- Doggett redirects here. For other people of the same last name, see Doggett (disambiguation).
John Jay Doggett is an FBI Special Agent who was assigned to work on the X-files in 2000. (TXF: "Within", "Without") He had previously served in the US Marine Corps and the New York Police Department. (TXF: "Within")
Childhood
On April 4, 1960, John Doggett was born in Democrat Hot Springs, Atlanta, Georgia. (TXF: "Improbable", "Within", "This is Not Happening")
- Doggett's birthdate of April 4, 1960 is taken from "Improbable", Democrat Hot Springs as his place of birth is taken from "Within" and Atlanta, Georgia as his birth place is taken from "This is Not Happening".
John and his friends did some things that he later thought were stupid, but neither he nor his friends realized that doing them was stupid at the time. (TXF: "Lord of the Flies")
History
Early career
John Doggett pictured with Bravo Company.
In 1977, John Doggett was recruited into the United States Marine Corps. (TXF: "Within") There, he served with Bravo Company, whose members included Ryan Bracker, Roger Erickson and Shannon McMahon. Doggett was once photographed with other members of Bravo Company. (TXF: "Nothing Important Happened Today") He also met and served with Knowle Rohrer during this time. (TXF: "The Truth") As part of his group, Doggett field-tested thermal imaging technology that could detect body heat through walls. The equipment weighed almost 90 lbs and had to be cooled with liquid nitrogen. (TXF: "Surekill") Doggett was 19 years old and serving as a marine when he first saw a dead body. (TXF: "Badlaa")
While he continued to serve as a Marine, Doggett worked in Lebanon as a member of the Multinational Peacekeeping Force from September 1, 1982 until October 30, 1983. (TXF: "Within") He witnessed soldiers being shot in the war who kept on fighting, holding their own insides in their hands. (TXF: "Salvage") In his last year as a marine, Doggett was serving in the 24th Marine Amphibious Unit during the Lebanon barracks bombing. He was later tattooed on his left shoulder in recognition of his work during the incident. (TXF: "John Doe") Later that year, Doggett left the US Marine Corps. (TXF: "Within")
From 1983 until 1986, he attended Syracuse University's Maxwell School Of Citizenship And Public Affairs and earned a joint Juris Doctor/Master of Public Administration degree. (TXF: "Three Words")
In 1987, Doggett began working in the New York Police Department's Fugitive Division. (TXF: "Within") During this time, he saw several bizarre things, including a man who had dropped five stories dust his head off and go back to work, as well as an old lady who had been shot point-blank in a Chinese restaurant pluck the bullet out of her egg foo yung. (TXF: "Without") Doggett also saw the bodies of several victims who had been skinned alive - a method commonly used by Asian gangs. (TXF: "Hellbound") Additionally, he encountered a ring of thieves who used children for breaking and entering, such as squeezing through cracked windows. (TXF: "Badlaa")
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Doggett in 1989 working for the New York Police. Department.
By 1989, Doggett had been partnered with Duke Tomasick. (TXF: "Underneath")
In Pursuit of Bob Fassl
For several weeks in 1989, a series of murders committed by Robert Fassl was frequently reported in the front pages of local newspapers. One rainy night, Doggett and his partner Tomasick responded to a 911 call from neighbors hearing screaming coming from a house on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. After traveling to the house, Doggett stood outside as Tomasick pounded on the front door. When there was no reply, Duke bust the door open and entered the building as Doggett remained behind him. Both officers had their guns drawn as they entered. They found Robert Fassl standing inside, making no attempt to escape. Duke instructed him not to move but, when he saw a man's body lying in a pool of blood on the floor, he ordered Fassl to face a nearby wall and told his partner, "Jonny, check the other rooms".
Doggett made his way into the kitchen, noticing the sound of blood squishing under his shoes as he walked, and saw two female bodies lying dead on the kitchen floor. In shock, he reported, "They're all dead", before exchanging a horrified glance with his partner, Duke. Doggett approached Bob Fassl, who had been handcuffed by Duke, and told the suspected killer, "Got you, got you, you bastard". Doggett was subsequently responsible for the arrest of Bob Fassl, who was suspected of killing seven people, including the mother, father and their teenage girl whose bodies had been found by Doggett and Tomasick. Doggett was aware of an enormous sense of relief when Fassl was finally caught. (TXF: "Underneath")
Doggett's role in the capture of Bob Fassl didn't hurt when he put in for detective, the rank he ultimately reached in the police force. (TXF: "Underneath", "Within") However, he later left the New York Police Department in 1995. (TXF: "Within")
FBI career
In 1995, Doggett graduated from the FBI Academy in Quantico and began work as an FBI Special Agent assigned to the Criminal Investigations Division. (TXF: "Within")
Task Force Leader
Doggett with members of his task force, looking down at "Mulder"'s fallen body from the edge of a cliff in Arizona.
In 2000, Doggett was the leader of a task force organised by FBI Deputy Director Alvin Kersh with the sole purpose of searching for Fox Mulder, who had gone missing in Bellefleur, Oregon.
Shortly after the search began, Doggett took statements from Mulder's partner, Special Agent Dana Scully, and his superior officer, Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Doggett reported the statements to Kersh but omitted AD Skinner's claim of having watched Mulder being abducted by a UFO, believing that alien abduction was extremely unlikely and seeing no way in which that account could help find Mulder.
While working in his office, Doggett saw a file being slipped under his door by an unseen person. The file contained information about Gibson Andrew Praise, a child prodigy who Mulder and Scully had first investigated in 1997. Believing that Mulder might be searching for Gibson Praise, Doggett sent his task force to Arizona, where the boy had last been seen, and journeyed there himself, by way of helicopter. Scully and Skinner also joined the search for Gibson Praise, initially without Doggett's knowledge.
At one point, Doggett saw Mulder pull Gibson Praise toward the edge of a cliff. (TXF: "Within") He was able to negotiate the boy's release and tried to take Mulder into custody but witnessed Mulder back off the cliff and later found that Mulder's body had disappeared from the bottom of the cliff while he had not been looking. Doggett was unable to accept Scully's explanation that "Mulder" had actually been an Alien Bounty Hunter who had been attempting to take Gibson Praise back to the same ship where the real Mulder was.
After watching an attacker seemingly identical to Scully crush another agent's throat before becoming unfindable, Doggett traveled with Agent Scully to MacLaren Regional Medical Center], where Skinner had taken Gibson Praise. In the hospital, Doggett found Skinner (who was lying unconscious with badly wounded eyes) and, later, Scully (lying injured in a room with Gibson Praise and a puddle of slimy green fluid).
Doggett ascertained that Scully and Skinner were hospitalized and requested special protections for Gibson Praise. At the FBI's headquarters, he submitted a report to Deputy Director Kersh that included accounts of his recent experiences. (TXF: "Without")
Investigating the X-Files
Shortly thereafter, Doggett was assigned to work with Agent Scully in the X-files unit, although he remained determined to find Mulder. (TXF: "Without") Prior to his new assignment, Doggett had seen some "seriously screwed up" violent crimes. (TXF: "Patience") He had also encountered a drugs courier and had worked a lot of homicides, arresting many killers who had almost always fit a profile. (TXF: "Badlaa, "Patience", "Salvage")
- Doggett's encounter with a drugs courier is evidenced by him telling Scully, "we've all seen this kind of thing before", referring to the possibility that a man who frequently visited India may have filled a "latex balloon with heroin" and swallowed it in order to illegally transport the drug. It is unclear whether Doggett was referring to a singular criminal or multiple lawbreakers, when he encountered them (i.e. if he was working in the New York Police Department or the FBI) and how their behaviours were similar to his theoretical one.
Doggett remained in the X-files office over a weekend and looked through every X-file in one of the cabinets in the office. He saw that virtually all the cases broke with a leap in logic, but he himself was resistant to taking leaps as, in his experience, they only got people killed. He suspected that his reluctance to take leaps was perhaps due to the fact he was possibly just "an old-fashioned cop".
During Doggett's first investigation of an X-file, a human bat leaps at him.
At the start of the first X-file case that Doggett investigated with Scully, he was disturbed to see images of two gnawed victims, believing the pictures to show perhaps more extreme violence than anything he had previously seen. Although he and Scully saw indications that the killer was probably either human or animal, Doggett later discovered a newspaper article reporting that a dangerous human bat had been caught in 1956, when the report had been published, and he made the leap of believing that the bat thing was responsible for the recent murders. At night, Doggett was attacked by the human bat while in a small boat on Slade River and, after managing to fight the creature off in a frenzy of water and wings, he lost consciousness in the river. Once he had returned to land and found Scully, he was again confronted by the human bat, which flew away, screaming, as Doggett protected his new FBI partner and shot at the bat thing.
Two weeks later, Doggett had recovered from his injuries and told Scully that he was confident he had killed or at least injured the human bat. She assured him he would have a desk in Mulder's X-files office, since Doggett, before beginning his first X-file with Scully, had expected to be allocated an area of the office. He subsequently returned to studying the X-files. (TXF: "Patience")
Relationships
Family
Luke Doggett
Main article: Luke Doggett
Romantic Interests
Barbara Doggett
Main article: Barbara Doggett
Dana Scully
Main article: Dana Scully
Monica Reyes
Main article: Monica Reyes
Colleagues and Mentors
Alvin Kersh
Main article: Alvin Kersh
Dana Scully
Main article: Dana Scully
Doggett first encounters Special Agent Dana Scully.
When Doggett first met Special Agent Dana Scully in 2000, he claimed to have known Mulder before his disappearance in Bellefleur, Oregon. Scully was shocked when she learned that Doggett was lying and that he was actually assigned to lead the task force to find Mulder. Angered by the fact that Doggett hadn't simply introduced himself, Scully threw a cup of water over his head.
When Scully realized that someone was conducting surveillance on her and had put a wiretap on her phone, she mistakenly accused Doggett of being responsible. Aware of Scully's concerns, Doggett asked Deputy Director Kersh whether anyone was secretly involved in the search for Mulder, but Kersh responded negatively.
Scully's next encounter with Doggett was in Mulder's apartment. She had just awoken from a nap, having gone to the apartment with the intention of feeding Mulder's fish. When Doggett arrived, she accused of him of following her. However, Doggett claimed that he was simply trying to locate her missing partner. (TXF: "Within")
Walter Skinner
Main article: Walter Skinner
Fox Mulder
Main article: Fox Mulder
Doggett first met Mulder during a time when Alvin Kersh was attempting to close down the X-files for good. Mulder believed that Doggett was merely a pawn of Kersh's and did not realize that Doggett was actually on his side. Their relationship had a rocky start because Mulder's suspicions coincided with his erroneous belief that the X-files had been completely undermined in his absence. The two agents eventually formed a respectful and professional relationship after Doggett proved himself in Mulder's eyes. This came to a head when the two agents combined forces along with Skinner and even Alex Krycek to save Scully from Billy Miles. Following the birth of Scully's baby, Doggett would not see Mulder again for more than a year.
Monica Reyes
Main article: Monica Reyes
Duke Tomasick
Main article: Duke Tomasick
Doggett was partnered with Duke Tomasick while working in the New York Police Department. Tomasick once told him, "You don't clock out at the end of your shift unless you know you did everything you could". Doggett ultimately came to deeply respect his partner.
Background Information
The character of John Doggett was modeled after and originally named for Bud White, an extremely no-nonsense character from the novel and film, LA Confidential. Having already named Dana Scully after baseball commentator Vin Scully, writer Chris Carter decided to rename his new character John Doggett as an homage to commentator Jerry Doggett, who had partnered up with Vin Scully between 1957 and 1987. However, John Doggett was still erroneously referred to once as "Agent White" in a version of the script that was used to film "Within", the first episode to feature the character.
Lou Diamond Phillips and Hart Bochner were among the actors who were originally considered for the role. Bruce Campbell was also considered, although he had already starred as Wayne Weinsider in "Terms of Endearment", and Robert Patrick eventually won the role.
In an interview, Chris Carter said of the character's creation, "I think it was something that we all talked about, but I wrote his voice. So, I think he was someone we all came up with together, but his voice came out of my head. But, it was something that was helped in a large degree by casting Robert Patrick." [1]
An article printed in the LA Times in November 2000 quoted Chris Carter as saying that Robert Patrick had "tremendous intensity about him and there is a lean, dangerous quality to him too. It translates so beautifully on screen--those piercing eyes and that gravely voice serve to make the character believable and also different from Mulder." [2]
According to Chris Carter, the introduction of the new character in Season 8 of The X-Files was one of two main factors that influenced the series' production personnel to decide "not to do comedy or parody episodes" in that season. The other major reason was to avoid "trivializing the absence of Mulder".
Robert Patrick appeared as John Doggett in all of the character's filmed appearances and in the opening credits of Seasons 8 and 9, while the actor's wife, Barbara, played Doggett's wife, also named Barbara, in two episodes of the series.
Some fans criticized the introduction of John Doggett, claiming that the character had been intentionally created to replace Mulder's work on the X-files or his close relationship with Scully. However, Chris Carter later denied the accuracy of these claims and stated, "what he brings is a different approach to the X-files. First of all, he’s a knee jerk skeptic so he couldn’t be more different than the character of Mulder. He’s an insider at the FBI, well liked, has buddies. Mulder, of course, he’s been banished to the basement along with all of his X-files. So when he’s put together with Agent Scully, who has become something of a reluctant believer, the dynamic on the show changes completely".[3]
Although Chris Carter believed that The X-Files could continue for another ten years with Doggett and Agent Monica Reyes serving as new leads, this belief was not to be the case, however, as the new main characters ultimately failed to provide the ratings boost Carter had hoped for.
Robert Patrick declined to reprise his role for Season 10 saying "I had time to think about, 'Do I want to revisit that character?' and I wasn't so sure I did".[4] Despite this though, he stated he was open to reprise the role for the eleventh season, although he hadn't yet been contacted for any offer.[5] Originally Chris Carter had wrote Doggett into one of the earlier installments of season 11, however upon finding out he wouldn't be available due to his commitments to the television series Scorpion he wrote him out. [6] Doggett's role was eventually given to Jeffrey Spender.
Appearances
| Appearances for John Doggett | ||
|---|---|---|
| Season 8 | ||
|
| |
| Season 9 | ||
|
| |
| Agents assigned to the X-Files | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Arthur Dales | Fox Mulder | Dana Scully | Jeffrey Spender |
| Diana Fowley | John Doggett | Leyla Harrison | Monica Reyes |
External links
- ↑ http://roswell.fortunecity.com/vortex/330/carterchat.html
- ↑ http://www.cinescape.com/0/editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Television&action=page&jump=next&obj_id=26168&cat_id=271652&sub_id=0
- ↑ http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1119302
- ↑ http://www.designntrend.com/articles/61301/20150922/the-x-files-revival-robert-patrick-why-he-isnt-part-of-the-follow-up-series.htm
- ↑ https://www.tvinsider.com/324190/the-x-files-season-11-robert-patrick-returning-as-doggett/
- ↑ Tvline