It's been more than 13 years since "The X-Files" aired on network TV, but on Tuesday Fox announced the spooky sci-fi series is returning for a six-episode run that will begin in the summer of 2015.
"The X-Files," which originally premiered in Sept. 1993, aired for nine seasons and earned 16 Emmy nominations during its run. The series centered on FBI agents Scully, played by Gillian Anderson, and Mulder, played by David Duchovny. Both stars will be reprising their roles for the reboot.
http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2015/03/24/x-files-officially-returning-to-fox-in-summer-2015/?intcmp=features
...only for 6 episodes :-\, but maybe the run will be a catalyst for more O0
I always liked the early X-Files when they were stand alone episodes. When they started going down the conspiracy path and you had to watch every episode for clues is when I drifted away, mostly because life didn't allow me the time to keep up.
1) This is great!
2) This will probably suck, and honestly both Duchovny and Anderson have grown a bit old, probably too old for this sort of silly role.
Cool. I always enjoyed X-Files. I wasn't a hard core viewer, but it seemed like a solid show.
Scully was good, Mulder meh.
They need to make it like the Twighlight Zone. Conspiracy Central was crap.
Honestly I could never keep up with the conspiracy stuff. CSM, black oil, oy vay!
Quote from: Tpek on March 24, 2015, 03:51:02 PM
1) This is great!
2) This will probably suck, and honestly both Duchovny and Anderson have grown a bit old, probably too old for this sort of silly role.
Hopefully Mulder will channel a little bit of Hank Moody! Motherf....ah!!!!
theyre all on netflix now
I want more "Scary" and less "Conspiracy". Scully naked also wouldn't be bad.
I liked the whole aliens and government conspiracy plot. That being said, I did not like all of it.
Quote from: Centurion40 on March 25, 2015, 02:08:29 PM
I liked the whole aliens and government conspiracy plot. That being said, I did not like all of it.
This. It hurt that Carter (and his main writers) were making it up as they went along, and padding it out so it wouldn't be resolved.
Maybe this will resolve it, and they can move along to doing monsters of the week plus a seasonal plot plus maybe a low-key overarching plot that reveals a little more each season. Like Doctor Who has developed since its restart.
It should probably stick to a 13 ep year, too. Even mundane crime procedurals are hard to keep fresh on 25 eps a year, and this requires a new monster every week. Though again WHY NOT HAVE MORE RETURNS LIKE IN DOCTOR WHO!? Bring back popular hits, do new things with them, save a little money on prep work to put toward increasing the overall quality.
Good points.
I was wondering last night, why have there never been Blu conversions for the series? There have been at least two full DVD releases, plus a set which focused only on the mytharc. (And left off some pieces. :P )
And the (two full) DVD sets were crap, complete and utter crap, on the picture quality. Worse by far than the official VHS tape releases. (Both DVD sets used the same encoding transfer; not sure about the mytharc-only set. For reasons of availability I ended up mixing the two DVD sets to create a full one.) Painfully bad. My mind eventually adjusted to it but it took a while.
I wonder what Netflix looks like... should check on that out of curiosity if nothing else. But there's no guarantee they'll remain available, of course.
Anyway, my guess is that due to how the eps were routinely lit and shot, they worked okay on videotape but needed a lot of detailed fiddling to look good on DVD which just wasn't done. And would need more for Blu-Ray. Possibly computers have advanced enough now to make a new HD conversion from the masters cost-effective, but I can just imagine the nightmares involved in trying to adjust for various factors without DNRing everything to hell and making Moose & Squirrel look like supermarionettes.
See also: the Blu edition of Jurassic Park. Some parts look great, others are way worse than a VHS recorded from broadcast. Completely dependent on how the scenes were lit and shot, and also on how important the scenes are -- which tells me extra effort/money was spent on some things (like the T-rex attack in the night) and not on others (humans fumbling around inside after the power goes out).
The truth is out there.
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on March 24, 2015, 04:51:44 PM
They need to make it like the Twighlight Zone. Conspiracy Central was crap.
Agreed.
(https://scontent.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xaf1/v/t1.0-9/13670_586047918198393_6156561483104030032_n.jpg?oh=f35a9fa3471e738bbb382712318e3e05&oe=55B2AEBA)
To be fair, XF has made dumptrucks more money than FF ever has.
FF may be a critical geek darling now, but I can't blame Fox for going for the money.
(Besides, "Mal" is busy on Castle.)
just be quiet and you wont get hurt.
Quote from: Nefaro on March 27, 2015, 08:37:57 AM
Quote from: Mr. Bigglesworth on March 24, 2015, 04:51:44 PM
They need to make it like the Twighlight Zone. Conspiracy Central was crap.
Agreed.
I'll take some of that, too. I started watching from the first show. I originally liked it BECAUSE it was a different thing every week. Then the Mulder/alien storyline started and that was good, too. Then that's ALL they focused on and it became crap. The movie was shite, too.
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 27, 2015, 04:17:43 PM
To be fair, XF has made dumptrucks more money than FF ever has.
Gee, X-Files made more money than Firefly? Maybe that was because Fox needlessly canned Firefly
after less than One Muthertrucking Season!!! Given how many seasons X-Files was on of course it would make more scratch for the network (though I have a strong suspicion that the folks who pulled the plug on Firefly would have done the same to X-Files had they called the shots a decade earlier). If Firefly had been given a chance it might very well have become both a critical
and a cash-by-the-cargobays success.
I know I'm in the geek minority here but I honestly never got Firefly. Roddenberry pitched Star Trek as a 'western' in space. Firefly was LITERALLY (trains, Confederates and all) a western IN space. ::)
maybe you have to binge watch it.
Could be. I think I should give it at least one more chance.
I got the entire Firefly on DVD including the episodes not shown before the show was canned. I thought it was great but I will admit it was a slow starter. But so was Buffy and that show did great after it caught-on. Fox should've let Josh do his thing. After all what the hell did they replace Firefly with? Damned if I can remember so, it probably didn't do any better.
Quote from: Staggerwing on March 27, 2015, 06:03:44 PM
Quote from: JasonPratt on March 27, 2015, 04:17:43 PM
To be fair, XF has made dumptrucks more money than FF ever has.
Gee, X-Files made more money than Firefly? Maybe that was because Fox needlessly canned Firefly after less than One Muthertrucking Season!!! Given how many seasons X-Files was on of course it would make more scratch for the network (though I have a strong suspicion that the folks who pulled the plug on Firefly would have done the same to X-Files had they called the shots a decade earlier). If Firefly had been given a chance it might very well have become both a critical and a cash-by-the-cargobays success.
I can't and don't disagree (and for the record I love Firefly more than I do XFiles).
Nevertheless, from an accounting standard XFiles is right now, today, the safer bet.
And even accounting for the hideous scheduling differences, XFiles was much more of a monster hit out of the gate, so no, no executive was ever going to treat it like Firefly.
Quote from: MetalDog on March 27, 2015, 05:12:27 PM
I'll take some of that, too. I started watching from the first show. I originally liked it BECAUSE it was a different thing every week. Then the Mulder/alien storyline started and that was good, too. Then that's ALL they focused on and it became crap. The movie was shite, too.
The pilot was about the mytharc; the second episode (the first official one as a series, which no one will ever convince me wasn't supposed to be called "Pilot" since it dealt with pilots ;) ) was about the mytharc -- not that there was really a mytharc yet, but it was about Mulder, aliens, government using alien tech, etc. -- Episode 4, mytharc (abductions and Mulder's sister), ep 10 nothing but mytharc (alien crash site and Max Fennig), ep 11 technically mytharc (cloning experiments), ep 14 not mytharc after all but featured shapeshifting aliens (which might as well have been mytharc considering how things turned out), ep 17 is mytharc though not an ultimately very important one (E.B.E), ep 21 (Toomes) ended up having such a strong mytharc secondary plot (behind the return of Liver Boy -- Skinner is introduced, the CSM has his first spoken line, and the conspiracy decides it's time to shut the XF down) that it segues directly into the season finale as though the next two eps don't even exist (which they probably didn't -- they can be totally ignored or put earlier than Toomes, so it was almost surely some kind of scheduling fluff). Ep 24 is the Erlenmyer Flask and that's the season ender.
I might be forgetting some minor mytharc connections in other eps that season (e.g. the Jersey Devil?) and I'm overlooking at least one aborted attempt, "Space", (because it's also a dreadful ep), but that's 9 out of 24 eps the first season which either were mytharc (directly or indirectly) or might as well have been (Genderbender).
On the other hand, that's only 9 / 24 eps, with lots of monsters of the week (some of which are critical eps in their own right for quality or relevance to M&S personally) -- still 38%, but I don't recall them ever going higher than that afterward. Naturally the mytharc eps got a lot of marketing, of course; and it naturally became clear that the other things were basically the day job compared to the world-threatening main plotline, which made the MOW eps feel less important by comparison.
(This all reminds me that I never even once got around to watching Fringe, which is on my list of things to do since I've heard nothing but good things about it and it ended cleanly.)
Also -- poking around this morning I see that Season 10 was more-or-less officially released in comic form (from IDW), rather like subsequent Buffy and Angel seasons, and apparently dealt with remaining mytharc residue; and that the mini-season this year will be mostly or entirely monsters of the week.
So rejoice. O:-)
Quote from: bbmike on March 27, 2015, 06:08:10 PM
I know I'm in the geek minority here but I honestly never got Firefly. Roddenberry pitched Star Trek as a 'western' in space. Firefly was LITERALLY (trains, Confederates and all) a western IN space. ::)
That's how many people classified the original
Star Wars trilogy. And look how much cash that pooped out. ;)
Not a bad thing at all.
^I'm told by original Battlestar Galactica fans that it was pretty much this as well.
Though honestly, I'm not a Firefly fan.
I think Whedon scored with the Buffy show, but other than that he's quite overrated.
After hearing this news, I started going through X-Files Season 2 again this week. It sure brings back memories. What a series :)
Cancer Man FTW
I remember Mulder & Scully even had a spot on that old CGI cartoon Reboot
(https://www.grogheads.com/forums/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.inwap.com%2Fmf%2Freboot%2Fepisodes%2Fimages%2Fepiso22a.jpg&hash=3e4ce414fd759dcf6447b6f1df741eed1eecd743)
Scenes like this are what made Firefly brilliant
It's like an Elmore Leonard novel, but in Space. ;D
I wish Joss Whedon would do something like Firefly. That'd be sweet.
He did okay* with The Avengers (and presumably Av2: Electric Ultrongoo).
* for "okay" read "much more than okay". O0
Quote from: Tpek on March 29, 2015, 01:59:50 PM
^I'm told by original Battlestar Galactica fans that it was pretty much this as well.
A Mormon western, yes.
The modern remake series has a lot of that theme as well.
^
PleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuckPleasedontsuck
Hope is futile. :'(
I thought it was a good start to a new round of episodes. A little slow in the first half, but the second half was really good. Nice to see Mulder and Scully back together.
I thought it was less than inspiring re-tread. Go back to the spooky stuff. Whatever happened to the Peacocks?
Yeah, the "spooky stuff" in the original series was cool.
Then they started gunking it up with their secret gov't conspiracy wannabe-drama bullshit. I wasn't surprised to see it end after moving from the enjoyable Weird/Monster tales to increasingly injecting that dull BS.
Quote from: Nefaro on January 25, 2016, 06:29:41 AM
Yeah, the "spooky stuff" in the original series was cool.
Then they started gunking it up with their secret gov't conspiracy wannabe-drama bullshit. I wasn't surprised to see it end after moving from the enjoyable Weird/Monster tales to increasingly injecting that dull BS.
Totally agree.
What's really spooky is after all these years Mulder is still just as gullable as he always was and Scully is still single.
The show got very good ratings with 13.5 million viewers.
Time -Net -18-34 -25-54 -18-49 -Viewers
FOX -The X-Files -3.8 -6.0 -5.1 -13.47
I'm pretty sure every season featured significantly more Monsters of the Week eps than mytharc eps, which they typically saved for season start, season end, mid season, and maybe an ep or two halfway before and after the mid-season. So like seven or eight eps a season. Roughly 60 eps depending on which ones count or how far. (Example, the second Liverboy episode features some small but important mytharc elements, but it isn't usually counted.)
The mytharc would have been better had (a) Chris Carter had any clear idea where to go with it (much less how to get there); and/or (b) CC had let any good writers interested in that side of things take the reins and work out a proper long-term story for it. (Which some writing teams tried but then CC and Fox Network kept screwing them over on it to extend the series.)
As it is, it's not much short of a miracle that the mytharc ended up being as relatively coherent as it was (although ultimately inconclusive), despite all the misinformation plotlines.
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 25, 2016, 01:17:38 PM
I'm pretty sure every season featured significantly more Monsters of the Week eps than mytharc eps, which they typically saved for season start, season end, mid season, and maybe an ep or two halfway before and after the mid-season. So like seven or eight eps a season. Roughly 60 eps depending on which ones count or how far. (Example, the second Liverboy episode features some small but important mytharc elements, but it isn't usually counted.)
The mytharc would have been better had (a) Chris Carter had any clear idea where to go with it (much less how to get there); and/or (b) CC had let any good writers interested in that side of things take the reins and work out a proper long-term story for it. (Which some writing teams tried but then CC and Fox Network kept screwing them over on it to extend the series.)
As it is, it's not much short of a miracle that the mytharc ended up being as relatively coherent as it was (although ultimately inconclusive), despite all the misinformation plotlines.
So.. you also agree that stuff sucked. ;)
I think parts of the Mytharc were great; and parts were dreadfully terrible, beyond suckage. On the balance and overall I consider it an ambitious failure. It inspired the worst of inanities in similar mytharc series making things up as they go along instead of telling actual damn long-term stories; but it inspired the best of subsequent and better successes along that line, too. (Sometimes in the same product! -- I consider Lost and moreso Battlestar: Galactica to be far superior and on the balance successes, for example, but their fuzzy-ass staggering weaknesses can be traced directly back to the X-Files.)
I blame psychedlic starry-eyed liberal New Age peyote-hooeyness for a lot of the problems, and a fundamental disrespect for truth or for Truth (despite the mantra of the series).
But I also blame logistics. ;) The crew finally accrued enough horsepower at Fox to cash in on moving production to Los Angeles, which made things personally more convenient for them but tripled production costs otherwise, at a time when the lead stars' own costs were steadily increasing. And Duchovny thought he was being shafted in his salary by the producers, and so to mollify him they gave him a lot more control over the series which led directly to increasingly bizarre appropriations of the mytharc for his own interests. Carter and the writing stable had originally intended for the feature film to kick off a greatly expanded mytharc focus in subsequent seasons (taking back the reins from DD's attempts to drive the series off the rails); but those factors combined with CC&Co having revised the story too many times even before the film (which was admittedly trying hard to establish a through-line for clearer development afterward), led to fewer mytharc installments and more comedy episodes -- most of which I fully admit were gold (the main stumbles being fusions of comedy and mytharc, not surprisingly), but by then the series was poking fun at itself too often. CC tried to decisively end the mytharc in Season Six itself, after planning to expand it greatly in the same season after the theatrical film!
But then, since the alien threat had hardly been dealt with, and in fact the key means of dealing with it had been destroyed with nothing provided to replace it, attempts at shifting the mytharc into new phases kept falling flat and it became much harder to justify in-story why any other episodes were happening at all, and Duchovny was still itching to leave, and then... well, we all know what happened.
Did all that stuff suck? No, not to me (or to many fans). Did it eventually suck? Very much so, I agree.
By the time Season 6 came along, and the mytharc had already (before the film) started to implode (largely thanks to DD), the show had broken the fanbase into conflicting shards:
A.) Do you love or hate the Mytharc stories? Well, I used to love them, and I still want to, but... but... sigh... (But some fans had never liked them to begin with, and sure didn't like them now!)
B.) Do you love or hate the Monsters of the Week? Yes, no, sometimes, usually, uh...
C.) Do you love or hate the comedy eps (a new subset of the MoWs)? Some of us did very much, others found them distracting even when they were high quality, and they weren't always high quality, and it was hard not to agree that even when they were they were basically a whole other show that didn't fit the tone of the main show at all.
That's no less than five kinds of fans for the show (all hate wouldn't be a fan at all of course ;) ), polarized with strong reactions pro and con.
Although maybe that should have been the expected result with the creators doing so many creative drugs for story ideas... >:D :buck2:
But stepping back from the show once it finished, and trying to get a handle on the mytharc story after the intentional misinformation and rewrites (and rewrites cribbing on appealing to misinformation to paper over difficulties :buck2: ), yeah I think the series did eventually accrue a respectably epic main storyline. If that storyline had been in place from the beginning, and the writers had been saying, "Now this is what's really going on, but we're going to make the complex strands hard for the heroes to piece together and do anything about, so that our task is to write how they discover the truth, with some steps backward along the way but overall with ongoing progress and finally like we keep promising The Truth Will Be Revealed...."
I'll add here that I don't like the cosmology and philosophy of the show's background mytharc, but it's a fantasy sci/fi show and I can appreciate and enjoy it for what it is.
So, with some fuzziness still remaining about details after the end of the series (and likely to permanently remain with the new short series or anything they do afterward):
Billions of years ago, the first sentient life on our planet was a virus that lived in a black oil. Whether it developed here, or came to Earth as such from somewhere else, or came to Earth as a more primitive life form and then developed sentience here, isn't clear and probably irrelevant.
Over a very long period of time it managed to leave our planet, apparently after some cataclysm made Earth unfeasible for it to live on anymore. Whether it developed space travel technology and created the ability to generate "Greys", or whether (the theory I go with) a more neutral or benevolent Grey alien race visited Earth and got overtaken, as an infection in the Greys the Oiliens (to give a fan name I like) mostly left Earth, but a few pockets remained in a deranged and/or primitive state. (One such pocket can be seen turning some cavemen into feral Greys, and later modern humans, in the theatrical film.)
The ruthless Oiliens weren't content with being Greys (assimilated or otherwise) and naturally wanted to improve its stock, so it started taking over other alien races. One of the most useful, and the other most important species for the plot, were humanoid shapeshifters, some of whom escaped to Earth (ironically) but most of whom were enslaved by the Oiliens. The virus incorporated their shapeshifting powers into the Grey stock with various levels of success. As a result, some Greys have Oilien overlord possession, others don't but still are enslaved working for the Oiliens, some have shapeshifting powers, some don't.
This wretched invasion from Earth started a war in space, a war led by a more benevolent Godlike alien (or possibly by God! -- though of a more pluralistic kind than, for example, a C. S. Lewis Space Trilogy kind) and his/its spiritual agents. Foreseeing that as the war went against them the Oiliens would eventually retreat to Earth, this God (for want of a better term) flanked them by sending spiritual agents here first to prepare the rational species which had since developed here (i.e. us humans) for the return of the Oiliens. This preparation created all religions in various ways. (Chris Carter was, maybe still is, a huge fan of the idea that all religions were created by alien influence, and this is a big theme in the later seasons.) But some of those agents rebelled, and that's why there are occasional demonic-spiritual problems faced by the FBI Agents on the show, sometimes with thematic echoes of the Oiliens, although those threats aren't the main thing.
The Oiliens have their own rebel problems, too, with a hardcore splinter group of the Shifters, who sear their orifices shut to keep from being infected by the Black Oil (although since they can still shapeshift, and clearly don't need eyes and ears to navigate and even fight, this may be more of a symbolic statement than a practical action). Eventually these renegade Shifters arrive on Earth to screw with the Oilien plans, so they're more important to the plot than the occasional demon.
With the War In Heaven going badly for them, the Oiliens eventually start the retreat back to Earth (as 'God' anticipated). Their main preliminary scouts, mostly Greys, start arriving during our World War 2, and especially afterward. A crash near Roswell, New Mexico, allows the United States to study and assess the situation, which due to obvious levels of threat they choose to share with the most important world governments generally, in order to foster some preliminary cooperation should more arrive in force. At this time the military-industrial complex also starts experimenting on alien tech, not only to level ourselves up to resist increased alien activity if necessary, but also to help the US become the reigning world superpower.
As more Oiliens arrive and begin studying humanity, they can see a serious problem: we've advanced too far. They could easily wipe us out from orbit, not even counting a conventional war, but because we've advanced to WW2 levels of population and tech (not even counting how far we might get by 2012, when enough of the fleet arrives to quickly win that way), they would have to destroy so much of the planet to do so that it would be like arriving back at whatever catastrophe they were fleeing from to begin with. Which naturally wouldn't help them in using the Earth as a retrenchment base to try to reverse the War In Heaven. So as the United States, leading in alien research by now, selects representatives from the State Department and some representatives of other nations, to reach out (originally in cautious optimism) in negotiation with the Greys, the Oiliens decide to use this outreach for a special plan.
Here's the deal (they say). We're coming, and we intend to take the planet, and we're damn well going to do so. But whether we wipe it out in a fiery mess or not, is up to how well you can help us do something else instead. Specifically, we want to find a way to convert your species into being viable hosts for us. That way we can conquer the world without all the mess. We've already started working on this, but things aren't working out smoothly. (This is largely thanks to preliminary flanking interference from God and the angels, but either the Oiliens don't know it or they aren't sharing that info, since that would be silly for them to do.) If you help us, we'll spare you and your families from being taken over when the end comes. If we don't succeed together, well it already sucks to be you but we're going to take the planet.
The negotiation group realizes there is no way they can tell the major governments about this, and so agree to the terms, passing along misinformation to the governments and using their contacts and influence (which the aliens help enhance by various alien tech) to start the Consortium.
The Oiliens naturally don't trust the Consorts (as I like to call them), so anyone joining the Consortium is required to sacrifice a beloved family member who in theory will be returned when the project is done, but who in practice are often used by the aliens in their experiments. The Consorts are meanwhile policed by Shifters, at least some of whom have Oiliens riding along.
The Consorts have several goals, some of which overlap with world governments in general and with the US government in particular.
1.) The most important goal, which must absolutely be protected at all costs, is TO SAVE THE WORLD! The Oiliens, in their desperation, have given them the opening to do this, by developing a vaccine to the virus; but neither can they just develop it, they have to find a way to counterstrike or otherwise protect the planet from the Oiliens just burning the human infection off after all. It would be an ultimate catastrophe if the Oiliens found out, of course, so the Consorts work super-hard to hide this goal. "Deceive, Inveigle, Obfuscate," isn't only their motto to protect goal #2.
2.) They've got to work on the Oilien project, too. That sometimes means doing their own pseudo-alien abductions and experiments.
3.) Study alien tech, especially for purposes 2 but most especially for purpose 1. Here their goals overlap the military-industrial complex, which they naturally tend to be tied into anyway; but there are people in the mil-indust who know there's alien tech but don't know about goal 2, much less goal 1. So sometimes in the series Scully and Mulder run into plain old military-industrial alien tech experimentation, and all the attendant security problems and abuses thereof. But the Consorts try to keep an eye on that, and not let it run off too far, sometimes shutting it down or appropriating it for themselves, and sometimes even using Moose and Squirrel against the Complex. The Complex stages their own pseudo-alien abductions and experiments, sometimes as tools of the Consorts, sometimes on their own subordinate goals.
4.) Crack down on any possibility of other people figuring out what's going on, so that society can continue to function normally instead of EVERYBODY PANIC! Since alien and pseudo-alien activity can't be entirely hidden, that also includes "obfuscating" and cluttering the data, sending false signals here, there, and yon. Sometimes alien theorists are assisted, sometimes hampered, sometimes excised, sometimes excised not for being right but for being wrong (and so signalling to others investigating that the martyrs were on to something).
5.) Protect themselves, duh, from all angles while operations are going on.
6.) Protect their loved ones and families, where possible.
7.) Oh, and accumulate power for its own sake while they're at it, because why not?
The Consorts are all a bunch of different men and women with different ideas of morality, after all, and their personal interests sometimes run at odds with one another. Or change over time. Or change in one way over time and then back again.
Mulder's father, the Cigarette Smoking Man, was one of the younger original Consorts; so was his apparent father, Bill Mulder. Bill's wife Teresa didn't have any authority or responsibility, she was just married (and had an affair) into the situation. But that meant either Fox or Samantha, Teresa's children, had to be sacrificed to the aliens as a hostage, and Bill decided to let her in on what was going to happen so that she could maybe find a little peace with it. Bill chose Samantha, hoping Fox would have better socio-cultural opportunities later between the two to help "fight the future"; Teresa resented this, partly out of guilt since Fox wasn't actually Bill's son, feeling that if Bill had known he might have preferred to sacrifice Fox instead. (The CSM may not have known he was Fox's father until fairly late in the series; y'know, more or less around the time the writers decided to go that direction. ;) )
As it happened, Samantha wasn't abducted directly by aliens, but by the Complex testing alien tech (since they might as well -- and Bill hoped the trauma would inspire Fox to get involved in the situation) and handed over to the Consorts, where she was put in a foster home but occasionally abducted by aliens and the Complex for testing. Eventually successful hybrid clones were made of her, some of which the few escaping Shifters on Earth were able to rescue and put to work helping search for a vaccine (with tacit help from the Consorts), which is why the Alien Bounty Hunter was killing them off (along with other hybrids) in early seasons. The original Samantha was finally helped to escape, sort of, by "walk-ins", benevolent spirits tasked with saving abused children from having to endure the totality of their horrific fates.
Fox and Samantha were, in fact, two of a large number of humans with what might be called angelic connections in their DNA, provided partly as material in a long-term plan by God to help develop the vaccine. This is why despite never having been abducted and experimented on, Fox's body helped synthesize a partial vaccine when, in a Russian gulag (where independent vaccination experiments were being conducted), he was exposed to a feral or weak captive version of the Black Oil and its virus. (Fox Mulder's crazy intuitive abilities, allowing lots of lazy plot writing, can be explained this way, too. ::) )
The same goes for Dana Scully (and perhaps her sister Melissa to a lesser extent), but unlike Mulder Dana has a much stronger spiritual connection despite her sceptical scientific stance. This is why, over the series, she's the one who is actually religious (Roman Catholic more or less), while Mulder the often over-credulous 'believer' switches to mocking scepticism when it comes to more traditional religious beliefs.
Ultimately, the radical experimentation done on Scully, plus the nascent virus vaccine in Mulder's head, plus their genetic inheritance, leads (quite literally as part of a plan being guided more-or-less subtly by the God-alien and/or his agents) to Scully bearing a child when she should have been permanently infertile; and why the Oiliens are so scared this child, William, will somehow be able to conquer them. He's saved at first by Jeff Spender (Mulder's half-brother) injecting him with a weak vaccine, which seems to nerf his alien abilities, leading the Oiliens to lose interest in him, but the implication is that eventually he'll be able to control alien technology by a spiritual connection: meaning he'll be able to nuke enemy ships and tech weapons, even if they're in near-Earth space! (There's a scene in one of the last seasons where baby William, crying and in danger, activates alien ship technology to kill everyone around him, but safely lives through it.)
That's a big part of the key to winning: the half of the plan the Consorts could never quite find (i.e. they didn't give a hoot about spiritual research per se).
The Consorts (with help from independent Soviet scientists, via Mulder) do eventually start making weak anti-Oilien vaccines, and those are improving. So while they have no way, yet, to protect from a bombardment or conventional war invasion, their other side of the plan is finally working.
Unfortunately, the other side of the plan requires the Oilien plan to be working just as well or even better! -- although they have a weird balancing act where they can use Mulder and Scully to slightly hamper the Oilien plan, and blame problems on them, yet don't want too much hamperage. And also some Consorts think this idea is dangerously insane, so are more hostile to the Mulder/Scully team. And also, before true breakthroughs start happening (around the time Mulder gets black oil dropped on his face in Russia), many of the Consorts are giving up in despair and deciding, screw it, let's just stick to the main secret plan and save ourselves and our families before we're caught, especially now with the Shifters stepping up their police actions (sometimes thanks to M&S prodding the beehive).
The main secret plan, is to use bees as carriers for a new version of the Black Oil, which can direct the bees to sting all humans on the planet at about the same time, infecting them with the Oil and thus with Oiliens, retro-virusing the humans into human-alien hybrids which are better able to handle possession by the Oiliens (and generally just better at surviving in environments, underwater and vs damage, the hideous amounts of radiation exuded by the Oiliens, etc.)
The super-secret plan is to make a switch with the vaccine, and inoculate everyone instead using the bees! -- maybe also turning all humans into superior Shifter hybrids, since that might help human survival generally and against alien retaliation particularly.
Annnnd then {inhale!} the Shifter rebellion arrives, with their own cruel plan: use captured Oilien tech to call all current semi- and full-hybrids together at "lighthouses" (where they tend to expect to be beamed up into a heavenly spaceship), and zorch them, destroying active research in other raids in other ways as well.
Now the War In Heaven has gotten closer than the Oiliens were expecting so soon. So in a panic, they announce they're throwing out the timetable: they signal the Consorts to get together now and abandon the Earth, and the Oiliens will try the bee thing, and if that doesn't work well they'll just go for the planetary bombardment and do the best they can with whatever's left over.
But then the Rebel Shifters intercept that plan, and zorch most of the Consorts and their families. So much for that plotline. (These late developments happen in "Two Fathers" / "One Son", and the preceding mytharc eps.)
The good news, such as it is, is that the Rebel Shifters are preventing the Oiliens from going with the bee strategy, and the Oiliens are preventing the Rebel Shifters from denying Earth to the "Blacks" by nuking the whole planet -- and by consequence, in a backhanded way the "Reds" are preventing the "Blacks" from doing their own lesser (but still genocidal) global bombardment.
This gives the remaining few Consorts time to work on improving the weak vaccine, and to try to build up their infrastructure again.
The Blacks meanwhile step up their own hybrid shapeshifting experiments, and start producing more "super soldiers" as the plot officially calls them. Much of the final two seasons are about this stalemate while the angels and God (played by Burt Reynolds) put their side of the plan into action by protecting Dana Scully and the son of Mulder and Scully, William, the living weapon who when he grows up can protect the Earth from alien weaponry (whether Red or Black).
And that's where the series ends, more or less, with William in hiding, S&M reunited, and Mulder seeing ghosts of dead allies (and half-allies) trying to help him and Scully escape and survive to fight the future.
I swear. I knew the analytical H-Bomb my comment would set in motion.
I did it anyway. ^-^
I enjoyed writing that out a lot more than I had any right to. >:D
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 25, 2016, 07:32:48 PM
I enjoyed writing that out a lot more than I had any right to. >:D
I knew you needed to release the fury.
Just needed a trigger. >:D
A little better tonight. I'll probably stick around for another week. Somebody please take Scully's sedatives away from her.
Jason, that is as good an explanation as I've heard. Well done.
But is the Truth in there? I think it is likely.
Where's that "I HAVE FURY!" meme?
Just finished watching Ep 2 a few minutes ago. Somehow we missed recording Ep 1, but I sincerely doubt I missed anything important even though I know it was supposed to be a Mytharc ep. (I didn't realize it was titled "My Struggle", and I'm sure the Nazi connotation was intentional and ultimately irrelevant. ;) )
Thoughts on Ep 2 (as spoiler-free as possible for anyone watching it later)...
* Written by one of the head writers and developers, James Wong. I was hoping that would be a signal for quality, but I thought the episode was pretty meh and maybe even a back-door pilot for a different show (along the lines of Escape from Witch Mountain).
* Cinematography was good, but not about much of anything to write home about.
* Essentially this ep reflected one of the medical human experiment Monster of the Week eps which vaguely tied into the Mytharc maybe but who knows. In other words, the type of episode I cared almost least for.
* Heavy on the gross body horror factor. Also not something I especially cared for, but some people were fans of that and so should have been happy with that part of it.
* The dialogue ranged from good (in the flashback portions) to dreadfully clunky. After one exchange Mom marveled, "Were they even talking to each other?!" They would speak lines that sounded like semi-random ideas, and both actors would be on the same set, but one of them might as well have been muttering Farsi to herself while the other spoke some other thoughts aloud in Aztec. Was... was that on purpose??? As some kind of misguided salute to how the X-Files 'were'??! Yeah that kind of thing occasionally happened, but it wasn't good! -- much less the kind of writing and acting fans loved the series for!
* Second most-distracting show element: by the end of Season 9 (or Season 8 rather, since 9 added nothing to the plot really), S&M had figured out the plot in a lot of detail (see prior post). They had found the truth, but couldn't do much about it except protect William on one hand and hope the surviving Syndicate members could get a better vaccine (and inoculation method) going while the Blacks and the Reds stalemated each other. I'm going to guess, from bits of Ep 1 reviews I've read, and how that side of the plot was treated tonight, that the writers used the long-since-passed-nothing-deadline of 2012 as an excuse to cast in-story doubt on everything again, and an out-of-story excuse to shuffle the Etch A Sketch and start over from scratch. Things happened, and there were probably aliens involved (maybe? right?) but who knows really.
On one hand that's hugely insulting to the fans; on the other hand, that's typical X-files writing. So... yay, mission accomplished?
* Most distracting show element: the hideous old-age makeup being worn by Anderson and Duchovny, which paralyzes their faces so that they look and sound like they're suffering from lockjaw or botulism (or Botox as my parents snorfed). Scully much worse than Mulder. I felt sorry for the actors having gone so much to pot in Hollywood that they had suffered strokes or damaged their faces somehow trying to look good for the show.
Then the (daydreaming-)flashbacks kicked in, and I was stunned that they had found an actress who could mimic a younger Gillian Anderson so freakishly well.
Then I realized THAT WAS GILLIAN ANDERSON!! That's how she actually looks now, not like the semi-mummified undead creature brought back to hideous life by alien experimentation. (I recalled a video still from an interview she had done in voice acting for the Star Citizen game; yeah, she didn't look old or fake-old there!)
Then I thought, "Holy Jeremiah Smith, someone demanded Anderson should disfigure herself so that she'd look as ruined as Duchovny... that is a crime against God and nature both. Is that not some kind of comment on how Hollywood treats actresses, and more specifically how the producers crapped on Anderson to fete Duchovny during the show's original run...?"
Then the second not-really-a-flashback ended the episode, and... good grief, Duchovny looks fine, too!
Then I realized that the producers had built the look of the show on bad old-age makeup (an occasional trait of the original show by the way) purely so that they could show enough of a visual distinction in those two brief daydreams to indicate a passage of time.
Then I found myself hoping that a major plot element soon would be a youth rejuvenation procedure or magic or alien side-effect thingummy that would allow the actors to not look like they need emergency epipen treatment for an inadvertent exposure to peanuts.
Then I remembered that Duchovny looks more like modern-day than daydreaming Mulder in ads I've seen for Aquarius.
Then I didn't know what the hell to think anymore, except that maybe insane levels of CGI were involved...??
Then I decided I would just look forward to the next episode, which from everything I've seen and heard (including the next-week promo) should be delightful. :smitten:
Oh, also... "What's a momomyth?" as imaginary William asks about the monolith in 2001. Mulder's answer works for the movie (sort of), but he's really answering the question "What's a monomyth?"
That was pretty cool, as were all his daydreaming scenes actually. O:-) (Although the line as written, should have been delivered by a boy several years younger -- probably too young to enjoy most of 2001. But I passed that off as being a daydream factor.)
I can't tell if it's supposed to be important that neither of them included each other in their daydreams... :'(
Ugh... just so I would have a frame of reference, I read a summary of the first miniseries ep and... as I suspected it's a version of the infamous Kritschgau plot again, foisted into the show by Duchovny because he was tired of playing Mulder's character and wanted him to be more harshly sceptical (like Duchovny in real life). So over two eps Mulder falls prey to a largely-clumsy psy-op which his character would have been normally inured against, especially after all the previous confirmation he's had, and consequently for about a season comes to reject all the alien stuff as a fakeout by the government. It was a terribly conceived and executed plotline, although Carter eventually wrangled it around to some sort of character arc by the end of the season (and the theatrical film), hinging on Mulder's guilt and desperation over Scully's increasingly fatal cancer.
At least this version of the plot acknowledges that yes there were aliens in the series, and so doesn't completely insult the fanbase out of the gate. Only mostly insults. ;)
Quote from: JasonPratt on January 25, 2016, 11:31:33 PM
Ugh... just so I would have a frame of reference, I read a summary of the first miniseries ep and... as I suspected it's a version of the infamous Kritschgau plot again, foisted into the show by Duchovny because he was tired of playing Mulder's character and wanted him to be more harshly sceptical (like Duchovny in real life). So over two eps Mulder falls prey to a largely-clumsy psy-op which his character would have been normally inured against, especially after all the previous confirmation he's had, and consequently for about a season comes to reject all the alien stuff as a fakeout by the government. It was a terribly conceived and executed plotline, although Carter eventually wrangled it around to some sort of character arc by the end of the season (and the theatrical film), hinging on Mulder's guilt and desperation over Scully's increasingly fatal cancer.
At least this version of the plot acknowledges that yes there were aliens in the series, and so doesn't completely insult the fanbase out of the gate. Only mostly insults. ;)
This is how I am seeing it. But yeah, I don't like it.
There were too many times we saw the Syndicate out of Mulder and Scully's POV, and when we did see them they were absolutely believing that the Aliens were real and an invasion/colonization was imminent
I just can't believe that Mulder is so dense to just abandon everything he knew and saw in order to stick to this apparent twist in the story. It's like Mulder is a kitten who as long as you dangle the right string in front of him, he can't help but lose interest and follow.
not impressed so far..even the acting seemed sub par.
Always gets me that Scully after all the things she has seen is still a sceptic..and how Mulder said that had no proof about Aliens..yest he has seen them!!..Odd.
Quote from: SirAndrewD on January 26, 2016, 11:54:10 PM
I just can't believe that Mulder is so dense to just abandon everything he knew and saw in order to stick to this apparent twist in the story. It's like Mulder is a kitten who as long as you dangle the right string in front of him, he can't help but lose interest and follow.
To be fair, that's kind of a consistent characterization from the original series. Except they're doing it wrong. :buck2:
I do have high hopes about the upcoming ep this week. Even reviews critical of the first ep (pretty much everyone) and the second one (sane people like myself >:D ) liked the third one.
And I'm admittedly feeling a pull to get the Blu Seasons, which have been thoroughly remastered unlike the migrainey bad DVD releases.
(I declare migrainey to be a real word. From "grainy" and "migraine".)
A really good episode tonight. Captured a lot of the old "X-Files Magic". Plus Scully was HOT.
I enjoyed this one actually..The lad from Flight of the Conchords is a funny man anyway..
Still haven't watched it yet but I have high hopes.
Darrin Morgan episode this week, and he hasn't lost ANY of his touch.
Very nice homages peppered through, including very strong shout outs to the late Kim Manners and Kolchak the Night Stalker.
Yeah, the headstones behind Mulder was genius.
I had to explain the Kim Manners headstone to the Parents. I couldn't recall if Kim had really died, though! The quote on the stone was so great. O0
I figured the other tombstones were production crew, too, but I didn't recognize any names. Now I'm wondering if they also passed on since the series folded... :-\
The Parents recognized the Kolchak outfit instantly. For a series that didn't even quite last a full season...! But then I forget there were two popular theatrical films, first. (Or three? I only recall two.)
I enjoyed the ep immensely as a classic humor ep, with some clever (and occasionally too clever) writing. But I kept being distracted by the insanely sceptical Mulder characterization; and in a mini-season which exists for fans, yet which is built on insulting the fan base, the twee little moments suggesting nothing extra-natural is happening, and maybe it's all in Mulder's head, despite strong evidence otherwise (like the bashed pocketbook -- "Are you on crack?" "...yeah!", that exchange was admittedly great as with most of the dialogue)... well, it just added to the insult.
Going back to a nasty dark ep next time, and I realized I honestly don't care to watch it. The heart of the series has been shotgunned, and the corpse is being paraded around while worn by a madman, or words to that effect. :buck2: I'd rather just buy the original series on Blu -- and find some place before "The Truth" series finale to hop off.
Another good episode tonight though a little confusing at times. Not really sure if the guy was the monster or the monster was the guy. But this show's starting to grow on me. Again.
I haven't deleted it yet, but haven't watched it yet either. :-\
Fantastic show tonight. Loved the cameo by The Lone Gunman. Next week the Aliens come back and so probably will the disappointment too.
I wasn't that impressed again. Such a shame such an iconic series feel so..vapid..
Quote from: TacticalWargames on February 16, 2016, 10:14:54 PM
I wasn't that impressed again. Such a shame such an iconic series feel so..vapid..
I tried watching an episode and.. meh.
The second episode IIRC, since the first one didn't get fully recorded. Turned it off about halfway through. :-\
Oh come on. What's not to love? Mulder gets high off of Shrooms then dances in a Country & Western bar, the new Generation X Mulder and Scully, and the Chain-Smoking Man as the River Styx Boatman. I thought I was on Shrooms watching it.
I think I've seen 4-5 of the new episodes, count me amongst the unimpressed. I'd be surprised if they go forward with additional episodes. I wanted to believe!
http://www.dbknews.com/2016/02/18/professor-x-files/
Science research for the show.
I finally got done watching this on iTunes.
I.....................mean........................
WTF??????????
I believe.
I believe.
I believe Chris Carter has gone senile.
Or his bank account had gotten lower.
I remember really liking all the non-alien episodes. The last one was just lame. The Truth is out there, and it is Mulder & Scully should move-on.
Quote from: Sir Slash on August 03, 2016, 06:47:34 PM
I remember really liking all the non-alien episodes. The last one was just lame. The Truth is out there, and it is Mulder & Scully should move-on.
QFT
galvanized by alien research this thread arises from the dead.
also, that was meant to be written in humorous all caps, but then I realized all lowcaps reflected my mood better.
Anyway, those 6 eps will apparently now be regarded as Season 10, and "Season 11" is on the way.
They blew their chance with me last summer. Even the non-mytharc eps were occasionally insulting to the fans; the mytharc eps were worse. But here we go.
This season Mulder and Scully search for the aliens that abducted their careers. I'll watch it cause Scully's still hot.
Quote from: Sir Slash on October 11, 2017, 06:51:12 PM
This season Mulder and Scully search for the aliens that abducted their careers. I'll watch it cause Scully's still hot.
You'd watch it if Phyllis Diller was Mulder's partner. <:-)
Not in her present condition, no. But if she was Scully's room mate..... :coolsmiley:
Never watched the X-Files. I think the episodes are on Netflix. Is it worth it now? Do the old episodes hold up, do you think?
X-files is an odd ball. Back then it was an edgy show- but now it's more cheesy of a show trying to edgy. The 'New" series that I watched is nothing like the old- they don't even try to be convincing. There's literally an episode where Mueller- who is supposed to be the true believer next to the doubter scully- pokes fun at all his previous cases--and the whole episode is full of one liners about chasing bigfoot carrying Elvis. It plays like a bad comedy--and worse it looks intentional. It doesn't even try to take the show's premise seriously, so whatever juice the show once had was purposely lost.
The xfiles is one of those shows that are akin to other horror movies- be it the Wolfman or vampire or even Freddy Krueger. At the time they worked--but watching them now they don't- to the level of cheese you rewatch them for the cheese. After the Exorcist and alien the bar was raised so much it's almost now about the Drama if you want it to work-say The Walking dead- instead of the scares- which seem very hard to pull off.
Quote from: BanzaiCat on October 12, 2017, 07:41:39 AM
Never watched the X-Files. I think the episodes are on Netflix. Is it worth it now? Do the old episodes hold up, do you think?
I liked the show in 1990s. I got tired of the arc about the government-conspiracy-to-hide-the-aliens because it never really went anywhere -- Just a lot of coverups, Mulder wanting to believe, and the chain smoking man lurking around. The self-contained episodes that explored a different type of creature or paranormal effect were pretty good, but they could only do so many of these before they eventually ran out of ideas.
I tried to watch the new series that was release last year, but could only watch two episodes before I gave up. I thought it was terrible.
I've always liked the X-Files, even last years regurgitation. It's still at it's best when it's doing the Mulder/Scully investigating some weird, paranormal murder or such. The whole alien conspiracy story line is getting really old and far-fetched. Some of the earlier episodes can still hold-up today I bet if you've never seen them though they probably look very dated by now.
I think the show still holds up as well as it ever did (with all caveats implied there), although nowadays it looks inexpensive. The DVD sets from several years ago (there were two major releases, and a third release that gathered all the "mytharc" eps together), were absolute dross in the video transfer however, dozens of times worse than the old VHS tapes with which the series helped kick off collectable series tape sets, and even worse than old broadcasts recorded on VHS off air. (The sound transfer might have been okay; I can't recall with all the hideous visual transfers blacking out my memory.)
I should watch a few eps on Netflix while they're still available, to see if the video transfer is better now. From what I recall hearing, the Blue Ray set (I think there's only one) remastered the visual transfer from scratch and recovered the gorgeous visuals.
Scully's hot in any format. Remember the X-Files episode where the crazy serial killer drugged Scully and then gave her a bath. And all he could think to do was her nails? :wow:
I still haven't checked the Netflix quality (which in any case will depend on one's internet connection), but I thought I would create a 1st Season Critical Ep list for BanzaiCat (and anyone else looking to check out the series).
This list focuses on (1) episodes dealing significantly with the overarching mytharc plot; (2) eps dealing significantly with the lives of Mulder, Scully, and the secondary cast; and (3) otherwise high quality Monster of the Week eps.
There is a good argument that once the seasons are condensed to critical eps, then Season One really ends in the first quarter of Season Two, and that finales to season cliffhanger endings should count for the prior season. As it happens, Season One doesn't feature a cliffhanger finale, but these will become normal for the series.
Ep 1: The X-Files (aka the Pilot)
Ep 2: Deep Throat (which really ought to have been called "The Pilot" as a production joke ;) )
Ep 3: Squeeze (the first MoW ep)
Ep 4: Conduit
Ep 7: Ice (MoW, strong homage to Carpenter's Thing without being that plot)
Ep 9: Fallen Angel
Ep 10: Eve (MoW with some Mytharc connections)
Ep 12: Beyond the Sea (MoW)
Ep 16: E.B.E. (ends up being of no real importance, but I'd feel remiss if I left it off -- despite its weaknesses it remains one of my favorites)
Ep 19: Darkness Falls (MoW)
Ep 20: Tooms (MoW with some important Mytharc connections)
Ep 23: The Erlenmeyer Flask (official season finale)
In what I like to call the Critical Edge list, eps on the fringe of critical for various sometimes notorious reasons:
Ep 4: Jersey Devil (MoW, introduces Mulder's character trait of watching porn, and arguably introduces the first romance elements between M&S)
Ep 13: Genderbender (MoW, seems like it should be Mytharc for many reasons but probably isn't? Also introduces, and kills off, an actor who will return in a much different and far more important role early in Season Two. Partly beloved by some fans for a Scully orgasm scene.)
Ep 17: "Miracle Man" (MoW, the first episode to involve Scully's Catholic faith in a major way. Too bad it's in a self-indulgent medicore filler ep that tries to be relevant by wedging in references to Mulder's sister Samantha.)
Ep 18: Shapes (MoW, not a bad take on werewolves, and often underlooked by fans)
I've never watched the entire series. I'm tempted to order the complete set. I liked most of what I did see. I even liked the Doggett character.
I didn't dislike the Doggett character; I just didn't like the situation the story had dragged into by then. (Actually, I usually like that actor, ever since he was the T-1000 in Terminator 2. I seem to recall one of the eps joking a little in that direction.)
One of the dumbest episodes of all time was during last year's season. Some lizardman/human. Mulder investigates the human--thinking it was akin to wolfman...human turns lizard---the kick was in the end it was exposed the lizard was his true self and once bitten he turned human. He then shacks mulder's hand and walks off to 'hibernate' for 2000 years.
That episode was corny stupid from start to finish...and no way holds up to the old series.
Sadly, that was one of the few I watched. It was truly painful. Nowhere near even the mediocre humor episodes of the past (much less near the best humor eps).
NOTE: the series (nor the films, only the first of which is really any good) does not appear to be on American Netflix anymore. (In other nations, I have no idea.)
It's available to purchase or rent from Amazon Video, but unless you're going to just test a few eps, I think you're going to be better off buying the seasons on Blu -- even if you only rented the critical ep list.
New Season premier tonight-- did not impress me. >:( We're back to the Alien/Virus/Apocalypse thing again. But..... Scully's still hot at least.
Quote from: Sir Slash on January 03, 2018, 11:54:37 PM
New Season premier tonight-- did not impress me. >:( We're back to the Alien/Virus/Apocalypse thing again. But..... Scully's still hot at least.
Haven't watched it. I wouldn't mind it legitimately being back to the "Mytharc", but the showrunners actively insulted the fan base about that last season, and I have no preliminary reason to trust them now. (Cue series tag line here. ;) ) If I hear better about it by the end of the season, I'll give it a try again: I do like the property.
...Christ this sounds like my most recent post on The Last Jedi (again)... :uglystupid2: L:-) :))
We're all getting older...
And crankier.
wasn't a big fan the first time thru, haven't watched the reboot
but I saw this quip online that I thought was funny
"we've been lied to all along... cigarettes clearly keep you alive and in perfect stasis for decades!"
OK. So first two episodes were the expected Alien Virus Conspiracy crap but tonight.... No, back to what they do best, the scary, weird, funny occult thing. And it was great until..... They just had to go there. Mulder and Scully are sharing a quiet moment together pondering their future and Mulder quips, "And a President who's trying to destroy the FBI". Scully adds, "We'll probably lose our jobs". Booooo! Leave your damned politics out of my entertainment you preachy Bitches! :tickedoff: I'm used to the old show being edgy with an occasional veiled, snarky comment about things in America but these washed-out actors have no business dumping their Hollywood superiority attitudes on me, their consumer/ client. Chris Carter wrote this episode himself so he's got no excuse either. Like the guy said in the show, "Tell it to the hand G-Man".