8. Another Guest Star Is Meeting Aliens Every Night In Her Bedroom
Annet Mahendru, best known for playing the sexy Soviet-embassy-employee-turned-FBI-informant, Nina Sergeevna, in The Americans, will also guest star as Sveta. This important early character in the series is a devoted, and potentially loopy, viewer of the talk show anchored by Joel McHale's character, O'Malley. In a move guaranteed to bring a smile of fond nostalgia to X-Philes' faces, Sveta believes she's being regularly abducted and - ouch! - probed by aliens. When anchorman O'Malley hears of this unusual night-time activity, he asks Mulder and Scully to investigate. Viewers shouldn't expect Mahendru's latest role to focus on her looks, though; her character seems down on her luck (all those abductions in the middle of the night must take a toll). Leaked photos also show that, once Mulder and Scully are on the case, Sveta is given a thorough examination in a lab by Scully. Still, given her role in the The Americans, Mahendru should be used to working with FBI agents by now. Several of Mahendru's scenes were filmed at a derelict shack on an old farm outside Vancouver, where the temperature was reportedly hot enough to cause Gillian Anderson a great deal of discomfort. Anderson's character, Scully, found the experience unpleasant too, since any interview with an alien abductee is bound to cause flashbacks to her own abduction experience. To avoid beating new viewers over the head with this continuity, Anderson has confided that Scully's reactions are conveyed with telling facial expressions and meaningful glances rather than with any stodgy info-dump dialogue, which is undoubtedly for the best.