This episode represents a return to the overarching alien conspiracy story-line and is the first one for quite a few episodes. In this episode, we find that Skinner has contracted a mysterious illness that ultimately puts him on his death bed. Mulder and Scully investigate and with Skinner’s help determine that he was poisoned with an unknown substance. Initially they investigate a physicist who is seen on video stopping Skinner in the hallway that morning. This ultimately leads them to a Senator and a health bill and all seems somewhat of a dead end.
Ultimately, the man who poisoned Skinner ends up saving him, at least for the time being. It turns out that it was Krycek and he had injected Skinner with some sort of nanotechnology that he could control. This of course has implications for later episodes.
Overall, I though this was a pretty decent mythology episode. A pretty scary sickness and what seems to be a good mystery at first. The motives regarding the senate resolution are left murky though. The real motive for poisoning Skinner would seem to be so that he will be forced to report to Krycek about the activities of Mulder and Scully. This leaves the senate resolution as a bit of a red herring as far as the main plot point is concerned. However, I liked the fact that they had Skinner be more of a main character in this episode. Through much of the early seasons you were often left wondering whose side he was on but this is one of the episodes that I though really helped solidify their relationship despite Skinner being compromised. Overall, I would give this one 3.5/5 stars.