the x-files s/d

we've been posting about it over here: Oh look the last ever episode of the X-Files is on!

Going through the entire library at the moment, (thanks free Prime trial!)

Up to season 6 currently.

Generally gotten bored of the extra terrestrial story too, started to prefer the stand alone eps now.

Really enjoyed the Peter Boyle episode, that's my S choice so far

D's though, there are so many I haven't decide yet.

X-Files is probably the most mediocre (on average) show that I'm genuinely fond of. The highs are great but so much of the rest is just not good.

I have always preferred the standalone monster of the week episodes, that's the x files for me

A certain distance into the run f the show every episode felt like fan fiction

And especially the latest season

I love how the motw episodes sometimes completely contradict anything that might be happening with the 'real' story.

The genie episode for instance, just lol

I'm slowly working through the series on Netflix from the start. Being a fan of the series, I'm really surprised how few of the early episodes I have seen. 'Blood' with William Sanderson was a really great one that I don't remember seeing.

Mark Snow's music is really great, even though I think a ton of people knicked his style later on. I think the stripped down version of the title theme is much better than the later more ornamental version.

Blood was the first episode with Darin Morgan involvement.

also helped by William Sanderson being awesome

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/02/arts/television/the-x-files-in-a-familiar-groove-review.html

this makes me happy:

In the five episodes of the new season made available to critics, the winner is the fourth, “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat.” It was written and directed by Darin Morgan, who also provided the best hour of the show’s revival season in 2016, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” and authored celebrated old-school episodes like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” and “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” back in the 1990s.

“Forehead Sweat” guest-stars Brian Huskey (“People of Earth”) as either a madman or a fellow F.B.I. agent from an alternate dimension who is intimately familiar with the show’s heroes, the alien-chasing feds Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). Mr. Morgan uses this premise to provide the ultimate in fan service — constructing an elaborate meta-story that recapitulates the history of the series, with a cracked version of “The Twilight Zone” as a framing device, and wallows in specific references to past “X-Files” installments (including “Clyde Bruckman’s”).

DELITE

honestly I might only watch the Morgan episode this time out

I am surprised beyond words to learn that the Morgan episode is the standout. Please stop with all the surprises.

Geez, Hollywood, just give the guy his own show or something already. It's only a couple decades past due.

Wtf is going on

Wasn’t the virus released at the end of last season? Am I misremembering?

Mulder driving and narrating like he’s Frank Drebin in the Naked Gun movies, CSM was the dad all along, new conspiracy leader guy looks like budget Steve Bannon, Scully falls a lot, something about magic alien cum and Skinner, Annabeth Gish, Barbara Hershey?

the x-files, at least for this episodes, is all about driving around recklessly in cars and bumping your head hard enough to retcon the bad last episode of the previous season

🎵We didn’t start the fire🎵

Uh, X-post

Forgot to mention unconscious Scully communicating in Morse code with her brain scan, lol

And everyone’s favorite character Jeffrey Spender showing up and uh, yeah that’s kinda all he does

Mulder Macgrubering Scully’s would be pillow assassin

I’ll give it this, it wasn’t uneventful!

I was hoping the “maybe this all didn’t happen (yet)” would apply to those stupid Scrappy Doo agents, what’s-his-name and Einsteinbut no such luck

So wait did the end of last season not happen? What happened in it?

This episode apparently retconned the previous episode into a “hasn’t happened yet” alternate/possible future sent as a vision to Scully from she and Mulder’s psychic part-alien son, William. Who is apparently not Mulder’s son but a product of genetic engineering and artificial insemination by CSM (aka Cancer Man, aka CGB Spender, aka Carl Gerhardt Bush, aka Mulder and Mulder’s half-brother Jeffrey Spender’s biological father) using “alien science” either taken from or given to the government by extraterrestrials, who may or may not had plans to colonize the earth, depending on which version of the conspiracy you believe. This all may be a lie or half-truth or a smokescreen or the actual truth.

Pretty straightforward!

I skipped the finale eps last year bc they sounded dumb. can I skip this one as well?

skip to your heart’s content, my son.

i feel like CSM's 'plans' now just got lifted wholesale from Utopia.

he wants to be a showrunner of a failed reality tv experiment?

I think akm is referring to the short-lived British conspiracy thriller of the same name

Wait, shit, was this on last night or something? Goddamnit, man. They've really done very little marketing for this thing. Like, I knew it was returning but I thought it was still six months to a year off until I saw a commercial sometime around Christmas.

I've had facebook ads constantly, they must... know

The truth is out there. The promotion..not so much

In the five episodes of the new season made available to critics, the winner is the fourth, “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat.” It was written and directed by Darin Morgan, who also provided the best hour of the show’s revival season in 2016, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster,” and authored celebrated old-school episodes like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” and “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” back in the 1990s.

Oh thanks, "Were-Monster" was one of my favorite episodes of anything last year, and I couldn't get through any of the other episodes, sounds like it's the same this time around.

Dagoo!!!

"I think akm is referring to the short-lived British conspiracy thriller of the same name"

yes.

not coming back after this season.

http://www.slashfilm.com/the-x-files-ending-2/

I kept waiting for the Ford commercial to end.

This episode reminded me a bit of the work of Neil Breen

https://youtu.be/u-fYWAwc8Q0

Caught up on the last two. Tonight's episode was okay, but I can state unequivocally that the season premiere is the worst X-Files episode I've ever seen. By some distance. If Carter refuses to keep his fingers out of the pie, it's probably for the best that it's ending.

No, seriously: it was really, really fucking bad.

It's funny that the second episode was about people being uploaded into virtual reality because I kept thinking during the premiere, 'oh, this is such an OTT awful episode that they're going to eventually reveal that everyone is stuck in some kind of simulated purgatory' but no.

Damn, I'm sorry to hear that it's terrible, although I feared the worst. Maybe better I just don't watch.

the second one kind of falls apart in the end, as far as the episode's plot goes (that's not how computers work and the coda explains it for us), but at least demonstrates a comprehension of what a plot and characterization look like

but it gives us actual action, with the comedic acknowledgment that Mulder is _not made for action_ because he looks like he's gonna vomit and then die

then it has actual Mulder/Scully banter, jokes about Scully that come off as eye-rolly and a little funny without being offensive by modern standards, references good parts of the original (grave of informant character!), gets Skinner in there without him being overwrought. and Mulder has a house! and it's very Mulder-like

there's a brief moment that has forced connective tissue to a seasonal overriding plot that's luckily forgettable

don't watch the first episode unless you just want to kill time or can pay partial attention

this is probably better duchovny than he or we should expect, and we don't deserve modern gillian anderson in a tv series with this much baggage

That first episode (and yes, I'm still stewing) was like one of those YouTube videos where someone's mom explains Star Wars without having seen Star Wars except instead of someone's mom it's some dumb guy who knows a little about the X-Files (like the main characters' names and that they're in the alien police or whatever) but has fairly open contempt for it and is given a whole bunch of money to film his idea of what an X-Files episode is like, and instead of being charming it's kind of an insulting slog where you're just like, dude we gave you a bunch of money, we hoped you'd at least put some effort into it. Except the twist is that the dumb and contempuously uninterested dude was the actual creator of the show the whole time.

And yes, I've seen bad X-Files episodes before and yes, I watched last season and acknowledge that the Carter episodes were previously probably the worst of the series. This was worse.

what, you don't love no-stakes poorly-filmed car chases?

I thought second episode Mulder and Scully gunfights were off-character but I think it was filmed really well!

I did like the "chaos" - "control" joke though.

It felt like one of the Adult Swim action show parodies.

Oh boy. I just watched the first episode. It had the feel of a two hour premiere edited sloppily down to one hour. I think I was too distracted by the poor filmaking to follow what Cancer Man’s plan is. He just wants to kill everyone except select people he’s injected with alien serum? There was a certain elegance to the character back when we thought he was a guy who resignedly did evil stuff for the preservation of the human race, but now he’s just a supervillain. And wtf with that retcon about knocking up Scully? So William is half human/half alien but with two human parents? And why was Mulder wearing sunglasses half the time?

I'm already working on erasing it, and the prior season finale, from my mind

If you forget the original series finale too, then CSM appearing alive doesn't even need an explanation

lmao @ "alien police"

When/if I'm feeling particularly masochistic, I may have to rewatch the premiere and 'live'blog everything that's bad and wrong about it minute-by-minute. It really is a masterclass in how to create garbage entertainment.