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[The X-Files] GOVERNMENT DENIES KNOWLEDGE
The Ender
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbBX6aEzEz8I was whistling a certain tune today while walking home from work and heard someone (who did not look that young) say, "Oh, hey, I recognize that song from somewhere!"
The X-Files was a horror drama that launched in the early 90s; it was among the first and best televisions series' in it's genre, and one of the best produced shows of it's time period. It was one of my favorite shows growing-up, in no small part because my parents didn't like me watching it (because then I'd refuse to go to bed unless every single light was turned on, including and especially the porch lights). Body horror was a common element in shows, very unique to any television series up to then, and even by today's standards the X-Files got into some intense territory.
The main event was the interaction between the two main characters: FBI Agent Dana Scully (scientifically trained skeptic who thinks conspiracy theories and paranormal claims are all bullshit) and FBI Agent fox Mulder (who is a hardcore believer in every single fucking crazy claim that comes his way).
Let's just get this out of the way: Dana Scully is my most favorite character ever featured on TV. Maybe of all time. She is one of the best female leads to have been written, having a full & believable personality, whose beliefs (for the best parts of the series. We'll get to this later) do not serve as a doormat for Male Protagonist. She is a professional through and through, she is not eye candy (well, she is, but that is not why she is on the show), Gillian Anderson gives her such a wonderful no-nonsense tone and demeanor, and her perspective (for the best parts of the series. We'll get to this later, like I said before) as a skeptic and police officer dealing with a dangerous and ugly, but ultimately terrestrial heap of shit every day, is given as much respect as Mulder's perspective.
Mulder is presented at the outset of the show as a burned-out agent dealing with a personal tragedy that has been put on paperwork duty as a result of being unable to perform his job in a professional manner. His sister has gone missing, and Mulder is convinced that she was abducted by aliens. He is very much the romantic ideal of the renegade conspiracy theorist hero up against The Man, 'unraveling' the intricate cover-up that he wants to believe is there mostly with bald assertions, half-assed evidence and leaps to extreme conclusions. He spends the end of many episodes being reeled back to Planet Reality by Scully.
The show is pure gold for about 3 seasons, with the writers more or less letting you draw the assumption that either Mulder is right (hahaha no) and there is an effort by corrupt officials to cover-up alien and other paranormal forces antagonizing humanity, or that Mulder's perspective is totally warped and we're being shown this warped reality, with occasional flickers of truth coming from Scully. This 3-way tension of belief between the viewer, Scully and Mulder just works on so many levels (and is even directly addressed in some episodes, the most notable being, "Bad Blood").
It's still charming, sort-of, after the X-Files movie and Season 4. But it's clear at this point that the writers have decided to abandon the ambiguity (Mulder is RIGHT! There are ALIENS! This show is now SCI FI HORROR!), and from then on it's just a fucking train wreck. If you can even make it through the last two very badly crafted seasons, the series finale is just dreadful. And, unfortunately, since most seasons end on a cliffhanger, it's not exactly easy to just pretend that everything is over after S3 or S4.
BUT! Most episodes - the good ones especially - are self-contained little stories, not integral to a larger arc. You can go watch them and be totally satisfied with the standalone experience!
I believe all seasons are currently available on Netflix.
With Love and Courage
The Ender on
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It kind of weirds me out now to realize this show was on the air right up to, what, a few months before Firefly?
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I got into it more and more as I got older though before losing interest during season 8.
I have ALMOST finished watching this series on Netflix. Seasons 8 and 9 are surprisingly decent as long as you avoid the main plot episodes and know to go in with lowered expectations.
Actually, I also think the one-off episodes during the whole series are what made the show. The first few seasons were definitely the best, though!
Come Overwatch with meeeee
My top 5 episodes (so far, I'm somewhere towards the end of season 4):
1) Die Hand Die Verletzt (S2E14) - One of the first episodes where the show goes for a more comedic tone, and it really works. Mulder and Scully are weirdly out of their depth, there's much more going on than meets the eye, and there's a spectacularly creepy beginning and ending.
2) Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose (S3E4) - An episode that deftly blends a dark plot (Someone is killing our psychics!) with comedic elements (the titular, cranky-old-man psychic).
3) Blood (S2E3) - I get the impression people don't really care for this one, but I think it's a scary, well-written story with a great ending that more episodes should have tried to emulate.
4) Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (S4E7) - A deep dive into the show's backstory, from the villain's point of view.
5) Paper Hearts (S4E10) - A one-off episode that tells a great story questioning one of the show's tenets (Mulder's sister was abducted by aliens).
"X-Cops" is fucking brilliant, so long as you've watched Cops before.
"Squeeze" and "Tooms", in my opinion, provided at least some of the inspiration for SA's Slenderman monster.
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is considered by most fans to be the best overall episode of the show.
"Anasazi" still gives me the creeps to this day. I can't believe that show was aired on television in the 90s; it's absolutely terrifying.
But also, the Fluke monster got me into wondering "just how weird is nature, like really?"
And then answer is "really fucking weird holy shit"
So thanks X-files
(i.e. one of the best shows ever maaaadeeeee)
I don't even know what it is called, but if you've seen it, you know what one I mean.
Fuck that episode.
............I may be biased
These people are all older than me, and this show was pretty big, so the problem is theirs right?
You should've just replied, in a deadpan tone, "They took my sister,"
Like, that HAS to be one of the worst episodes of the entire series...
Again, though, skipping the "main plot" episodes of season 9, it actually has some good episodes in it. You know, ignoring the fact that Mulder is gone and Scully gets pretty much demoted to side character...
War of the Coprophages? Everyone seems to talk that one up, but I don't remember it being that scary/messed up.
The one where glowing green bugs cocoon people in the woods.
Just the opening sequence, where the kid may or may not be hallucinating.
*Shivers*
So anyway I watched every episode of the x-files over the space of a single summer about two years ago. Watching 4-8 episodes a day while playing strategy games and eating pizza. It was..unhealthy, but also pretty great. I agree with the general consensus that the first dip in quality comes with the confirmation that the alien stuff is definitely real, and then they make a series of increasingly poor decisions.
I didn't actually think the post-Mulder stuff was that bad, having somewhat lowered expectations at that point anyway. But my god do I regret watching the very end. The actual finale of the final season was just dreadful. Absolutely dreadful.
I blame the movie at the end of the day for the shift in tone. Gotta make big Hollywood Blockbeater movie, ergo gotta have ALIENS and a SPACESHIP and THE TUNDRA! Content of the movie was okay-ish I guess, but after that the audience was just handed a ridiculous cartoony world more appropriate for Buffy the Vampire Slayer than a police horror drama.
At least Skinner got a bigger role later on. Skinner was rad.
But anyway, I used to always look forward to 9:00 pm on Friday nights. My mom, my sister and I would change into our pyjamas, wrap ourselves up in blankets, and get creeped the eff out for an hour before bed time. Those were good times.
The "Bad Blood" episode really highlights this theme; but if you go back and watch the Monster of the Week episodes, you can clearly see hints (in my opinion) that you're getting the story from a bad source (namely, Mulder's delusional mind). Look at the Fluke monster, for example: Skinner and Scully see some deranged person that needs to be arrested, prosecuted and questioned. Like, really? That monster-thing needs to be prosecuted, not just shot?
But it makes sense if it really is just a demented person, and the only person who sees the monster is Mulder.
Every time in the pre-pregnancy series that we are shown something paranormal, Scully rolls her eyes at Mulder's suggestion that it was aliens or ghosts or psychics or whatever, explains to him what really just happened and seems totally unphased given the gravity of what the viewer was just shown. The rest of the FBI office is equally unphased, including people we can be reasonably sure aren't in on Mulder's 'conspiracy'. Why? Because the only people that saw anything other than bad people doing bad things are us and Mulder, and the only reason we saw it is because we're viewing the world as framed by Mulder.
My favorite of these is Mulder/Sculley actually head out to Area 51 and meet and Agent played by Michael McKean named Morris Fletcher.
And somehow Mulder and Fletcher switch bodies. Hilarity ensues.
But what a moment to share!
It's wonderful, wonderful,
Oh, so wonderful, my love.
Oh god I thought I was the only one who loved the monster of the week episodes. The "mythology" bullshit was a fucking trainwreck that they made up along the fly that kept contradicting itself and never made any sense, and the fanbase that makes up "theories" about it as if it would make sense if you think about it hard enough is horrid.
But I loved the show, enough to get it all on DVD. I ought to go rewatch it one of these days. All of it.
Cigarettes with bugs in them
Hallucinogenic spores and oh no they're still in the mushroom
Agreed.
And calling them a mess is something that's only really fair to say with perfect hindsight. At the time the mythology episodes were a huuuuge draw towards getting people to tune in every week. We wanted more mysteries to be unveiled and more questions to be answered. When looking at the whole picture after the fact we more easily notice the contradictions and perhaps silliness, but at the time it was awesome.
I don't remember why, but we read the screenplay for this episode in my high school English class (it was in a book with some other stuff).
Did anyone play the collectable card game?
Who are you people and where did you hide the surveillance equipment in my home?!
Two nights ago I finally watched the 2008 X-Files movie, it was okay but had a weak ending. Rating: 2.5/5 shape changing alien bounty hunters.