minutes of film, so discreet edits and cuts were necessary. Luckenbach later likened the physical aftermath of filming to playing football, "You'd have a game on Friday, and you'd wake up Saturday and really feel it." The cuts were usually made during whip pans or in scenes when the screen would go dark. With the exception of Mulder jumping off the Queen Anne, the only noticeable editing occurs between scenes, when a side swipe shifts between the two different time periods. Many of the takes needed to be nearly perfect; for example, of the takes made on the eighth day of filming, only two of ten were deemed satisfactory. Both the cast and crew admitted that filming an episode of The X-Files in real time was physically and mentally exhausting. Duchovny later joked that, after filming concluded, he "could win an Emmy for most bruises." Gillian Anderson described the real time directing style as "challenging." She said, "I'm realizing how comfortable and connected I am to the rhythm we're used to."
In an interview before the episode was finished, Gillian Anderson said she was most looking forward to the scene in which Scully takes an elevator through FBI headquarters in her quest to locate Mulder. She later compared the episode to live theater, which she had worked in previously.Lowry (1995), pp. 15–16. During the filming of this scene, when the actors entered the stage elevator, the set that they would next move onto had to be constructed behind the closed doors. Many times during filming, these doors would open before the set behind had been completed, which ruined the shot.Meisler (2000), p. 40. The final two acts of the episode feature a sophisticated split-screen mise en scène: Rather than displaying two different events, each side of the screen features the same setting, but with each side set during a different time period. When Scully runs around the corner in the present day, she does so at the same time as Mulder and the 1939 version of Scully. This was filmed in such a way that as the actors pass each other in the hallway, they also pass into the opposite frame of the split screen. This effect was inspired by the music video for Semisonic's hit 1998 single "Closing Time."