Brand X (The X-Files)

"Brand X" is the eighteenth episode of the seventh season of the science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network in the United States on April 16, 2000. It was written by Steven Maeda and Greg Walker and directed by Kim Manners. The episode is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. "Brand X" earned a Nielsen household rating of 6.8, being watched by 10.81 million people in its initial broadcast. The episode received mixed 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. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In this episode, Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) is horrified when the witness who was due to testify against the Morley cigarette company dies mysteriously. After being called in to assist, Mulder and Scully soon discover that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret.

Inspired by the 1999 film The Insider, "Brand X" was written by Maeda and Walker to be an exploration of the corporate evil inside the cigarette industry. The scenes featuring shots of beetles crawling out of corpses were shot and filmed using real insects as well as real actors. In one particular scene, over 3,000 live insects were used. Those scenes took up to a full day to film.