the x-files s/d

If you have the disk space to keep it around, Apple occasionally puts the entire series - seasons 1-11 - on sale for $40. I dunno- sometimes I just literally hit a random number generator and watch an old episode

We're doing an X-Files re-watch too right now, fascinating that this seems to be the zeitgeist! We're up to Ascension in S2 so far. Stray thoughts:

- It's amazing they had the foresight to stick the Smoking Man in that scene in the pilot where they assign Scully, as it does tie the whole thing together from the outset in a first series that is (enjoyably) otherwise casting around for a tone. A lot of the individual episodes feel very 80s procedural in both direction and narrative. The car chase at the beginning of Erlenmeyer Flask feels like it's from a much earlier era! Then weirdly that ep stumbles on a much more paranoid tone and basically stick with that far more consistently in S2 (with what looks like a substantial injection of cash).

- I'd forgotten how Deep Throat is 100% a function of the plot - basically only appearing in order to move things along quickly when Mulder and Scully need to get to the next bit of the story. Also, his appearances seem to follow a pattern of (1) a first appearance where he talks super cryptically about all the things he can't tell them, and then (2) a second appearance where he hands over a bundle of paperwork that more or less answers all their questions.

- From a 2023 viewpoint, all the characters dress incredibly, both on an off duty.

- Huge fan of all the one-off FBI boffin characters whose skillsets are "enhancing" things - cleaning up audio, or - my favourite - zooming in on a picture with absolutely crystal sharpness.

- The HD remaster job is amazing - when you get the occasional shot source from the original video masters, you realise what an incredible job they've done on it.

- It's absolutely brilliant, and at this point I'm loving both the standalone and the mythology episodes.

is it a rewatch if you never stopped watching?

I was just thinking that I did a series rewatch recently, then realized it was in 2009

I can't remember many years of my life when I haven't watched at least a few dozen X-Files episodes, I've got the original DVD box sets and even though I have them ripped to a Plex server now I still think of them in the four-episode blocks they appear on in disc form, hahaha

Weirdly apart from the first revived series, I haven't watched any of it since the original run!

This revive is very cool and weird inasmuch as falling asleep to The X-Files has been a staple in our household for quite a long time. Generally this consists of rewatching the first five seasons on a loop (although we did just finally rewatch the first film and move into the less intimately-familiar territory of season 6...which I do not vibe with nearly as much).

Glad to see that Disney is finally pulling their heads out of their asses a bit wrt physical media, which apparently means some X-Files Blu-ray reissues are on the way. It just seems ludicrous to me that the BR box set is totally out of print and going for mad $$$ (and I'm so glad that I got mine long before Fox was bought out).

The blu ray sets really made me appreciate how ambitious the cinematography of the show was, and how they approached each episode as a short film (pioneered by Twin Peaks, of course, which similarly looks stunning on blu-ray). That's old hat now in the era of prestige TV, but easy to forget how boring most TV looked back then.

My first exposure was, ironically, one of the worst episodes. I was channel flipping and came into a rerun of "Space" midway through. The "face on Mars" image thoroughly spooked me (granted, I was in fifth or sixth grade) and led me to seek out more.

Despite the rewatch I posted about upthread awhile ago, we never did finish the show--stalled out around season sixth. So I suppose there is still more X-Files I haven't seen, giving me an incentive to try again when the next bout of nostalgia hits me.

yeah in early S3 we noticed the cinematography level-up even more

the Giovanni Ribisi/Jack Black early s3 episode that I call “Lightning Boy” bc I can’t remember the ep name right now - that one def has a more noticeably stylized cinematic look. it looks really good, like a theatrical movie of the time
(episode is hella dumb, but fun nonetheless)

plus other s3 episodes i’ve caught a brief. silence of the lambs reference, or Abyss, etc which has been fun

The show looking as good as it did kinda knocked the wind out of the movie, I realized this time around. Like it looks good but not really any better than what we got on our tv set every week.

Watching Annihilation and it reminded me of my least favorite X-Files trope - Scully’s skepticism running deep into the series. “That’s not possible!” - excuse me, I’ve seen the shit you’ve seen. Flipper men and shapeshifters and a giant UFO rising up from Antarctica and etc..

You might have doubts but impossible should probably not be in your vocabulary.

xxp oh yeah DPO/Lightning Boy looks fantastic and has one of the most “lmao are you fucking kidding me” lines in the show - “I’m saying he is lightning. And we’ve got to stop him before he strikes again.”

But also the bleak, hopeless River’s Edge-style vibe to the whole thing combined with the stylization is pretty effective!

A+ deployment of Filter’s “Hey Man Nice Shot” in Lightning Boy too

I love X-Files but it’s strange watching them alone or with a partner — I love the extra layer of discomfort provided by watching it with a parent, when you know everyone in the room is thinking “should I really be watching this with them?”. Especially during “Home” of course.

Also I don’t think my crush on the scientist in the shitbugs episode will ever go away.

I enjoyed this, and would largely agree (I wandered away during season 5, I think, and only came back for the new seasons)

https://www.primetimer.com/bestof/the-x-files-seasons-ranked-worst-best

Also on point on how not just influential but foundational this quietly is.

Psssh...no way is season 6 better than season 5. 6 has some very good episodes but it also has way, way too many comedy episodes, and that goddamn glaring LA sun is always gonna look wrong to me when contrasted against the beautifully overcast Vancouver moodiness of the first five seasons.

the move to LA (mostly so Duchovny could be near his new wife Tea Leoni) is really the biggest negative of seasons six and onwards... it's not the X-Files if it's not lush and green and overcast and rainy, LA just didn't work as a setting

It was almost like they got bored making the X-Files and decided to do a comedy show about FBI agents

the move to LA (mostly so Duchovny could be near his new wife Tea Leoni) is really the biggest negative of seasons six and onwards... it's not the X-Files if it's not lush and green and overcast and rainy, LA just didn't work as a setting

OTM. Hand-in-hand with this, for me, was also the fading of the early/mid-90s charm as it approached the new decade. The show always looked better than most shows but it got too slick. Mulder and Scully looked a bit too attractive once they left those bulky suits behind.

man i think thing i had forgotten most was the wild shift in tone from episode to episode, like full whiplash

we watched three s3 eps in a row

e11 Revelation
e12 War of the Coprophages
e13 Syzyk
e14 Grotesque

e11 - a little boy is Jesus? demon serial killer? & Michael Berryman from Hills Have Eyes. Scully believes & Mulder is the skeptic (!) (who could ever predict) Possibly the most batshit episode to date.
e12 - the classic cockroach episode with Dr Bambi incl cockroach skittering across the screen
e13 - smalltown satanic panic via teenage besties, total comedy hours including Mulder drunk & Scully smoking
e14 - XfIles does Se7en but with gargoyles, grim grim grim ends with paraphrased Nietzche thank you chris carter for gifting us with a generation of teenage boys quoting this in bars in their 20’s

*four episodes in a row

I think you meant to post this in the Twitter thread

lol

sure. fine. whatever.

^^^

The show always looked better than most shows

Not sure I agree with this... they shot on video and then tried to make it look 'filmish' with some proprietary processing that mostly looked cheap to me... very easy to do now, not so in 1995

dude it was shot on film

lol while I was reading through the thread the actual FBI called my office just now

they're listening

there’s been a murder with a knife

[tosses knife alien folder at f. hazel]

yeah IMDB has it being shot on 35mm. idk what "shooting on video" means. you mean like... a soap opera or something? i dunno how soaps are shot.

Joined the rewatching hordes. Just 2 episodes in but will still skip a few probably.

My visual memories of these first episodes were so minimal (in the pilot's case the faraway standout snapshot has always been Scully's sullen dejection at CSM's unamused face in response to "Spooky Mulder") to the point I wondered if I had actually even seen them in full before but what was striking was how many snippets of dialogue the moment I heard them again reactivated as (poorly held) memories. Think that's more because I had some episode guide book for a few years featuring excerpts from scenes and this was I think the only TV show I sought out info online about in the 90s.

tonight: the CLASSIC

s3e20 Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’

Charles Nelson Reilly!
Jesse The Body Ventura (pre-Governor)!
Piney from Sons Of Anarchy!
stop motion cyclops!
This guy!
https://media.tenor.com/LZKthwgCk7IAAAAC/x-files-et-alien.gif

THE PEOPLE HAVE A RIGHT TO KNOW!
ROSWELL!!

and the highest clockable amount of truly Hall of Fame worthy, wall to wall, Scully-areyoukiddingmewiththisshit-face

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ab/de/69/abde699f81d3182c763bbac660132f6b.gif

this episode cleanses my soul i love it so much i had forgotten so many things

probably the best episode of the entire series, though it doesn't make any sense unless you were already well bought into the show

And Alek Trebeck, just to fuck with people!

i think it's great that in a show all about aliens being real, the best episode they produced about aliens says "even if they're real, no one's story is reliable, the government/military is responsible for a lot of the sightings, you'll never get a satisfying answer, and the whole UFO obsession is just a way to cope with life and its fundamental sadness and loneliness."

I’ve always been amused by how myopic Mulder’s obsession with The Truth is. He’s absolutely determined to tell the world about the existence of aliens… but apparently he thinks the public wouldn’t be interested in the existence of ghosts, witchcraft and psychic powers. This, despite the fact that Mulder often has actual evidence and witnesses for those things, and that the average denizen of the X-Files universe is far likelier to die from a mutant than a conspiracy agent.

I think the Conspiracy episodes and MOTW episodes take place in slightly different realities

Agree but would go farther: I think the conspiracy episodes take place in one reality and then the MOTW episodes all take place in separate realities even from each other.

good god, I am watching a s4 episode and there should have been a show conspiracy about canadian involvement because the smoking man says “diplomatic pouch” and “about” in two successive sentences in the most canadian way imaginable

I think it was Satan. Yes sir, Satan it was.

Syzygy is so awesome. Especially the psychic who won't help them until their credit card clears.

― the girl from spirea x (f. hazel), Sunday, September 6, 2009 8:10 PM (fourteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

I watched Sam Raimi's Drag Me To Hell a few days ago, which used this trope as well.

Just started the whole thing, really enjoying season 1 more than I remember doing so in the past.

We just started Doggett era this week. First time I've seen any of this since it originally aired (having watched s1-5 more times than I can count, s6 at least several, and s7 maybe only twice through). It's...kind of a very different show at this point (or at least this seems like a very different Scully) but not too shabby so far. I don't remember particularly disliking the new direction at the time but I don't think I even made it to the end of the season after previously being a very avid fan.

Never had a problem with the Doggett era myself, some good episodes, main alien arc started to get a bit grating though.

I think everyone hated that Mulder and Scullly were taking a back seat but there are some solid Doggett/Reyes episodes

The highlight of 'Jersey Devil' may just be Mulder gravely pondering for far too long a crude line drawing of a stern Neanderthal with large breasts.

I forgot Deep Throat would sometimes turn up in non-alien EPs like 'Shadows'.