"Colony" is the sixteenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. It premiered on the Fox network on February 10, 1995. It was directed by Nick Marck, and written by series creator Chris Carter based on a story developed by Carter and lead actor David Duchovny. "Colony" featured guest appearances by Megan Leitch, Peter Donat and Brian Thompson. The episode helped explore the series' overarching mythology. "Colony" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.3, being watched by 9.8 million households in its initial broadcast. "Colony" is a two-part episode, with the plot continuing in the next episode, "End Game". The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) who work on cases linked to the paranormal, called X-Files. In this episode, Mulder and Scully investigate the murders of human clones working in abortion clinics at the hands of a shapeshifting assassin (Thompson). Mulder receives news that his younger sister Samantha (Leitch), who had been abducted as a child, may have returned. It is one of the X-Files episodes that "feminizes the monstrous through reproduction." In the episode, "the bodies of the male clones are feminized" and Scully becomes the protector of the monstrous when in one scene she meets several identical men in white lab coats. "Colony" introduced the recurring role of the Alien Bounty Hunter. Actor Brian Thompson auditioned and later won the role. Frank Spotnitz and Carter did not have much time to cast this character, but they knew this casting would be important since he was intended to be a recurring character. Thompson was chosen according to Spotnitz because he had a very "distinctive look" about him, most notably his face and mouth.