Rush (The X-Files)

"Rush"
The X-Files episode
A woman shoots a man who is frozen with a scream.
Max Harden meets his end at the hands of Chastity Raines. In order to create the scene, a matte of Max was combined with smoke and a CGI bullet.
Episode no.Season 7
Episode 5
Directed byRobert Lieberman
Written byDavid Amann
Production code7ABX06
Original air dateDecember 5, 1999 (1999-12-05)
Running time44 minutes
Guest appearances
Episode chronology
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The X-Files season 7
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"Rush" is the fifth episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files, and the 144th episode overall. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 5, 1999. It was written by David Amann and directed by Robert Lieberman. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Rush" earned a Nielsen household rating of 7.9, being watched by 12.71 million viewers in its initial broadcast. The episode received mostly mixed-to-negative 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 this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate a high school student who is the prime suspect in the bizarre murder of a police officer. They discover that the boy and a couple of friends have been playing with the ability to accelerate their movements to a frequency the human eye cannot perceive.

The idea for "Rush" had been proposed as far back as the sixth season of The X-Files. However, the original plot of the episode—the effects of having super speed—eventually delved into "deeper" themes, such as drug abuse, boredom, and the teenage experience. Although the episode relied on special effects, many of the scenes were created by manipulating the speed of the camera during filming.

  1. ^ Shapiro, pp. 57–66