List of season 1 episodes
List of The X-Files episodes
"Tooms" is the twenty-first episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on April 22, 1994. "Tooms" was written by Glen Morgan and James Wong, and directed by David Nutter. The episode featured Mitch Pileggi's first appearance as Assistant Director Walter Skinner, and saw Doug Hutchison and William B. Davis reprise their roles as Eugene Victor Tooms and The Smoking Man, respectively. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, a stand-alone plot which is unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Tooms" earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.6, being watched by 8.1 million households in its initial broadcast; and received positive reviews from 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. When mutant serial killer Eugene Tooms, last seen in "Squeeze", is released from prison, Mulder and Scully try to stop him from resuming his killing spree. Tooms, however, sets out to frame Mulder for assault before the agent can apprehend him.
After seeing men working on an open escalator in a mall around Christmas time, Glen Morgan decided to revisit the character of Eugene Victor Tooms, from the first episode he and co-writer James Wong wrote for the series, "Squeeze". "Tooms" introduced the character of Walter Skinner, although this would be his only appearance in the first season. The character had been conceived as playing against the stereotypical bureaucratic "paper-pusher", being instead someone more "quietly dynamic".
Read more about Tooms: Plot, Production, Reception
Other articles related to "tooms":
... Water flowing from the Tooms Lake has an average electrical conductivity of 74 μS/cm ... Tooms Lake map with settlement Location Tasmania Coordinates 42°13′55″S 147°47′46″E / 42.232°S 147.796°E / -42.232 147.796 (Tooms Lake) Type reservoir ...
... For the shot in which Tooms slides through a chimney, the producers hired a contortionist who could squeeze through small spaces ... The scene in which Tooms enters Scully's home was initially filmed in Hutchison's absence ... These shots were digitally merged so that Tooms would appear to emerge from a much smaller hatch than was filmed ...
... "Tooms" premiered on the Fox network on April 22, 1994, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on February 16, 1995 ... In a retrospective of the first season in Entertainment Weekly, "Tooms" was rated an A, with the Hutchison's appearance being noted as "another sublimely slimy performance", whilst Pileggi's ... Matt Haigh, writing for Den of Geek, felt that the plot thread of Tooms framing Mulder for assault "never really amounts to much", though he felt that the episode showed Tooms to be a ...
... There, they catch a man named Eugene Victor Tooms (Doug Hutchison) climbing through the air vents ... Tooms is given a polygraph test, which includes questions written by Mulder linking him to murders dating as far back as 1903 ... After Tooms passes the test easily, Colton dismisses Mulder's queries as being ridiculous and lets Tooms go ...
... Guest star Doug Hutchison based his critically acclaimed portrayal of Tooms on Anthony Hopkins (right) in The Silence of the Lambs ... Morgan went on to write "Tooms", another first season episode in which the character returns ... episode", and Hutchison's portrayal of Tooms was described as "profoundly creepy" ...