Scully discovers that women who have been using the same infertility clinic as her have been given birth to alien foetuses, and she could be next.

This is the episode that purports to explain Scully's mysterious pregnancy. The problem is that it comes so couched in the usual Chris Carter nonsense that what could have been one of the most fascinating stories of the season is rendered toothless. With flashbacks that show Mulder to be the father of Scully's child (she asks him, for reasons never adequately explored, to donate his sperm), even the presence of David Duchovny doesn't lead to anything more than the odd scene of he and Scully hugging.

Meanwhile, the attention is firmly fixed on the women giving birth to alien babies and then being killed. A friend of Doggett's is brought in to help, though naturally turns out to be the latest in a long line of traitorous friends, Scully gets increasingly worked up about her baby and the doctors play an incredibly obvious trick on her where they play a video of her baby to her. Once they leave the room, Scully quickly uses her sharp detective skills to read the word 'play' on the video and realize what is happening, in a truly appalling piece of shock revelation.

If this episode had been a Mulder/Scully flashback and explained how it all came about, I would have been happy. Instead it's just a rehash of every conspiracy episode ever made. Quite why they even bother to film the scene where people vanish and equipment disappears, I don't know. It's not like any of us viewers are expecting all the proof to be hanging about. There's running, chasing, tension, worry, but it's still an episode that could have been interesting and touching but instead is ridiculous in the extreme, incredibly obvious and written to the X-Files formula so flawlessly that you can predict just what scene is about to come along. Considering Skinner and Doggett are also featured, there's precious little for them to do, and Scully's rather nasty handling of her partner when she won't even tell him what's wrong and seek his support is unforgivable. We've seen it all before, Chris Carter, and we really can't stand yet more of this nonsense eight years in when it got wearing after four.

**

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