the x-files s/d

Which reminds me, I liked the episode that told how Scully got her dog.

The dog getting eaten also A+.

I guess that 'queg getting eaten

One in between: Mulder peeking in Scully's (motel?) window, sees her blowdrying dog, big cig hanging out of her mouth, near the doggie.

The chupacabra episode was the least offensive of the run of 'exploring other cultures' episodes but I'm so happy that I'm past almost all of them.

― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, June 5, 2021 9:20 AM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

They're all awful but the Chinese one is probably the most offensive.

I find the chupacabra one to be one of the worst because of the "it's a telenovela!" conceit. It wouldn't be quite so bad if everyone was acting like a telenovela character, including Mulder and Scully, but Mulder and Scully are acting like their normal selves (though more callous than usual), so you end up with all the Latinx characters being hyper-emotional and melodramatic and Mulder and Scully making fun of them.

The effects in the Inca episode have not aged well.

Kaddish was pretty bad as well.

The Duchovny-directed ‘wot if Jackie Robinson was an alien’ episode is still to come.

Kaddish didn't bother me as much for some reason; it struck me as pretty respectful if a bit flat story-wise, but then I am the most non-practicing of Jews so it's not my area of expertise.

I’m curious if they actually thought Roma was just short for Romanian in the cursed stillborn twin episode.

xp and Duchovny-written, right? I actually like that one in spite of myself. It's just such an accurate and loving pastiche of the whole baseball movie genre, I can't not like it despite its obvious flaws.

yeah, written too. that one mainly comes off as Duchovny being well-meaning but cheesy and doofy in many directions at once

his later meta-satirical ep w/ Garry Shandling and Tea Leoni is similarly unfocused but much better

The thing I really like about the Duchov-written episodes is that they aren't Mulder-centric and they show a very warm and funny and charming side of Scully. I'm sure he's a tool in real life, but as a writer/director of the X-Files he does not make it all about him and I appreciate that.

I wish beefier douchebag Californication Duchovny wasn't the image that popped into my head of him vs. Mulder.

Was watching rando old eps but then my gf decided she just wanted to full-on rewatch so I guess that's what's happening now!

Anyway, 'Beyond the Sea' just never gets any less good.

this week (for no particular reason) I was thinking of Duchovny saying he realized he wasn't cut out for Lit Scholarship while listening to Naomi Wolff speaking in Howard Bloom's class

Post-modern Prometheus - just a wee bit problematic

Problematic and (challops alert!) not actually good

It looks good and has some fun moments (the cuts between townspeople and their animal parents) but you’re not wrong.

Mulder and Scully openly flirting in season 6 is so uncomfortable.

The whole vibe of season 6 is so weird. They sort of come off like angry exes who still hook up sometimes.

Feel like although it's not all bad, and there are some great eps, everything after they moved to LA from Van is not as good.

I actually like the Mulder and Scully romance/ sexual tension thing in every other season, but season 6 made it wrong and gross somehow.

With S6 I feel like the individual episodes are often good in a big technicolor movie kind of way, but there are too many episodes that are very similar and the overall tone of the season is really off.

Season 7 has a slightly weird tone (Gillian Anderson is playing Scully like the grizzled veteran cop tired of Mulder's bullshit - which is fair, really) but Millennium to the Amazing Maleeni is the longest run of good episodes in several seasons (Maleeni is not great but Ricky Jay compensates for the plot).

“All Things” is the worst thing

The Amazing Maleeni is pure comfort food for me; it was the first episode I saw and it just makes me happy. Totally absurd, in retrospect, to start the series with this cheerful sun-drenched episode where there are no deaths and nothing supernatural and the only crime is attempted fraud.

There’s a song that gets repeated a dozen times in “All Things” that makes a bad episode unbearable… it was Moby.

All Things is the worst, I agree. I love the weird vibe of Season 7, though. I had this epiphany while watching X-Cops that the defining thing about Season 7 is that Mulder and Scully aren't scared anymore. Or in danger, or really personally invested in the cases in a big way. it feels like they're way more interested in hooking up offscreen than in whatever's going on with the X-files. It could actually have been a really good way to ease into ending the show if Chris Carter had been willing to let it end.

The range of the show is really impressive, that in the span of a month they could produce both “First Person Shooter” and “all things,” which are both so awful in such vastly different ways.

X-post Yes I think once the characters became self-aware it broke the show a bit, it's like they've stopped believing in their own reality which makes it harder for the viewer to care about what happens.

I guess it kind-of makes sense narratively with most of the ongoing plot threads wrapped up and the sense of things winding down, except the series wouldn't die and plodded on for another two seasons, which leaves the S6/7 detour into meta-humour wackiness feel more odd in retrospect.

I also agree re: the weirdness of M&S's relationship in S6. It's like they've finally acknowledged there's something there after dancing around the issue for years, but don't know what to do with it. The romantic/sexual chemistry is still there but feels forced somehow, like it's having to be written into the scripts rather than just occurring naturally between the two actors.

Got back onto Hulu and picked up a few days ago where I left off watching the series from scratch. I realized into a bit that I had never seen this episode "Chinga" before and was thinking - damn this is a total Stephen King homage and was kind of surprised when I looked it up afterwards that he wrote it. New to me.

One episode to go in season 7 before I decide if I'm going to skip 8 & 9 and finally watch the relaunch or just end it and let myself revert to only remembering the first four seasons.

Bunch of bad episodes in a row before the genie episode - but fascinating, the back half of the season has felt like they got word they were being cancelled but had to show up for work anyway. Gillian Anderson looks increasingly over this shit with every close-up.

I’ve been watching the show for the first time since I was a super fan in the 90s, as my partner had never seen it. We’ve been cherry picking 13 episodes or so a season. I’m trying to make up my mind whether to proceed into the later seasons. Back then, I dropped off after the first movie—scanning episode titles, I don’t recognize anything except a few episodes in season 6. I felt obligated to tune into the finale but remember nothing about it. Perhaps I’ll just find a "best of" the last few seasons and condense the entire back half into one "season”.

We’re at mid-season 3 and I’m pining for the alternate version of the mythology that is suggested in episodes like "Paper Clip”—yes, aliens may exist, but they’re uncommon, and the majority of the conspiracy is just a cover for America’s actions during the Cold War. I think that would also let Scully appear less silly in her disbelief: Mulder is right that aliens exist, but wrong that every conspiracy plot can be reduced to "aliens did it".

watched the Chair last night and Duchovny gamely making a fool of himself in it was absolutely hilarious

X-Files reboot with him and Sandra Oh would be fucking amazing

The lines on his face in that scene gave him a bit of a Walter Matthau look.

the scene has a X-Files callback as well! won't spoil it but it's unmissable

Perhaps I’ll just find a "best of" the last few seasons and condense the entire back half into one "season”.

I posted recs in hidden tags a few months ago if that’s helpful

I think “Via Negativa” is very much worth watching, really atmospheric dream-horror episode, but a lot of season 8 is kind of a drag. The first half is at least trying to change things up but there’s a lot of middling, grim MOTW episodes. Also there’s a really dumb and pointless retcon about Mulder at the start of the season that makes no sense in the context of Mulder and Scully’s relationship, which is used to drive the plot of a single MOTW episode and then handwaved away.

Once Duchovny returns it just feels weird, Duchovny’s subdued performance at least works for the character but the whole show seems lost and low on energy.

yeah, plus iirc there's a very weird awkward offness to all of Mulder and Scully's interactions, a bit like Season 6 but worse because of everything that's happened in the meantime. It's hard to find any of their scenes believable when you're just wondering why the hell they don't talk about the fact that Scully is pregnant with a mystery baby that might be an alien or might be Mulder's, and I get the impression the actors feel the same way.

Saw another one for the first time last night and got to say 'The Pine Bluff Variant' episode does seem a bit more topical in 2021 than it probably did in 1998. It has a couple of guest stars that you definitely know from other places too like Lost and Malcolm in the Middle/Seinfeld.

that movie theater scene has really stuck with me over the years

impressive that it's their take on The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and they manage to fit a pretty faithful and coherent adaptation of the plot into 45 minutes.

Season 10 - whoooo boy this is rough. Interesting that it starts with a credible Alex Jones impression but the show still plays it down the middle on right-wing conspiracy seasoned with just enough left-wing criticism to not seem like Alex Jones was in the writer's room.

Special effects looked great, though, Roswell '47 & the cloaking ship.

Episode 2 could have been a great MOTW episode if it had spent more time with the siblings.

Much as I love the Darin Morgan eps, and some of the Gilligan comedies, I think the show actually got a bit too light and comical in general throughout S6 and S7 (with some exceptions). Despite its flaws, I kinda like the dark, gloomy tone of S8 for that reason.

That first S10 episode is such a mess, but I can kinda see what Carter was going for; I find the idea of powerful people experimenting with aliens and their technology scarier than invasion overlords (see Paper Clip, Nisei, etc)

omg Tim Armstrong monologue

My Struggle II is cringe on top of cringe

Cutting between Mulder’s foot stomping on the gas, revs climbing and then zoom-zoom is so funny in this context.