"Field Trip" is the twenty-first episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on May 9, 1999, in the United States and Canada, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on Sky1 on July 18. The episode was written by John Shiban and Vince Gilligan, from a story by Frank Spotnitz, and was directed by Kim Manners. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Field Trip" earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.5, being watched by 15.40 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received largely positive reviews from television critics.
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, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In the episode, the mysterious discovery of two skeletons leads Mulder and Scully to investigate. What they discover is a giant fungal growth that causes the agents to have two separate hallucinogenic episodes, which eventually merge into one shared hallucination. The two are saved thanks to an FBI rescue team led by Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi).
The episode was written to give the audience a chance to see Mulder and Scully's separate viewpoints during their hallucinations. Members of the cast and crew, as well as reviewers, noted that the episode was a more serious version of the season five episode "Bad Blood". In order to prepare for the episode, various information on mushrooms, fungi, human decomposition, and cave geology was researched by the series' crew members. Furthermore, the episode has been critically examined due to its themes pertaining to alternate reality and its use of abductive reasoning.
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