the x-files s/d

First season is hit and miss, they only found out they could build a bigger story arc once they knew they had more seasons. I'd say the best seasons are from about 2/3 to about 6/7.

There are shite episodes in every season unfortunately - when I watched it again my with my gf, I made the executive decision to skip ones that I remembered as being rubbish - most episodes have no bearing on the overall story arc and can comfortably be skipped, although actually you will find that overall the monster of the week episodes are generally superior to the mytharc ones. It has been a while since we watched it, but I think we skipped the following from Season 1 (or wished we had):

Ones to skip:
Shadows
Ghost in the Machine
Space <------------ this is the worst X files episode ever made imo
Fire
Gender Bender

Ones I can't remember at all, so are probably terrible:
Lazarus
Young at Heart
Born Again

My favourite 3 from the season:
Beyond the Sea <----------- this was the episode where it clicked for my gf
Eve
Fallen Angel

Are there any mythology-oriented eps is S1 I basically have to watch, so that future seasons/eps make sense?

the monster of the week episodes are generally superior to the mytharc ones.

this, with exceptions

haven't seen the x-files in ages, since it was first broadcast, but as for the mythology episodes, i remember particularly liking "jose chung's from outer space" (season 3) and "musings of a cigarettesmoking man" (season 4)

Yeah, heard good things about those, but if stinker roulette keeps turning up too many, well, stinkers until I hit those high points, there's no way I can keep excusing the show to my wife. I mean, Buffy began like shit, too, but got better very fast. This is more frustrating "Friday the 13th: The Series" level badness. But I want to believe!

I just want to make it up through the first movie, tbh.

Probably only the finale of S1, and maybe EBE are important for the mythology (EBE introduces the Lone Gunmen, and is also a really fun runaround). Fallen Angel is good too, and the main character returns later.

Probably only the finale of S1, and maybe EBE are important for the mythology

no

EVERY LITTLE TIDBIT COUNTS

oh yeah, Mulder's deathly fear of fire comes back in a big way too, make sure you watch that one no matter what

ha just watched Fire last night. Some of them are duds, yeah, but I'm still enjoying it overall.

I still enjoy a lot of the first season! There are some dud eps, though personally I wouldn't include "GenderBender" on that list. The story is a bit of a mess, but it's creepy and has great music.

In any case, "Beyond the Sea" and "EBE" are unmissable.

For me, season five was the point where things started to go awry.

I was laid off last summer and decided to rewatch this show with all my spare time. I had the same experience with season one duds, but then I combed the net for lists of good episodes and it helped immensely. Only made it to Season 5 though.

Recently I watched this show again from season 1 through 6. I think Season 5 was the high water mark, maybe the first half of that season and the whole of the 3rd and 4th season are def. some of the best television made in the 90s. There are various lists of episodes to watch if you just want to catch the mythos/conspiracy subplot but I like them how they were aired - interspersed between scary one-offs.

Just watched "Beyond the Sea". Very Silence of The Lambs.

did horseshoe really make that youtube because I walked into a room last week and some girls were obsessing over it

haha no!

what do you people think i am

this is kind of the standard line now, and it's true of season 4 and afterward. but during the first three seasons the conspiracy eps were the heart and soul of the show!

― latebloomer, Sunday, June 26, 2011 10:36 PM (2 weeks ago) Bookmark

this is otm btw, in terms of skipping the mytharc episodes. don't skip them!

yeah if you dont watch the mytharc episodes in the first few seasons you dont really "get" the x-files

btw duchovnys guest stints on larry sanders are great. apparently him and garry shandling are close friends irl too

lol HS I wanted to let you address that question yourself :)

Twenty years on...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scnPMpDHmrM

damn those are some pretty government employees

I think they are even hotter now.

I think they're hotter now too.

Been shotgunning two episodes a night for the past week. Never did see much of the first season (didn't go all-in until S3)

Ugh. Empty drink anytime Scully does a voice-over with the close-up of the computer screen and everything goes Sex And The City for a few moments.

they have Mulder do it sometimes too!

Also watch Anderson in that miniseries the Fall... she is amazing and gorgeous in it. Although I still can't buy her as English, even if she grew up there. Mostly because she is Scully, not because she sounds funny.

I watched it. Can't wait for the second series.

her character is such a total badass!

Just wait till you get to the later seasons, with those pretentious, lethargic voiceover monologues that usually turn up in "important" episodes. DD and GA deserve special awards for getting through those things without stopping for breath.

I was all-in with the series in season 3, so I'm know of those dreary voiceovers. Here's an experiment: create your very own "More Sixth Extinction" - a synchronized viewing of "The Sixth Extinction" (the season 7 opener with Scully digging out that spaceship on the African beach) with Pink Floyd's More.

If it works, you heard it here first.

Worth mentioning to everyone to check out The Fall - it's a noir-ish detectives-vs-serial-killer story set in Belfast. GA is great in it.

http://24.media.tumblr.com/6ecf76eda849fd2eddbde376754e759a/tumblr_mr5p66jYFE1qbo6leo1_1280.png

Finished season one!

- Drags on a bit
- Far more monster-of-the-week episodes than I remember there being.
- Running around the states playing The Avengers with J. Edgar Hoover's uranium card is grade A wish-fulfillment fantasy.
- I've always dug conspiracy culture, but I think what I relate to most are the hours spent driving anonymous rental sedans.
- I've always maintained that desolate office parks in the great exurbs are just as sinister as the moldiest haunted-looking house. Thank you show for supporting my belief.
- The more experimental an episode gets in technique, the worse it usually is.
- Skinner is only in one episode. That constant antagonism source is missing

And exact twentieth anniversary is this Tuesday.

haha. i like the x-files.

evidence that actors are not geeks about their own cultishly adored work

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwcolBwBxU0&feature=youtu.be

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/193364jj3iji2jpg/ku-medium.jpg

Duchovny/Anderson AMA: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1oad13/gillian_anderson_here_ive_brought_david_duchovny/

(Ok is the formatting for that post as weird for everyone else as it is for me? Sorry, typing on phone.)

Last night my wife, having come home from a choir rehearsal and starting to pack for a business trip, began a sentence, "My 14-year-old self would be so happy..."

I figured she was going to say something about having a productive, well-adjusted adult life.

"...that Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are together."

They are?

Well, they haven't come out and said it, but there's lots of evidence. I think Anderson admitted that they share an apartment in Manhattan; they've been spotted together being affectionate, etc.

After everything HE'S done she must think the therapy worked.

that AMA was pretty entertaining... they do seem very couple-like.

I think you just want to believe they're a couple

These monster of the week episodes in s3/4 (I've been watching from the beginning on netflix) are being played for laughs too much for my liking, it's quite annoying, a lot of mugging and gurning from the actors that isn't there in S1/S2, a lot of local yokel characters with funny looking faces who can be killed off without it mattering very much.

I like the ongoing story arc episodes though, they keep the right tone. Kryceck getting locked in the silo with the captured ufo, cancer man creeping around with his cigarettes, skinner like a big sad mole

watching the episode where skinner is accused of killing a call girl.

Oh yeah that's the one where he's being protected by his guardian angel/succubus. Also we find out he has an estranged wife (who iirc we never hear about again).

is that the same one where he's all covered in blood or a rash or whatever?