Oh look the last ever episode of the X-Files is on!

furious to see all of these season 1 and 2 episodes so low, though i suppose it's conceivable that what i loved when i was 13 wouldn't shine so brightly now

the guy loves the show, i wdn't be too hard on him.

Peter Boyle ep was another Darin Morgan (aka writer of last night's episode) joint.

Rhys Darby in last night's episode manages to channel the Darin Morgan pathos almost as well as Peter Boyle did!

have we polled the original X-Files episodes? that would be fun.

Mrs. Chachi pointed out, while we were enjoying the first one of these: "People forget that the X-files was often pretty bad. Enjoyable, fun, watched it every week, but often pretty bad."

Last night's was really great and it was fun to watch with my wife who hadn't seen any of the old ones and only saw the first two of the new season, and had no idea how fun and campy and sentimental the show could be. While I was like "oh yeah, I remember how this feels" she was just like "wtf!"

That was really outstanding.

xxpost As someone who's generally a fan of the show, can I just say that Mrs. Chachi is OTM.

very much so

There was stuff about it that I liked (generally self-contained episodes) but even those could be overly silly or boneheaded, the show was really erratic. and on for a long time!

what the hell were those Lone Gunmen all about?

Rhys Darby in last night's episode manages to channel the Darin Morgan pathos almost as well as Peter Boyle did!

Yeah he was as perfectly cast as Joel McHale was miscast

Also I'm starting to think Fox wanted to pay Anderson half Duchovny's salary because she has half as many scenes

X-Files in its heyday was great in the way old Star Trek or Twilight Zone was great. It was often corny and there were always bad filler episodes but the good stuff was transcendent.

X-Files is not even close to the quality level of either of those shows imo

Bullshit

latebloomer otm

eh you guys are philistines, the production design alone on both those shows was way better/consistent/creative than the X-Files. Even the dud episodes (and I'm not denying that there's duds in both ST:TOS and TZ) have style.

tbf I am one of those people who considers TZ to be one of the greatest TV shows ever, all-time top 10 material

I think you have your "it blew my mind when I was a kid" glasses on. X-Files at its peak is on pretty much exactly the level of those shows.

did X-Files blow any childrens' minds I sort of doubt it

are you crazy

yes

only the things we liked when we were kids have true value. these kids today don't understand. every generation says this, but for ours, it was true. right? srsly man that seem to be yr stance here and it's a real bad one

I admit I've been pretty glib but part of that's because I feel like the odds of me breaking down some kind of quantitative analysis of the shit:gold ratio of the three shows and convincing anyone is close to zero. In general (and I would have to look and trawl through all - ugh- 201 episodes and figure out how many of those are actually decent) X-Files has at least one entire season that is total garbage - which I don't think is the case with TOS or TZ. Throw in pretty much all the conspiracy/mytharc episodes (which really are terrible) and that's a significant chunk of the show. TOS was only on for three years and most of the garbage is concentrated in the tail end of the third season, when they really started flailing. Even then though, the design of the show is so consistent and strong and vibrant I can still enjoy watching it. I don't think you could ever say that the production aesthetic of X-Files is so great that it carries otherwise shitty material, but that is definitely the case with TOS. And I think that's by and large the case with TZ too. Aside from the episodes shot on video, which are just painful to watch, and some of the drearier hour-long episodes towards the end of the series run, the stylistic tics that TZ relied on - the music cues, the tilted camera angle, the aggressively modernist lighting, the penchant for abstract, minimalist sets - could carry weak material along nicely enough, and really make the stronger material shine with an intensity and strangeness that was remarkably groundbreaking at the time, and still resonates today. I don't think you can say the same for the generally grey-green washed out color scheme of X-Files or its crappy sub-Close Encounters/Dr. Who themesong. imho.

with TOS and TZ the shittier episodes are the exception, not the rule - with X-Files it's something like 50/50 (and even there I think I'm being generous)

feel like anybody who felt like it could run exactly the same sort of "here's the strong suits" schtick with the X-Files or any number of decent shows, I really do think yr on a nostalgia trip - the objects of our nostalgia are dear to us, so their fine points seem remarkable, but any wrought thing has fine points aplenty. the x-files was fuckin cool if often ridiculous. that's about exactly how I'd rate the twilight zone: fuckin cool, often ridiculous. that serling does the "and now I elucidate the point for you hicks" bit at the end of every episode is certainly no less ridiculous than the x-files hamfisted WHAT IS THE REAL CONSPIRACY thing - it's something that's a little stupid, but fun if you buy into it, so you do, because fun is better than just stroking our chins and going "you know what was real quality? this other thing that I liked first."

ditto Star Trek TOS and Kirk's imperial LBJ interventions / serial seductions of alien maidens

did X-Files blow any childrens' minds I sort of doubt it

― Οὖτις, Tuesday, February 2, 2016 9:48 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Hahaha are you kidding me

that's a weird equivalency to draw - the WHAT IS THE REAL CONSPIRACY stuff was deeply irritating to me precisely because it was so sloppy and open-ended, it was just a trail of breadcrumbs leading nowhere (or at worst, around in circles). Serling's monologues may be silly but their just structural bookends, it's not like they undermine the stories sandwiched in-between. Whereas X-Files mytharc conspiracy nonsense fell apart any time you gave it any close examination, it was just an exercise in delayed resolution that inevitably just became frustrating and irritating. At least for me. This is why I preferred the monster-of-the-week stories so much, they were self-contained little mystery/sci-fi stories, like something from an anthology, a format I've always appreciated in serialized TV shows.
xxp

for the record I don't have a problem with hamfistedness, ridiculousness, or corniness or whatever, but I *do* have an issue with incoherence, which is where X-Files inevitably went.

xp to Morbs - I have affection for Star Trek but don't hold it in particularly high regard but I know it's so special to so many people that I just keep my opinions to myself most of the time, I have to give it credit for reaching ppl's hearts. tbh morbs I feel about Star Trek like I feel about Spielberg movies

arrrghhh you

i think in the last 15 years there's quite a spectrum of Spielberg movies

i was parroting your intro on the essence of Greek tragedy at A View from the Bridge last week btw

Rhys Darby was dressed as Kolchalka, right?

*Kolchak*

Fkn autocorrect

Ha ha, the two stoners at the beginning were the same ones in War of the Coprophages and Quagmire back in S3!

I've seen two different rankings of every XF episode recently - I agree with that Thrillist list linked above a little more than the Vulture one, despite the Burt Reynolds as God episode getting into the top ten...! The Deep Roy episode is also surprisingly high!

Ha ha, the two stoners at the beginning were the same ones in War of the Coprophages and Quagmire back in S3!

lol yeah I noticed that too! Same actors even!

This ep was a lot of fun.

what would you do if you were a werewolf?

uhhh, get high every day?

Rhys Darby was dressed as Kolchak, right?

This was originally a Kolchak script from a Spotnitz reboot that Morgan wrote on, which got cancelled before they made it to that episode

http://leethomson.myzen.co.uk/Night_Stalker/Night_Stalker_1x12_-_The_M_Word.pdf

(your phone autocorrects to a misspelling of James Kochalka?)

"it's just too silly!"

"it's my life you're talking about!"

this was excellent. finally made me really appreciate the show coming back. I'm glad that they seem to be hitting every 'type' of episode in this run. also...ratings have been huge, right? surely they're going to do this again next year.

so good! all the beats of quirky humor that i remember, lovely heart to it also

rhys darby is the best

Gillian Anderson looked like she was having so much fun this episode.

"While Scully cracks a smile midway through “Were-Monster” and remarks, “I forgot how much fun these cases can be,” Morgan (and Mulder in the moment) disagrees. Morgan cites his “very real fear” of angering fans who would rather watch a mythology episode, or one that dwells more on the intricacies of Mulder and Scully’s relationship. "

Someone tell Morgan that literally no one would rather have more conspiracy or relationship episodes vs Morgan eps or more serious MOTWs.

The series ran for another six years after Morgan last wrote an episode, so there must have been some people other than Chris Carter who give a shit about conspiracy and relationship eps.

I'll happily tell him that I only want Morgan eps, rather than any other kind at all, though.

I'd like a Gilligan episode or two but he's probably too busy these days

He said he wanted to, but was too busy with Saul. Guess he could have taken the Carter MOTW slot.

Or maybe just take the show away from Carter altogether.