Okay, only the X-Files could have a crossover this bizarre: a science fiction show crossing over with what is basically a non-fiction police documentary series. And here I thought The X-Files crossing over with Homicide: Life On The Streets was funky.

   COPS is the Fox network's long running hit series which is made up of live video shot on the streets of police officers in action. A camera crew travels with a patrol officer and tapes all the night's events. The X-Files is Fox's hit science fiction series centering on FBI Agents Mulder and Scully and their investigations into the paranormal.

   How do you cross such different shows over? Simple: on The X-Files you have a cop with a COPS show camera crew runs across a paranormal case and in the process bump into Mulder and Scully who are investigating the same case. It was really very cool. Even though this all happened on The X-Files (What, like COPS is gonna air science fiction? They're the reality show) the show opened with the COPS intro and music. While The X-Files is shot on film, COPS is shot on the fly on video and so as a result so was this episode of The X-Files. Following the COPS show open we see a cop run into something we don't see but that scares the crap out of him and upends his squad car. At this point we cut to The X-Files' opening. Through the rest of the show, every time they would go to a break, it would be ala COPS with a fade to the shows title card with a police light flashing across it, only in this case it's The X-File title card.

   The story itself had Mulder and Scully teaming up with the L.A.S.D. to find what seemed to be a monster terrorizing poor L.A. neighborhoods every full moon. Scully, who is skeptical of all the supernatural hooey they investigate, worries that they'll end up looking like boobs in front of the COPS viewing audience if Mulder insists on stating on camera that they're after a monster. The episode used the on-the-run video camerawork style to great effect in the same way The Blair Witch Project did, adding a true feeling of reality to the story with the camera itself being a character. Also like The Blair Witch Project, the show left a lot to the audience's imagination.

   I won't actually get much more into the plot since that mostly sums things up. To say anything more would be to give away the apparent answer to the case. And besides, just as important to this episode as the plot is the look and feel of it so you really need to see the episode to really appreciate it. Any synopsis I would write would fall way short.

Other X-Files Crossover Links
The X-Files and Homicide: Life On The Street
The X-Files and Law And Order: Special Victims Unit
The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen
The X-Files and Millennium
The X-Files and Picket Fences
The X-Files and The Simpsons
The X-Files and Strange Luck

Click here to return to main Crossover List

Buy these shows on Amazon.com and support this site at the same time! Check out COPS and The X-Files on DVD! To see the COPS/X-Files crossover discussed hear, check out Season 7 of The X-Files.





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