XFiles Rewatch Season 1
- Thread starter Btvs fan
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But what's crazy for Firewalker is that instead of simply radioing in that they've been infected by a virus/parasite and needing immediate quarantine. The West Wing guy decides to murder 1 and then just hang out in the volcano and leave the others until Mulder and Scully
Come along and he then just murders the Redshirt with them (reasons I guess) rather than tell them the true situation. Then at the end he decides to go back into the Volcano with his dead girlfriend and I guess get infected too ???
It's just such a poor man rip off Ice which plot made sense
NotASlayer
𝕮𝖍𝖔𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 🍫 👸🏻
Cohen
Hellhound
The premiere episodes of season 8 were so wild. The tonal shift from season 7 to 8 was so evident. Bringing in future Dr. Richard Webber as an antagonist was a choice. Having the "set back" of the X-Files and set up Doggett as a potential mole. All the while having Dogget (and other agents) balatantly ignore what they see with their own eyes the whole 2 hours was... interesting. But the MOTW episodes have been fun so far in 8.
Season 2 the writing is better though how they dealt with rape in Excelsis Dei was a choice 😕
I think they kind of missed a trick with Krycheck. From his first episode we know he's a bad guy and Mulder knows by the Scully abduction 2 parter. Instead they could have kept that secret and had him and Mulder develop a friendship (and used the Scullyless episode) so when he does betray Mulder it's a shock and gut wrenching for him
@NotASlayer @Cohen @thetopher
So I saw Irresistible and its a 10/10 episode. Donald Pfaster is not a monster like Toombs who needs who stretches and needs livers to exist but instead just a straight up sick/vile human being. The actor in his peformance was brilliant from him mannerisms and expressions and how he talks, its pitch perfect. A genuinely creepy and evil individual.
While Gillian Anderson peformance showing Scully having to deal with the trauma or her abduction and being shaken by this case and what Pfaster was doing to corpses and then the woman he murdered is again pitch perfect and that ending is So powerful. I'm amazed she and Pfaster actor Nick Chinlund werent nominated for this episode.
If I had one minor niggle (amd its minor) it was the Funeral guy and then Scully seeing him in the Demon form first then changing back. I guess they felt they needed to add a Paranormal element to the show but I felt it wasn't necessary but I don't think it detracted from the episode or lowered the score in anyway
So I saw Irresistible and its a 10/10 episode. Donald Pfaster is not a monster like Toombs who needs who stretches and needs livers to exist but instead just a straight up sick/vile human being. The actor in his peformance was brilliant from him mannerisms and expressions and how he talks, its pitch perfect. A genuinely creepy and evil individual.
While Gillian Anderson peformance showing Scully having to deal with the trauma or her abduction and being shaken by this case and what Pfaster was doing to corpses and then the woman he murdered is again pitch perfect and that ending is So powerful. I'm amazed she and Pfaster actor Nick Chinlund werent nominated for this episode.
If I had one minor niggle (amd its minor) it was the Funeral guy and then Scully seeing him in the Demon form first then changing back. I guess they felt they needed to add a Paranormal element to the show but I felt it wasn't necessary but I don't think it detracted from the episode or lowered the score in anyway
AlphaFoxtrot
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The consensus on Chris Carter is that the man knew how to write a mystery box, and he knew how to pull some threads from the Fortean side of pop culture, and weave them into a compelling manner with just enough plausibility that it seems there's a part of the story you just aren't privy to, and for a time, it worked really well. But there was never any payoff, just another mystery. If you can accept that, that the aliens and Samantha don't really get a payoff, The series up to the move to LA is pretty good.
I'm on the Alien Bounty Hunter 2 parter and Luke Thompson is great as basically an Alien Terminator character.
Carter does use the Mystery box though I'm not sure he's as bad as JJ whose simply a hack. The stand alone episodes like Irresistible prove that.
Carter does have some good ideas, he just needs a good writer to flesh them out.
Basically though the Xfiles was a show that went on to long. That was back in the original run. S7 was awful I remember that which is why I don't plan to go further than the first film
thetopher
Member of the Church Of Faith
Anyone else remember when X-Files 'special' episodes that were available on VHS? These 'exclusive' feature-length episodes would 'finally reveal the truth' and cost about £12-15 for about 100 minutes of telly.
I never bought them but I had a friends back in the day that was really into X-Files and conspiracy theories and such. He bought every single one...all of which (surprise, surprise) revealed nothing concrete about the grand conspiracy and were eventually shown on terrestrial television anyway lol. Yeah, I have less respect for Chris Carter than I do for Joss Whedon.
I really liked parts of the early X-Files stuff, even if aliens and government conspiracies aren't really my thing, the 'weirdness of the week' and supernatural stuff was more engaging. Overall the alien stuff never made sense- because it was mystery box nonsense- and the world-building was dumb if you thought about it too much; pretty much every single cyrptid exists, then there's Satan, voodoo, psychic powers, etc
On the other hand the show was well shot, atmospheric and basically the first great looking genre show of its type; loads of people watched the show and so suddenly weird was cool and mainstream, the show was full of great and iconic characters that hit the sweet spot to become instant pop culture; deep throat, the smoking man, Scully. Dana Scully.
To me Mulder was iconic but...not that great; he was a complete twonk a lot of the time and barely credible as a government agent. The character is only saved by Duchovny's performance to give him a humorous and laconic side.
Anyway, I only remember the supernatural and weird episodes from the first 5-ish? seasons, after that I dropped off, never went back and never had the desire to revisit it. I've never even seen a Doggett episode, or know anything about the female agent who replaced Scully for a time.
For me the best CC show was Millennium because it was focused and Frank Black was a much stronger main protagonist than Fox Mulder. I own all three seasons of DVD and watch them regularly. It's a little dated in parts but Lance Henriksen is just awesome. He should've been in more stuff.
I never bought them but I had a friends back in the day that was really into X-Files and conspiracy theories and such. He bought every single one...all of which (surprise, surprise) revealed nothing concrete about the grand conspiracy and were eventually shown on terrestrial television anyway lol. Yeah, I have less respect for Chris Carter than I do for Joss Whedon.
I really liked parts of the early X-Files stuff, even if aliens and government conspiracies aren't really my thing, the 'weirdness of the week' and supernatural stuff was more engaging. Overall the alien stuff never made sense- because it was mystery box nonsense- and the world-building was dumb if you thought about it too much; pretty much every single cyrptid exists, then there's Satan, voodoo, psychic powers, etc
On the other hand the show was well shot, atmospheric and basically the first great looking genre show of its type; loads of people watched the show and so suddenly weird was cool and mainstream, the show was full of great and iconic characters that hit the sweet spot to become instant pop culture; deep throat, the smoking man, Scully. Dana Scully.
To me Mulder was iconic but...not that great; he was a complete twonk a lot of the time and barely credible as a government agent. The character is only saved by Duchovny's performance to give him a humorous and laconic side.
Anyway, I only remember the supernatural and weird episodes from the first 5-ish? seasons, after that I dropped off, never went back and never had the desire to revisit it. I've never even seen a Doggett episode, or know anything about the female agent who replaced Scully for a time.
For me the best CC show was Millennium because it was focused and Frank Black was a much stronger main protagonist than Fox Mulder. I own all three seasons of DVD and watch them regularly. It's a little dated in parts but Lance Henriksen is just awesome. He should've been in more stuff.
HowiMetdaSlayer
No way Wade! Xfiles>millennium
After watching the Alien Bounty Hunter episodes, I'm wondering how can Scully still be a sceptic after she saw Mulder morph into Luke Thompson right in front of her very eyes 🤯
On the rewatch Mulder is dislikeable and to be frank I think Duchovny peformance is rather bland. Gillian Anderson is the real star imo
The Stand alones like Irresistible are fantastic. Yeah the Mystery box stuff less so. Like I said I'm stopping with the Movie, I'm not going to Dogget or even Season 6
AlphaFoxtrot
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Yes, JJ is a hack who gave the term "mystery box" a bad name. The Mayor in Buffy S2 was a mystery box. The Dominion in DS9 S2 was a mystery box. The writers eventually got around to paying those off, and everyone was happy. It's the piling up mystery boxes that becomes the problem.
Now, to be fair, X-Files couldn't really be paid off. The Monster of the week was always going to escape at the last moment, the Syndicate was always going to be one step ahead. Mulder will never be vindicated. No outlandish conspiracy theory has ever really been unveiled. We don't even have an Feral Human corpse, and they probably exist. So, the series was eventually going to end up with idiot supersoldiers trying to keep Sam out of the hands of faeries, it had nowhere else to go.
Now, to be fair, X-Files couldn't really be paid off. The Monster of the week was always going to escape at the last moment, the Syndicate was always going to be one step ahead. Mulder will never be vindicated. No outlandish conspiracy theory has ever really been unveiled. We don't even have an Feral Human corpse, and they probably exist. So, the series was eventually going to end up with idiot supersoldiers trying to keep Sam out of the hands of faeries, it had nowhere else to go.
Kendar
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Minor correction: the actor is Brian Earl Thompson (he shares a name with a friend of mine). Luke was the first name of the vampire he played in the Buffy show premier. He generally does a good job of playing bad guys.
Carter was one of the first to claim* they had a multi-season mythology. Unfortunately, he was also the first to end up failing miserably at it in the end, to the point that The Chris Carter Effect is actually a trope.
*Carter later admitted that there wasn't actually a long-term plan and he was making it up as he went.
thetopher
Member of the Church Of Faith
I would say that the Mayor mystery is more the classic set-up and payoff from one season to the very next; its singular mystery foreshadowing that isn't given too much focus amid other things going on.
The 'mystery box' is basically 'this is the long-running mystery of the season/series, with clues and mini set-up and payoffs built-in'. It's often the focus of several subplots and its there to general fan theories and wild speculation.
So before Lost JJ did Alias, which is another TV show built on quite a few mystery boxes, some of them worked, most of them didn't, but they at least were better integrated into an overall plot than JJ's later efforts.
Anyway, Chris Carter could've improved the X-Files by defining/mapping out the conspiracy upfront.... or even have more than one conspiracy, like Mulder and Scully uncover the alien plot but there are a few things that don't add up and they stumble on the fringes of another conspiracy. Maybe not even just governmental but international, definitely something different than before; secret Antarctic Nazi bases, serial killer cults or time-travelling Cthulhuoid things from another dimension.
Or he could've built something with defined layers; Mulder discovers the Grey aliens but they're not even aliens, they are merely the creation of the Elder Things as a way to manipulate humanity.
Just finished Humbug which had a real black humour and the line "It must be something I ate" had me laughing 😃
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You compared Chris Carter to Joss Whedon but Whedon could write a good script and often rewrote most of his writers scripts (Untouched was 98% him confirmed by Mere Smith) his weakness was that he often ignored what came before in favour of the moment and never really examined the consequences of said moment.
Carter often had a good idea but was a terrible script writer. It's no coincidence that the worst episodes in S1 were his. He needed other writers to really flesh out and expand on those concepts or ideas. Now Carter could examine an idea but it would go in crazy directions that don't work. Hence Mulders dad was part of the Syndicate and was not actually his dad it was Cancer Man who raised his sister Samantha but was actually just a clone !!!
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So I finished Episode F. Emasculata in which Mulder teams up with Hank Schrader (to be honest the actor pretty much plays him like Hank) to get 2 escaped infected prisoners.
While Scully in the prison gets another man infected while trying to work it out.
Overall its enjoyable but drags in the middle a bit (Mulder takes time out of his man hunt to monologue about the truth to Skinner and Cancer Man is pure filler)
But its retroactively more interesting after Covid and how Governments handle outbreaks.
While Scully in the prison gets another man infected while trying to work it out.
Overall its enjoyable but drags in the middle a bit (Mulder takes time out of his man hunt to monologue about the truth to Skinner and Cancer Man is pure filler)
But its retroactively more interesting after Covid and how Governments handle outbreaks.
NotASlayer
𝕮𝖍𝖔𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 🍫 👸🏻
And then the Bounty Hunter just vanished for no apparent reason. Did they get bored? Did they forget he wasn't truly dead because there were many of them?
To be fair he didn't vanish he went in the submarine after chucking Mulder out. Though given he killed an entire crew why he let's Mulder live they don't say 😄
NotASlayer
𝕮𝖍𝖔𝖈𝖔𝖑𝖆𝖙𝖊 𝕻𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖈𝖊𝖘𝖘 🍫 👸🏻
Although after he was "killed" in Without it was revealed that he was only one of many identical aliens, not one of whom was ever seen again.
thetopher
Member of the Church Of Faith
Whedon was the better writer but I think Carter had more respect for the crafting of a TV series he just liked bilking his audience for as much money as possible. Or maybe that was Fox as well. Either way both of them disrespected the fans, ie the very reason they had hit shows to begin with.
btw I think its a bit ironic that Whedon's downfall was ultimately triggered by his behavior during the Justice League reshoots when he started his career as a script doctor.
Regarding The Mayor just being a Big Snake, that wasn't the payoff of the S2 hints, The Mayor being revealed as the master villain building a town for demons to feed on was the payoff for the S2 hints.
His endgame being lame? Well, all the Buffyverse villains had pretty prosaic motivations when it comes right down to it; end the world by intent or incidentally. At least The Mayor had a personality.