It's never going to come back properly, but a short series every year or two seems to be in the leads' scope of interest.
Wong's was okay and Glen Morgan's was good. If they can get a Vince Gilligan episode next time and Carter takes the response to the mytharc stuff this time as an excuse to suppress it and be more standalone, six eps would still be okay. (He did good standalones sometimes!) Going to eight and getting some new-to-the-series but notable writers would be great.
(Though I'm saying this from a perspective of having always planned to skip the Carter eps.)
― glandular lansbury (sic), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 12:10 (eight years ago) link
I appreciated that ep for being completely OTT bugfuck insane, even if it wasn't exactly "good"
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 13:14 (eight years ago) link
Yes, I can't wait to read more reactions to Mulder's "shroom" trip. I'm sure Fox was all "uhhhhhhh..." after Carter handed in the ep.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 13:19 (eight years ago) link
They wouldn't go wrong to let Duchovny write another episode, either. The Unnatural is great, and Hollywood A.D. was pretty hilarious as well. And Anderson could do one too, even though her episode from the original series was a bit goofy and had 1000% too much Moby in it, at least it wasn't lazily racist like last night's ep.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 14:51 (eight years ago) link
all i could think while watching this ep was that if i were muslim i'd be pretty horrified. throughout the opening sequence i kept saying that obv it was a fakeout and it was going to turn out they were just a gay couple going to an art gallery. like surely in 2016 you don't show a muslim man praying just to establish that he's a radical fundamentalist suicide bomber? and then even after the bombing i was sure that it was going to turn out to be some kind of supernatural spontaneous combustion or something up until they explicitly said that they were wearing suicide vests at which pt i checked to see if CAIR twitter had condemned it yet.
― Mordy, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 14:59 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, the cold open was both a betrayal of Muslims and classic X-Files. I couldn't believe how bad that was.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 15:15 (eight years ago) link
Mordy, that was almost exactly my train of thought. A lot of very unfortunate choices.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 15:16 (eight years ago) link
lol I thought it was going to be a gay couple too
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 15:27 (eight years ago) link
I defy anyone to watch the start of that episode and assume that the character was going to be a terrorist. I also thought they were a gay couple.
Then Mulder's idea of using mushrooms to talk to the vegetative terrorist, and then him doing so with only a placebo - just extremely silly, even for the X-Files, even for nu-X-Files tbh!
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:10 (eight years ago) link
I didn't think he was going to be a terrorist because it was both the most obvious and the most tone deaf direction Carter could've gone in 2016.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:20 (eight years ago) link
it makes you wonder in what decade and country he wrote that episode
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:22 (eight years ago) link
also does every episode have to try and cram in some reference to William. This week the mother of the terrorist's love for her dying terrorist son makes scully think about her child
last week a weird street artist creates a trash Gollum anti-gentrification monster and that "creation" was linked to Scully's creation of her child. All really hamfisted and aiming for emotional resonance but failing awfully.
this has been a bad, bad miniseries. I will still watch the final episode, and any further episodes they get commissioned, but it's definitely out of a sense of fanboyish nostalgia, not because this is good tv. the darin morgan episode was really the only one i would give a passing grade to.
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:26 (eight years ago) link
Although, okay, wait. The whole episode was such a scramble that I think I missed this: his mother said she had communicated with him psycically or whatever and knew that he wasn't able to go through with it, and I guess that's borne out by the fact that he wasn't blown to bits as he surely would've been if he'd actually been wearing a vest. So he was working with a terror cell but didn't actually commit an act of terror himself...but I guess he still ultimately abetted an act of terrorism anyway so the distinction is pretty fuzzy.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:26 (eight years ago) link
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, February 16, 2016 11:22 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
Well, Homeland is still airing.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 17:29 (eight years ago) link
I just listened to an episode of Kamau Bell's Denzel Wahington podcast where the 2 women from Good Muslim Bad Muslim talked about all the ways that The Siege was terrible from a muslim standpoint
The opening of this episode was a total utter facepalm, even more so in light of just finishing listening to that conversation
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 19:35 (eight years ago) link
Yeah, I kinda want to rub the nose of every butthurt Christian with a persecution complex in this episode and say "do you see what actual institutionalized, cultural persecution looks like???" but I know they'd just champion the crazy nurse or vilify that character as slanderous.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 19:50 (eight years ago) link
haven't watched this yet, not really feeling the urge to now
odds on fox bringning xfiles back again next year for a short run? do people still want it?
― akm, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 20:07 (eight years ago) link
Seems to be doing pretty well so there will likely be more
― Star Wars ate shiitake (latebloomer), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 20:31 (eight years ago) link
I mean, I want it to return about as much as I wanted this miniseries in the first place. Which is, as someone else said earlier, basically to the extent to which I'm still nostalgic about the initial, mostly good stretch of the original series. I can acknowledge that it was kinda shitty for about as long as it was kinda good, though, so I didn't have any illusions about the revival blowing my mind. I hoped for a couple of good episodes in the classic mode and got one solid classic new episode and some memorable moments, so my low expectations have been satisfied.
― maybe my clam is just more toxic (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 16 February 2016 20:48 (eight years ago) link
yeah this sounds like its about as good/consistent as the original run
― Οὖτις, Tuesday, 16 February 2016 20:50 (eight years ago) link
You saying you think Gordon ghostwrote this one due to contractual issues?
― glandular lansbury (sic), Wednesday, 17 February 2016 04:38 (eight years ago) link
a trash Gollum anti-gentrification monster
guys, golems and Gollum are different things
watched this because of reaction. really enjoyed the alternate Mulder & Scully, seeing Lauren Ambrose onscreen in general, the Mulder tripping sequence, the extra joke of the placebo, wrapping it up with a painful extended self-important dialogue between ersatz M&S... though that was ruined by then having another actual extended etc from the real M&S. Without insane racism/bigotry/clichesplosion and hideous tonal shifts, some of Carter's ideas for this could have been an interesting and fun stand-alone.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Friday, 19 February 2016 00:27 (eight years ago) link
wow, this finale was really the nadir.
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 18:07 (eight years ago) link
lol at Smoking Man hiding out in Spartanburg, SC (I live in Greenville)
http://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/fef72609be4842b395fab06ed7c384b2dfbf0073/c=251-0-2307-1546&r=x483&c=640x480/local/-/media/2016/02/23/CarolinaGroup/Greenville/635918138887021470-Screen-Shot-2016-02-23-at-8.44.16-AM.png
― Star Wars ate shiitake (latebloomer), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 18:22 (eight years ago) link
But yeah this whole revival has been mostly atrocious aside from the Darin Morgan episode
http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2016/02/23/its-time-for-chris-carter-to-pass-the-x-files-to-the-next-generation
― Star Wars ate shiitake (latebloomer), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 18:29 (eight years ago) link
Yeah :(
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 18:56 (eight years ago) link
I give them a half point for CHEMTRAILS!!!! in the last episode, but that might be the only point
― μpright mammal (mh), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:01 (eight years ago) link
ALIEN DNA
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:06 (eight years ago) link
literally everyone in America's immune system has shut down but not to fear scully is homebrewing some antidote in a d.c. hospital, there'll be plenty to go around folks
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:07 (eight years ago) link
gah do I even want to watch these last two episodes?
― akm, Tuesday, 23 February 2016 19:12 (eight years ago) link
I am really embarrased I spelled that like I did, because I do know the difference. WTF me.
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Tuesday, 23 February 2016 23:19 (eight years ago) link
c'mon the last ep literally had the line "This is so unnecessary, Fox!", gotta give Carter moxie points for that
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:29 (eight years ago) link
can I just watch the Darin Morgan episode and skip the rest then?
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:43 (eight years ago) link
(And is that episode even good?)
― Chuck_Tatum, Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:44 (eight years ago) link
it's not terrible, but not really on the level of the great darin morgan episodes. i think people are overrating it some because of how absolutely dire every single other episode of this run was.
― Clay, Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:51 (eight years ago) link
The Darin Morgan episode was great, except for the transphobic stuff about which they should have known better, and then Founder's Mutation and Home Again were passable with some great Mulder/Scully interplay. The other three episodes were complete garbage.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:51 (eight years ago) link
lol, the commonality b/w the other three episodes? written and directed by carter
― Clay, Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:53 (eight years ago) link
"Babylon" was fucking insane.
― a serious and fascinating fartist (Simon H.), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 01:56 (eight years ago) link
I agree completely
― Cornelius Pardew (jim in glasgow), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:11 (eight years ago) link
One question re the suicide bomber ep (which yeah, that was a pile of insulting dung). What was with the 2 "homeland security" guys. Were they HS? Why did one speak to the other in Arabic and they started looking shifty, then cover their faces when their photo was being taken. Were they part of the terrorist cell? That bit was compeltely wtf confusing - hell the whole everyone fighting over him in the hospital bit was, tbh.
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:25 (eight years ago) link
And I refuse to believe the placebo effect can make people trip their balls off.
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:26 (eight years ago) link
It's the third-best Darin Morgan episode, and the trans stuff is unfortunately a little clunky but plainly ally-focused, not phobic. M&S accept her wholly on her stated identity, and Mulder tells Mann that it's entirely common and no big deal.
― glandular lansbury (sic), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:27 (eight years ago) link
refuse to believe the placebo effect can make people trip their balls
Fox wants to believe!
― glandular lansbury (sic), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:28 (eight years ago) link
I assumed she did not actually give him placebo, but was lying about it to cover her own ass
― Posts found in a bottle by (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:29 (eight years ago) link
That did occur to me, yeah.
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:35 (eight years ago) link
***WARNING***NERD ALERT&&&I mean one of the things I liked most about original X-Files was that it exploited the "diegetic reality"(??) of the implausible things we witness *typically in the opening sequence, so that we spend a good deal of every episode yelling "Shut up! You weren't there!" at all the people who are pooh-poohing Mulder's crazy explanation for this week's crazy phenomenon (NB this is not so much true of the mythology episodes)
... so I feel like with the drug trip itself, they were already violating this longstanding convention of having the camera give us "objective reality" and not subjective delusion (although I can think of counterexamples & I'm sure you can think of more); but to then follow up with "SIKE! that drug trip wasn't a real drug trip; Mulder is an unreliable narrator of his own mental state" just pissed me off more!!
― Posts found in a bottle by (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:42 (eight years ago) link
"longstanding convention" more like BONGstanding convention amirite folks /signs off
― Posts found in a bottle by (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 02:43 (eight years ago) link
Straigh up tho that whole scene was gratuitous and gross, but maybe I'm getting prudish in my old age who knows.
― Interesting. No, wait, the other thing: tedious. (Trayce), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 03:15 (eight years ago) link
that scene was america 2016 through filtered through chris carter
― μpright mammal (mh), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 03:35 (eight years ago) link
the trans stuff is unfortunately a little clunky but plainly ally-focused, not phobic.
I dunno, the reactions of trans people online were pretty uniformly negative. Also following up two episodes later with some lazy Muslim-bashing doesn't really make me feel like giving them the benefit of the doubt on the trans thing.
― erry red flag (f. hazel), Wednesday, 24 February 2016 03:56 (eight years ago) link