the x-files s/d

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.

I'm surprised that you have no comment on 'Babylon'. Particularly the shroom trip.

We're verrrrrey slooooowly rewatching, in season two rn, enjoying the casual stroll. I may actually eventually make it through those late season episodes I still haven't seen and I guess even rewatch the reboot, god help me.

Oh, yeah, that whole episode was a mess. I have a soft spot for Lauren Ambrose because of Six Feet Under but the millennial version of Mulder was a void + ripped from the headlines terrorist plot (Garland Muhammed exhibition), Mulder line dancing while tripping balls was the only saving grace.

It's hard to believe this show (by which I mean pretty much anything after S6E1) is from the same team that created "Home" and "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."

I picked up season 8 from the library cos it was free. Didn't notice it was 8 until after I took it home. Has no outer cover just the sleeve the dvd fit into.
Did wonder if that was too late.
Not tried to watch any yet. Imdb rates individual episodes anyway.

Not seen season 8 but just started in on 9. It's not the fault of the new (to me) leads but yeah the writing sure is a significant step down from where I left it in season 7, jarringly cliched and corny at times. I'm liking the mythology stuff more than the MOTWs so far. Very awkward weird what they're doing with Scully, as much as I love the character and actor.

It's hard to believe this show (by which I mean pretty much anything after S6E1) is from the same team that created "Home" and "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."

― papal hotwife (milo z), Friday, September 3, 2021 5:57 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well, the writers chiefly responsible for those episodes had long moved on by then. It was pretty much just Vince Gilligan left delivering the goods, basically any of the handful of worthwhile episodes you can name from seasons 6 - 9 was probably one of his. Drive, X-Cops, Je Souhaite, etc.

xp might have skipped over s7 as well, looking at the episode titles.

What was the season and episode name of that one where it was mainly flashback cuts to previous eps but with the bloke inserted into the scenes, it was a comedy episode pretty much.

Season 11, "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat." That season's Darin Morgan episode.

Well, the writers chiefly responsible for those episodes had long moved on by then.

I agree that Gilligan is responsible for nearly all the good eps from 6-9, but milo has just watched S10, in which the only writers apart from Carter are the writers of Home and Clyde Bruckman. (The Darin Morgan ep in S10 is great though.)

S11 Black Mirror episode was pretty good. Most of the season feels like they're doing Skinner dirty, though.

They always kind of do Skinner dirty, don't they? He spends his life cleaning up Mulder's messes, and in return Mulder periodically accuses him of murder.

one of the wildest moments in x files pic.twitter.com/OtAqikhnr9

— dangerous man with a gun (@dgahk) December 11, 2021

S2E2 The Host

god what a great monster of the week
that makeup looks SO fucking good even now, they shot it so percectly

Something must have worked because I haven't seen that episode since it aired, and I can still perfectly picture the monster and his disgusting ring mouth

so gross!

yeah that episode was some top tier body horror, everyone barfing up flatworms in the bathroom and shots of them slithering into the drain!

Something must have worked because I haven't seen that episode since it aired, and I can still perfectly picture the monster and his disgusting ring mouth

same, thats one of the first images that comes into my mind when i think 'the x files'

He's definitely one of the better XF monsters. I love Tooms, Flukie, and the critters from "Ice" and "Darkness Falls", as they're vaguely believable in a pseudo-scientific kind of way, and more effective than traditional werewolves, vampires, etc

there’s some great shots where its like Nosferatu yknow, the monster emerges from darkness but only the head is fully lit

from imdb trivia performing the monster sounds like hell, 20 hrs in the suit etc (darin morgan, brother of glenn, also writer of some great eps himseld, was in the suit) & this is wild, the materials of the suit itself were i guess water soluble in some way & it would deteriorate & they had to recraft it every day !? … you like to think its longevity on screen, and how great they made it look on film, kiinda maybe makes up for all the trials & tribulations (somewhat)

fuck that “Duane Barry” S2 E5&6 two parter w Steve Railsback is so fuckin GOOD