"Gender Bender" is the fourteenth episode of the television series The X-Files. 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. In this episode, they investigate a series of murders following sexual encounters, and soon discover that a member of a religious sect living in Massachusetts may be responsible—and may not be human. Premiering on the Fox network on January 21, 1994, it was directed by Rob Bowman and featured guest appearances by Brent Hinkley and Nicholas Lea. The episode was inspired by producer Glen Morgan's desire for "an episode with more of a sexy edge"; however, the writers found it difficult to write a story that showed sex as scary. This difficulty led to the introduction of an Amish-like community as well. "Gender Bender" had mixed critical responses, facing criticism for its abrupt deus ex machina ending. Academic analysis of the episode has placed it within a science-fiction tradition that attributes a powerful, supernatural element to physical contact with aliens. It has also been seen as reflecting anxieties about emerging gender roles in the 1990s.
Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_Bender_(The_X-Files)
_______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries:
1796:
English physician Edward Jenner began testing cowpox as a vaccine for protection against smallpox. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Jenner
1804:
The Lewis and Clark Expedition led by explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark left Camp Dubois near present-day Hartford, Illinois, and began the first American overland expedition to the Pacific coast and back. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_and_Clark_Expedition
1868:
Boshin War: Troops of the Tokugawa shogunate withdrew from the Battle of Utsunomiya Castle and retreated north towards Nikkō and Aizu. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Utsunomiya_Castle
1925:
Mrs Dalloway, one the best-known novels of English modernist author Virginia Woolf, was first published. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mrs_Dalloway
1943:
Second World War: The Australian Hospital Ship Centaur was attacked and sunk by a Japanese submarine off the coast of Queensland, killing 268 people aboard. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AHS_Centaur
1973:
The NASA space station Skylab was launched from Cape Canaveral. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skylab
_____________________________ Wiktionary's word of the day:
sumptuous: Magnificent, splendid, extremely good. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sumptuous
___________________________ Wikiquote quote of the day:
The great wheel of Fate rolls on like a Juggernaut, and crushes us all in turn, some soon, some late. --H. Rider Haggard https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._Rider_Haggard
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