Entertainment
The Best X-Files Episode Completely Changed The Show
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
Every X-Files fan has a favorite episode, from darkly whimsical one-offs like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” to iconic mythology stories such as the Anasazi trilogy. Personally, my favorite has always been “One Breath,” which returns the abducted Scully to Mulder, deepening their relationship and giving the show a heretofore unseen spiritual side. It turns out that was completely intentional: the episode writers had feared that The X-Files was becoming overly bleak, so they went out of their way to create a story in which the paranormal served as a source of comfort and strength.
Like many of the best early X-Files episodes, “One Breath” was scripted by the writing duo of Glen Morgan and James Wong, and Morgan was quoted in X-Files Confidential as believing that the show had become too dark: “The show had been so dark and bleak, and Jim and I feel that there is a side to the paranormal that’s very hopeful,” he said. With “One Breath,” the writers “wanted to do that side of it.”
The Softer Side Of The Supernatural
How did the episode portray the softer side of the supernatural? Previously, Agent Scully had been kidnapped, first by a mentally ill man named Duane Barry and second by, seemingly, aliens. In “One Breath,” she suddenly reappears in a hospital, with Cigarette Smoking Man later taking the credit for returning Scully to Mulder because he likes them both. But it’s unclear if Scully will ever wake up from her coma, and she (as a medical doctor) left in her will very specific instructions to remove her from life support if she ever ended up in such a condition.
Mulder and Scully’s family (her mother and sister) are understandably worried about Scully because it looks like she might never wake up, and the doctors will soon be legally forced to pull the plug. This evokes very different reactions among her loved ones: Mulder becomes obsessed with finding and killing the people who abducted his partner, while Scully’s hippie sister (she’s into all things mystical) thinks he just needs to spend time with Scully. This culminates in a scene where she encourages him to visit a seemingly dying Scully, but Mulder is in the midst of an active plan to ambush and kill Scully’s kidnappers.
Mulder Vs. Mysticism
In an effort to convince him to go see Scully, she drops some very New Age wisdom: she tells him that “I don’t have to be psychic to see you’re in a very dark place…willingly walking deeper into darkness cannot help her at all.” She starts to say “Only the light” before Mulder interrupts, telling her, “Enough with the harmonic convergence crap…you’re not saying anything to me.”
That’s when Melissa Scully gets fairly blunt, telling Mulder to “drop your cynicism and your paranoia and your defeat.” After this, she tells him something that writer Glen Morgan considered the most important line in the episode. “Just because the belief is positive and good doesn’t make it silly or trite.”
The Woman Who Taught Hope To Mulder
After these and a few choice other words (“I expect more from you…Dana expects more”), she leaves, and Mulder ultimately abandons his revenge plan in order to visit Scully in the hospital. This was always an emotionally moving scene, but knowing that the writers fully endorsed Scully’s New Age sister changes everything. After all, X-Files writers typically script most of the show from Mulder’s perspective, and he has embraced cynical paranoia as a way of simply surviving in a world where shadowy government forces can and often do try to kill him whenever his crusade to uncover the truth becomes inconvenient.
This paranoia is so baked into Mulder’s personality (and, accordingly, the show’s DNA) that it is part of arguably The X-Files’ most famous catchphrase: “trust no one.” Notably, “One Breath” writers Glen Morgan and James Wong played a major role in the show’s bleak paranoia by writing seminal early episodes like “E.B.E.” (where Mulder’s government ally Deep Throat lies to him to protect a major coverup involving a hunt for an alien) and “Little Green Men” (in which a senator sends Mulder to a Puerto Rican SETI station, where he is nearly killed by both an alien presence and a military artworks squad).
Mulder Gives Scully A Hand
That bleakness never truly went away, either, as they later wrote the controversial Season 4 masterpiece “Home,” where inbred hillbillies with a mommy fixation terrorize small-town America. But for one brief, shining moment in Season 2, they presented a different perspective: that paranormal phenomena could be a force for good and that the only way to cure depressive paranoia is earnest and unshamed love. Mulder chooses love over revenge, holding Scully’s hand and talking to her throughout the night. She miraculously wakes up the next day, with medical science unable to explain how she managed such an inexplicable recovery.
Admittedly, Beatles-like message (all you need is love!) is very different from the rest of the series, and one that wouldn’t really survive past this episode. But iconic X-Files scribes Glen Morgan and James Wong used “One Breath” to teach Mulder a very necessary lesson: the truth he is relentlessly seeking has been right in front of him the entire time. That truth is his love for Scully, something that would always be enough to save both of them, even when (especially when) all hope seems lost.
Entertainment
Wordle today: Answer, hints for April 19, 2026
Today’s Wordle answer should be easy to solve if you can never sit down.
If you just want to be told today’s word, you can jump to the bottom of this article for today’s Wordle solution revealed. But if you’d rather solve it yourself, keep reading for some clues, tips, and strategies to assist you.
Where did Wordle come from?
Originally created by engineer Josh Wardle as a gift for his partner, Wordle rapidly spread to become an international phenomenon, with thousands of people around the globe playing every day. Alternate Wordle versions created by fans also sprang up, including battle royale Squabble, music identification game Heardle, and variations like Dordle and Quordle that make you guess multiple words at once.
Wordle eventually became so popular that it was purchased by the New York Times, and TikTok creators even livestream themselves playing.
What’s the best Wordle starting word?
The best Wordle starting word is the one that speaks to you. But if you prefer to be strategic in your approach, we have a few ideas to help you pick a word that might help you find the solution faster. One tip is to select a word that includes at least two different vowels, plus some common consonants like S, T, R, or N.
What happened to the Wordle archive?
The entire archive of past Wordle puzzles was originally available for anyone to enjoy whenever they felt like it, but it was later taken down, with the website’s creator stating it was done at the request of the New York Times. However, the New York Times then rolled out its own Wordle Archive, available only to NYT Games subscribers.
Is Wordle getting harder?
It might feel like Wordle is getting harder, but it actually isn’t any more difficult than when it first began. You can turn on Wordle‘s Hard Mode if you’re after more of a challenge, though.
Here’s a subtle hint for today’s Wordle answer:
To rise.
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Does today’s Wordle answer have a double letter?
There are no recurring letters.
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Today’s Wordle is a 5-letter word that starts with…
Today’s Wordle starts with the letter T.
The Wordle answer today is…
Get your last guesses in now, because it’s your final chance to solve today’s Wordle before we reveal the solution.
Drumroll please!
The solution to today’s Wordle is…
STAND
Don’t feel down if you didn’t manage to guess it this time. There will be a new Wordle for you to stretch your brain with tomorrow, and we’ll be back again to guide you with more helpful hints. Are you also playing NYT Strands? See hints and answers for today’s Strands.
Reporting by Chance Townsend, Caitlin Welsh, Sam Haysom, Amanda Yeo, Shannon Connellan, Cecily Mauran, Mike Pearl, and Adam Rosenberg contributed to this article.
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Not the day you’re after? Here’s the solution to yesterday’s Wordle.
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
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If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
The edge.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
BRINK
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Hurdle Word 2 hint
Moody.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
POUTY
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Hurdle Word 3 hint
America’s bird.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
EAGLE
Hurdle Word 4 hint
A platform.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
FORUM
Final Hurdle hint
Cheapskate.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
MISER
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Star Trek’s Most Ambitious Villain Helped Create The Franchise’s Most Complex Hero
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When Star Trek: Voyager first came out, the most fascinating character was the Doctor. While Robert Picardo’s performance was superb, it’s fair to say this character was mostly fascinating on a conceptual level. We had seen things like hypercompetent Starfleet captains and exotic aliens before, but what we hadn’t seen was a fully holographic chief medical officer. Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram seemed like the perfect embodiment of the Star Trek ethos. He’s a technological strange new world and new life, all rolled into one.
However, what casual audiences didn’t realize is that the Doctor wasn’t completely unique. Long before Picardo’s character ever sawed bones in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Picard dealt with another extraordinary hologram: Moriarty, the brilliant foe of the famous investigator Sherlock Holmes. Over on The Next Generation, Geordi LaForge accidentally created this villain as a sentient hologram when he asked the holodeck to create a challenge worthy of the android Data. Later, Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor revealed that, in-universe, the holographic Doctor was created because Starfleet took advantage of the same accidental breakthrough that created Moriarty!
It all started in “Elementary, My Dear Data,” the Next Generation episode in which the titular android and Geordi LaForge recreated Sherlock Holmes’ adventures on the holodeck. Thanks to his positronic brain and his encyclopedic knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes novels, Data is able to easily solve every mystery that is thrown at him. That’s when Geordi makes a seemingly simple request. He asks the Enterprise computer to develop a holodeck foe that could actually defeat Data, one of the smartest beings in the entire galaxy.
The computer obliges and creates a sentient version of Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ greatest foe. Following Geordi’s instructions, the Enterprise computer included much of Data’s vast programming, which resulted in the holographic character becoming self-aware. Moriarty ended up threatening the Enterprise on two different occasions, and Picard eventually got rid of him by trapping the unknowing villain in a simulation where he thought he had left the holodeck and could explore the stars. This was meant to be a happy ending for Moriarty, but in the show’s typically bleak fashion, Star Trek: Picard later showed us a different, more hostile version of this character created by a malevolent Section 31 AI.
How A Villain Created A Hero
What does all of this have to do with Robert Picardo’s holographic Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager? Elementary, my dear reader! Very early in Voyager’s development (the show didn’t even have a name yet), executive producer Jeri Taylor was inspired by Moriarty to create a new character. As reported in A Vision of the Future-Star Trek: Voyager, Taylor wrote down notes for a holographic doctor “who, like Moriarty, has ‘awareness’ of himself as a holodeck fiction. He longs for the time when he can walk free of the Holodeck.”
A few days later, she wrote down additional notes that contain a startling bit of Star Trek lore. “The Holo-Doctor represents a new, state-of-the-art technology which has capitalized on the serendipitous incident which created Moriarty, and has programmed a holographic character which has self-awareness of his situation and limitations.” While Moriarty is name-dropped on Voyager a couple of times, the show never mentioned what Taylor’s notes seem to confirm: that Lewis Zimmerman could never have created the Emergency Medical Hologram program if not for Geordi LaForge accidentally creating Moriarty on the holodeck.
From Villain To Leading Man?
If that’s not strange enough, there was a period of time when Voyager’s producers were considering making Moriarty a mainstay character on the show. As reported in Star Trek–Where No One Has Gone Before, Taylor’s notes mentioned that “everyone agreed that was a little too broad, and we couldn’t figure out why anyone would take him along.” After dismissing the idea, they decided “that having a holographic doctor with the full consciousness of being a hologram might be fun, and we’d never done anything like that before, except for Moriarty.”
There you have it, gentle reader. Without the character of Moriarty on Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’d never have the Doctor on Voyager. In this way, Trek’s most ambitious villain helped create the franchise’s most complex hero. Thanks to Jeri Taylor’s notes, we also know that, in-universe, Lewis Zimmerman would never have been able to create the Doctor if not for Geordi accidentally creating a sentient Moriarty so Data could have fun. In retrospect, this does make Zimmerman’s arrogance that much weirder. After all, he has a lot of attitude for someone who owes his entire career to the two biggest book nerds in the galaxy!
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