A very HOT Mark Andreas Sheppard
I didn't know Mark Sheppard was William Morgan Sheppard's son... learn a new thing every day on IMDb.
At the time this episode was made, Amanda Pays had recently been in the first live action "Flash" TV show with Wesley John Shipp, and she was also in a very interesting movie called "Leviathan" which was like "Underwater Alien". So she is definitely X-Files material and she is definitely Mulder's type- she was a lot like Agent Fowley in some ways.
“Mulder’s Type”
Which is probably why they never brought Phoebe back, ever. They never brought back Mark Sheppard's character either, and they should have.
Recurring characters, if used correctly, can make interesting sequel episodes like they did with Eugene Victor Tooms and Donnie Pfaster. Ironically, Nick Chinlund who plays Donny, also played a character named "Toombs" in "The chronicles of Riddick", who was very Pfaster-Like. It is not like the characters that these actors have played on the X-Files follow those actors around like albatrosses hung around their necks when they are being cast for new shows...
Later in the series they brought back the recurring characters as part of the show, especially in seasons eight and nine. But they were mostly antagonistic fellow agents and FBI directors. Sometimes they were aliens, like Jeremiah Smith (the appropriately cast Roy Thinnes), sometimes they were Kooks, like Absalom (Justin Scott aka Joachim from The Wrath of Khan) . Sometimes they were even super soldiers, but Xena (Lucy Lawless as Shannon McMahon) was only in two episodes and Adam Baldwin moved over to one season of Firefly where the Canton Mudders created a statue of him.
Shoulda been a recurring character...
But this first season episode has some great character actors and it brings in somebody who has the power to start fires. And it definitely opened doors for Mark Sheppard, who has played quite an array of criminals and heroes.
They don't really explain how he does it, or even how he survives later. But the fire aspect not only has to do with the antagonist, but also with with Phoebe, Mulder is obviously disturbed by her presence. And, the first inklings of Skully's actual jealousy, long before the tension between Mulder and Scully even started.
All in all, A great monster of the week episode, we didn't have to worry about shape changing alien bountyhunters, clones of Mulders sister, various types of black oil, or syndicates of evil men... yet.
In a way, I wish they never would have brought the mythos elements into the show because the monster of the week thing worked so well especially in season one. It was good to have almost a whole season where there was no mythos. But then they found that flask filled with "Purity Control" and that changed everything.
And... really who cares about proper English accents? To complain about Amanda Pay’s accent... and she is a British actress even. Wait, what?
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