also i noticed how, to me anyway, the look & color palette & settting of the first episode is like a venn diagram overlap of Silence of the Lambs + Twin Peaks ... so much my wheelhouse <3
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 12 March 2021 01:22 (three years ago) link
Yes! so good, even in Season 1. A few dud episodes but still the general atmosphere of the show is just so appealing. And Mulder is at his prettiest.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 12 March 2021 01:37 (three years ago) link
The shoulder pads were so large
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, 12 March 2021 01:40 (three years ago) link
I started a casual selective rewatch a little while back. I watched the living hell out of all the episodes that were released in those old-school VHS box sets so now I've been occasionally watching the (almost entirely MOTW) episodes that I haven't seen as much. Something so soothing and transportive about M+S mumbling about killer computers against those washed-out Vancouver landscapes.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 01:55 (three years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1ninCOmqu0
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, 12 March 2021 02:04 (three years ago) link
The remasters do look great! They actually re-edited all the episodes from the original negatives and re-created a lot of the special effects. The first three seasons are converted to widescreen format too... the only real issue is the font on the intro and establishing text is different from the original.
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 02:15 (three years ago) link
Wow, just had a look, the remaster really does look terrific, font notwithstanding (they remastered hundreds of hours of footage but couldn’t get the janky font right?)
I need something like the ds9 spreadsheet so I can just watch the good ones. Last time I rewatched I just stuck to the Vince Gilligan and Darin Morgan episodes
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 12 March 2021 02:31 (three years ago) link
yeah there's something so satisfying about the way the show tends to start post-credits, hearing the piano and string wash coming up over footage of the misty evergreens of Kansas or Georgia or wherever.
― JoeStork, Friday, 12 March 2021 02:32 (three years ago) link
I have a spreadsheet of good 'uns but it's probably 2/3 Gilligan and Darin
(boop beep rm9sbg93zxjz: I haven't seen them but: the blu-ray remastering was outsourced to a rando company, so the widescreen reframing was done without any input from directors or Carter, and Fox would not supply the font to them for the titles; the company also delivered 4:3 versions of the remasters but Fox didn't want them; and yeah there's a mix of upscaling old effects shots and the remaster company's new effects)
― armoured van, Holden (sic), Friday, 12 March 2021 02:33 (three years ago) link
xp well, what's your definition of good? Essential/v good from S1 - First 3 episodes, Ice, Eve, Beyond the Sea, E.B.E., Darkness Falls, Tooms, Erlenmeyer Flask. But there are plenty of decent or dumb-but-entertaining episodes. I'd say Space and Fire are painful enough to avoid entirely, and the several vengeful ghost episodes all tend to be boring as hell.
― JoeStork, Friday, 12 March 2021 02:38 (three years ago) link
I've said it before, but the rewatch value of X-Files (at least through season six, from seven they moved shooting to LA) is the lush, rainy Vancouver locations, same reason the first two seasons of Twin Peaks are such a pleasure.
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 02:50 (three years ago) link
name a season and have everyone here give their top five from it
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 02:51 (three years ago) link
There’s something about watching these on the sofa with my mum while dad was out playing bridge that can never be remastered
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 12 March 2021 03:00 (three years ago) link
gonna see if I can break it down to an extent without breaking spoiler tags
Season 1
S01e03 Squeeze - first Monster of the Week, imo mythology eps are deleterious to rewatch enjoyment (nb: I also thought so on first run and gave up occasionally watching bcz I hit too many of them)S01e08 Ice - Thing riffS01e13 Beyond The Sea - fun bcz it flips who's scepticalS01e17 E.B.E. - mythology ep but intros the Lone Gunmen so I recommend it for n00bsS01e21 Tooms - not only good, and a fun sequel MOTW, but intros Skinner
― armoured van, Holden (sic), Friday, 12 March 2021 03:09 (three years ago) link
I'd go with...
S01E05 The Jersey Devil - a gloriously stupid MOTW episode that sets the tone for dozens of them to come - the local sheriff hates Mulder because you would, really, if an FBI agent turned up looking for lady bigfoot based on a drawing a homeless guy did for him MEANWHILE Scully goes on a date!S01E08 Ice - as sic says, it's a solid Thing riffS01E10 Fallen Angel - top tier UFO episode, featuring Max Fenig, predator aliens in the woods, a bogey on the radar screen, dastardly, lying military officers, indignant ER doctors, Mulder ranting about the truth... everything you'd want in a UFO episodeS01E11 Eve - genetically-enhanced girls from Brazil-style preteen murderers, plus amazing performance from Harriet Harris as the insane Eve 6 (hey isn't that a band)S01E20 Darkness Falls - Body horror + eco-thriller, the gang gets desiccated by glowing green bugs set free from prehistory by amoral logging companies
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 03:42 (three years ago) link
re that second one not just that it's a Thing riff, but it's the first case of them going for a really direct Mulder-and-Scully-ising of another genre or story (and a p good Thing riff) ha xp!
― armoured van, Holden (sic), Friday, 12 March 2021 03:46 (three years ago) link
There's something weirdly charming about doofy early episodes like 'Jersey Devil' where it's clear that they're still figuring out the characters and their world. Like what other episode is going to take a non-negligible amount of time to showcase Scully tolerating a birthday party full of screaming children.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 03:56 (three years ago) link
well, to some extent that's a plot point... or I guess thematic variant... on the main storyline in the episode. at my office we printed out a copy of the homeless person's drawing and use it to surprise and annoy our co-workers by acting like there's some important document we need them to see and then showing them that.
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:00 (three years ago) link
lol. Yes, it's a hilariously shitty drawing iirc.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:06 (three years ago) link
xp lmao
Darkness Falls has some plot issues but has the best creepy PNW vibes.
― JoeStork, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:13 (three years ago) link
Also not a very good Scully episode, but the way they use the PNW setting and the creepiness of the glowy green bugs mostly makes up for it.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:14 (three years ago) link
Was recently re-watching the totally batshit Red Museum, which throws together a cult, kidnapped/drugged teenagers, a pedophile who is also a concerned citizen, bovine growth hormone, Mulder and Scully eating ribs, alien DNA, an extremely convenient plane crash, and a government assassin who has shown up in rural Wisconsin. Apparently it was originally planned as a Picket Fences crossover.
― JoeStork, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:23 (three years ago) link
Sorry for no spoiler tags but honestly there’s no amount of information I could provide that would make that episode less baffling.
― JoeStork, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:28 (three years ago) link
Scully's first date outfit is seared into my mind. White lace and shoulder pads!Very important character-building, really, as it establishes that Mulder will never let Scully date.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:31 (three years ago) link
xp I don't really know what counts as a spoiler at this point. I don't think of basic episode descriptions as spoilers, unless they mention some major show-altering plot development, but I'm happy to spoiler-tag that kind of thing if people would rather.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 12 March 2021 04:35 (three years ago) link
well, the revive is a rewatch so the spoiler tags probably aren't strictly necessary
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:40 (three years ago) link
and yeah, Scully doesn't get to go on another date until season four when Mulder goes to Graceland!
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:42 (three years ago) link
I guess I don't tend to think of this as a heavily spoilerific show. The MOTW either gets captured/killed or doesn't, and the mythology is ultimately so labyrinthine and incoherent that I'm not sure I'd be able to say for sure if the divulgence of any particular detail was a legit spoiler or something made up to amuse the divulger. I guess generally I'd just avoid discussing the fates of characters whose stories take surprising and/or tragic turns (like when Marita Covarrubias got alien cloned and then subsequently fused into a slavering two-headed monster alongside her alien clone, oh whoooooops).
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:50 (three years ago) link
wow I guess I need to watch season 9
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 04:53 (three years ago) link
running through the rest in case Chuck or anyone really do want rewatch recommendations
Season 2
S02e02 "The Host" - Carter MOTW, Darin as FlukemanS02e03 "Blood" - first Darin writing, a week after his first monster role. story credit, teleplay by Morgan & Wong (all my S1 picks are M&W btw)S02e13 "Irresistible" - no paranormal elements! Carter script, it's always cool when he tries something out of his ordinaryS02e20 "Humbug" - Jim Rose Circus Sideshow ep, Darin's first full script. this is where I started watching, so the show always struggled to live up to itselfS02e23 "Soft Light" - the show's first freelance script purchase discovers Vince Gilligan. Tony Shalhoub as dweeb baddie
bonus track: S02e14 "Die Hand Die Verletzt" - haven't seen this one but it's Morgan & Wong doing parody on their way out the door to run their own shows, so curious
Season 3
S03e03 "D.P.O." - lightning boy, Jack Black / Giovanni RibisiS03e04 "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" - Peter Boyle & Darin both won Emmys for thisS03e12 "War of the Coprophages" - Darin Morgan cockroach episodeS03e17 "Pusher" - classic Vince Gilligan, lesser sequel laterS03e20 "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" - Darin's second stone-cold gold-plated classic this year. has a sequel in Millennium
bonus tracks: S03e13 "Syzygy" - Chris Carter attempt at a Darin-style irreverent genre-breaker. he doesn't pull it off but it's interesting to see him tryS03e22 "Quagmire" - not credited but heavily rewritten by Darin Morgan: has his jokes and signature characters
Season 4
S04e02 "Home" - Morgan & Wong come back after their own series flopped, with an ep so horrific that Fox never repeated itS04e04 "Unruhe" - Vince Gilligan, spooky photographsS04e07 "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" - Morgan solo, Kennedy assination counterfactuals, no Mulder & Scully on setS04e10 "Paper Hearts" - VG, child killerS04e20 "Small Potatoes" - another great nebbish monster written by VG, played by Darin who needed work after burning out on writing for the show
bonus tracks: Millennium S01e01 "Pilot" if you want a bit of context for later, not rly essential. fake Seattle.S04e12 "Leonard Betts" - cancer vampireS04e13 "Never Again" - Gillian Anderson requested an ep to show Scully's darker side. intended to be directed by Tarantino!
Season 5
S05e03 "Unusual Suspects" - VG: origin of Lone Gunmen, crossover Belzer as Munch, no ScullyS05e05 "The Post-Modern Prometheus" - CC: B&W Frankenstein homageS05e12 "Bad Blood" Cliff Bole - A++ VG, comedy Rashomon with Luke WilsonS05e19 "Folie à Deux" - VG, white collar work is a mechanism for invisible bug monsters to suck your soulsaving my fifth choice for...
also essential: MS2e09 "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" MS2e21 "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" - two episodes of Millennium written AND directed by Darin, including his X-File sequel.
bonus tracks:S05e06/e07 "Christmas Carol" & "Emily" - if you happen to be watching at Christmas, it's a dece Scrooge riff involving Scully's familyS05e08 "Kitsunegari" - sequel to S03's Pusher
Season 6
S06e02 "Drive" - A++ VG, starring Bryan CranstonS06e03 "Triangle" - CC time twister and Rope homage. double-feature it with the Australian horror film of the same title.S06e04/e05 "Dreamland" - Michael McKean is a MIB who bodyswaps MulderS06e010 "Tithonus" - VG: death photography, callback to Darin making Scully immortalS06e014 "Monday" - Gilligan & Shiban, fun time loop bank robbery
bonus tracks: S06e06 "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" - Ed Asner & Lily Tomlin in a Carter comedy, fun if yr watching syncs up with the seasonS06e015 "Arcadia" - Mulder & Scully undercover as married couple in a suburban subdivisionS06e018 "Milagro" - spooky writing-becomes-real story written for John Hawkes to starS06e019 "The Unnatural" - Duchovny written-and-directed alien in the Negro Leagues baseball storyS06e020 "Three of a Kind" - sequel to Unusual Suspects with Scully, no MulderS06e021 "Field Trip" - Scully and Mulder get fucked up on mushrooms and their respective hallucinatory perspectives on the episode merge
Season 7
S07e03 "Hungry" - classic VG, shown from monster's perspectiveS07e08 "The Amazing Maleeni" - sleight-of-hand-or-magic ep with Ricky JayS07e12 "X-Cops" - A++ VG, straight-up made as an episode of CopsS07e19 "Hollywood A.D." - parody ep w/d by DD, including Garry Shandling & Tea LeoniS07e21 "Je Souhaite" - first VG direction, final regular Mulder & Scully ep, Will Sasso is in it, great place to stop if you're on a pure nostalgia hunt
bonus tracks:S07e04 "Millennium" - patch-job finale for that series: not good, but if you want to see M&S kiss...S07e14 "Theef" - dece MOTW that's not riffing on anything for a changeS07e17 "all things" - not good but GA w/d, if yr curious or want to compare to Duchovny's effort the next week
Season 8
S08e04 Roadrunners is a decent Scully focus in the Doggett era, and the only Gilligan ep this year bcz he was off running Lone Gunmen
Season 9
S09e05 "Lord of the Flies" - not great but: Jackass riff, Aaron Paul & Jane Lynch act, first Thomas Schnauz script (he came from Lone Gunmen and later wrote lots of Breaking Bad/BCS)S09e07 "John Doe" - first VG / Michelle McLaren collab (she later directed loads of Breaking Bad, a bit of BCS, The Deuce pilot)S09e013 "Improbable" - Chris Carter loopy Burt Reynolds fantasiaS09e015 "Jump the Shark" - end of Lone Gunmen, bonus Michael McKean (nb that TLG's second-last episode was a cliffhanger involving McKean's character, but that the two don't actually connectS09e018 "Sunshine Days" - second VG direction, Brady Bunch house does some murders
― armoured van, Holden (sic), Friday, 12 March 2021 05:51 (three years ago) link
S04e02 "Home"
oh man, this episode.
― Two Meter Peter (Ste), Friday, 12 March 2021 09:02 (three years ago) link
When we were doing the full rewatch a few years back, it was the only one my gf refused to subject herself to again.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 11:58 (three years ago) link
Twice I've watched the series in lockdown now, and guys you're making me want to do this all over again.
― Two Meter Peter (Ste), Friday, 12 March 2021 12:11 (three years ago) link
'Die Hand Die Verletzt' is a dece twist on satanic panic, with a demon leading the chargeWrt the eighth season, one probably needs to see 'Badlaa' if only to confirm with one's own eyes that, yes, they did indeed make an episode about a little person who crawls up people's buttholes.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 12:11 (three years ago) link
Brilliant thanks. I’m off to watch Quagmire now.
For me X-Files is like one of those albums you only listen to your favourite 2 tracks on. Every time I want to rewatch, I think “fuck it I’ll just watch the Darin Morgan episodes again”. The brutal undercutting of Mulder in the Jim Rose episode still makes me laugh. Having said that, the thing under the bed at the end of “Home” might be where the series peaked for me.
― Chuck_Tatum, Friday, 12 March 2021 13:57 (three years ago) link
Quagmire is one of the coziest X-Files to watch, it's low stakes (well not the 4-5 people who get killed) and the Darin Morgan rewrites add a bit of humor but not too much, plus of course it has the Conversation on the Rock!
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 15:18 (three years ago) link
Yeah aren't they stuck on that rock in the dark for like 20 minutes? That had to have been the cheapest 20 minutes the producers ever paid for.
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Friday, 12 March 2021 15:39 (three years ago) link
I love that episode, the dialogue is just so snappy, thanks to Darin Morgan. Love the conversation on the rock, you can see Scully being this close to just writing Mulder off as a complete dick, and then he quotes her favorite book at her and goddamit, she's back on board.
― Lily Dale, Friday, 12 March 2021 15:45 (three years ago) link
not quite that, but it was about 5 minutes out of a 43-minute episode... one thing I've found funny about rewatching this show in the present is how much the dialog (which seemed perfectly modern in the 90s) now sounds like something out of a 50s b-movie... like from Quagmire, you have the frog scientist during the opening scene portentously shouting "don't turn your back on nature... or nature will turn its back on you!"
― so tonight that I might ramona quimby (f. hazel), Friday, 12 March 2021 15:55 (three years ago) link
After two decades of 24/Bourne/SEAL Team/et al. the MP SWAT team in the second episode looks like a group of high school kids playing paintball.
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Friday, 12 March 2021 17:47 (three years ago) link
I haven't watched the show since the original run, so I was startled by how great the remastered episodes look on a 21st century television ... it's made a pleasing contrast to my trek through the sub-VHS blur of Dark Shadows c. 1969
― Brad C., Friday, 12 March 2021 17:57 (three years ago) link
yeah its gorgeous
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 12 March 2021 18:47 (three years ago) link
i am only 2 episodes in but the s1e2 Deep Throat ep was such a great fever-dream of alien conspiracy tropes. it’s like watching reddit being born lol (but in a good way) also: Seth Green :D
― terminators of endearment (VegemiteGrrl), Friday, 12 March 2021 18:50 (three years ago) link
I’d add Terms of Endearment as a S6 ep worth watching.
Perhaps a more controversial choice would be The Field Where I Died from S4. Widely disliked when it came out, but some, me included, have grown to love it.
Badlaa is one of the better examples of a bad XF episode - so many things wrong with it, but it still manages to be pretty enjoyable!
― Duane Barry, Saturday, 13 March 2021 01:22 (three years ago) link
A really controversial choice is S7's Sein und Zeit/Closure, where Mulder's mom dies by suicide and Mulder hugs Samantha's ghost in a field while Moby appropriates a traditional Melanesian song in the background. Many people hate it; I think it's clumsy but also quite beautiful, and anchored by really solid acting from Duchovny.
― Lily Dale, Saturday, 13 March 2021 01:34 (three years ago) link
awww forgot about babyface Donal Logue
― Joe Bombin (milo z), Saturday, 13 March 2021 01:55 (three years ago) link
at my office we printed out a copy of the homeless person's drawing and use it to surprise and annoy our co-workers by acting like there's some important document we need them to see and then showing them that.
this keeps popping up in my mind and cracking me up
― Piven After Midnight (The Yellow Kid), Saturday, 13 March 2021 03:59 (three years ago) link
https://i.redd.it/ghb7efs8ix351.jpg
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Saturday, 13 March 2021 04:56 (three years ago) link
Sorry to spoil that the Jersey Devil is actually Ric Ocasek
― Stefan Twerkelle (Old Lunch), Saturday, 13 March 2021 04:59 (three years ago) link
My house rewatch just got to Season 4, which means we got to watch the scene where Mulder dumps gasoline all over his head and into his eyes and then is like, "You'll have to lead me! I can't see!"
― Lily Dale, Saturday, 13 March 2021 18:21 (three years ago) link