The X-Files

[TonyWilson]

For me, along with TNG, this was one the first Sci-Fi shows I really liked.

I loved all the old episodes Toombs being a particular favourite.
But the whole conpsiracy deal kind of tailed off towards the end


Thought, musings, favourite recurring characters and episodes are all welcome here.

[Pissed-Off Crawdad]

...until Mulder left. But I still watched it, because occasionally there'd be a pretty good one. My personal favorite episodes were "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" and "Humbug". And am I the only person who thinks that, aside from revealing a little too much, the movie was actually pretty good?

[Keepcoolbutcare]

Tony, can we hold hands! (ie. Mysterious Skin post) Dig the Rorschach!
Me thinks the problems the show experienced in the later years was a loss of talent...Morgan and Wong (creator of many a fine character and episodes) went to Millenium Season II (great TV) and then to Hollywood...Darin Morgan (best writer the show ever had...he also played the human who could change shape who turned into Mulder and hit on Scully (and Duchovny playing Mulder as a lothario...priceless). But when this show was on (seasons 1-4, 5 was good...and then it was just sporadic episodes here and there) it was the best thing on TV. And Gillian Anderson should have won a fucking Oscar for "The House of Mirth"...I'll go out on a limb here and say her not even getting nominated is one of the greatest Oscar snubs of all time.

[lyra belacqua]

I loved X-Files, but I was just a girl when it started and don't remember much of the mythology of the first few seasons. I do remember that I loved the mythology episodes during the run, but as I look back, I remember the stand alones better.

I recently saw an ad in Best Buy for a DVD collection for the "mythology episodes" and I WANT a DVD set of the great stand alones.

Must Have episodes:
"Jose Chung's From Outer Space"
"Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"
"Home"
the b/w Cher one
"Small Potatoes"
"Triangle"

what other's have I missed

[TonyWilson]

Hey, that's definitely Phantom Zone favourite then.

Yeh I do think back and prefer the standalones. And the one with The Lone Gunmen set in back 1989. That was a great one.

[PVIII]

As of late I've been watching a quite a bit of old X-files (after geting re-hooked after buying the Abduction dvd), and was wondering if anyone understood several things:

why'd they leave the spaceship off the ivory coast just sitting there?
Is the virus transimitted from the bees the same as the black oil?

yeah, and I just rewatched two fathers/ one son, which was a great way to jump-start the series a bit.

PVIII

[burlivesleftnut]

I always assumed the bees and the black oil did the same bit of business.

[DinoDeLaurentiis]

Calla me crazy, but Dino, he bought alla 9 seasons onna the DVD. Anna the movie too.

[PVIII]

Though I'm prone to liking the mythology based episodes, I always enjoy the comedy-slanted ones as well. One of my favortes has to be 'Arcadia' where they go undercover as a suburban couple, and 'Bad Blood' with Luke Wilson, which has a hilarious teaser.

Mulder takes off the kids fake teeth after stabbing him with a stake:"Oh, f**k."

[bluebottle]

Yeah, the funny eps were alway my favorite. DD and GA played really well off each other, and it set it apart from other "drama's" by not taking it self too seriously... Without ever getting silly.

Arcadia stands out for sure.

[PVIII]

Holy shit, I watched "Bad Blood" (season 5) last night and it was fucking hilarious. It's got luke wilson and one of the best teasers of all time.

Mulder chases a kid through the woods. Catches him. Stakes him through the heart. Mulder points out his vampire teeth to scully. She taps the kids vampire teeth, and they fall off.

Mulder: Oh sh-- *credits roll*

great episode.

PVIII

[DennisMM]

Julia and I taped all nine seasons, but we just can't watch much past season five. Last night we went looking at a season nine episode with Annabeth Gish, just to see a guest star. We turned it off before we saw the guest and watched a different, good episode with the same actress.

Rarely has a program squandered so much goodwill among the viewing public.

[Shane]

I watched it all the ime the first few seasons, but when the thing just wouldn't stop with alien conspiricy and what not, I stopped. I liked some ot the Mulderless stuff. The show could have been great with a new team alltogether I think. |I wouldn't be opposed to a new movie, or series, just veer away from the huge conspiracy please.

[Al Shut]

I always liked the standalone episodes better, espescially the comic ones.

"Bad Blood" was one of the funniest things I ever saw one ty, so was the episode with the cockroaches.

Alien parasites in an arctic station, crasy pyrokinetics(?), liver/studly/brain/cancer eating mutants, the freak episode, Frank Black preventing the Apocalypse etc.

I LOVED IT!!!!!!!!!

[Fried Gold]

I bought the first series recently, so I'm enjoying it over again.

Lookin back, you notice just how much The X-Files has been copied since then. It makes some of Mulder's ideas sound sarcastic or comedic, but it's just that the ideas have been rehashed so many times since.

I also like the Raiders of the Lost Ark endings we used to get with The Smoking Man.

[Lady Sheridan]

Everyone named my favorite episodes--I'm going to have to dig out my guide and find some more. I always thought the one Stephen King did was alot of fun--the screaming and heavy groaning of Mulder's video, "What are you watching, Mulder?" "Umm, World's Deadliest Bee Attacks" and lo and behold--it really is!! "Musings of a Smoking Man" was another favorite.

They were two of the greatest characters ever written for television. They were so REAL and flawed, and yet so kick ass too.

I could have cried when they stomped all over it. Mulder's abduction had potential, but Scully's pregnancy...that was it. The death toll had sounded and they were digging the grave when Annabeth Gish showed up.

I find it funny that David Duchovny now brings up X-Files every damn chance he can when he's promoting one of his projects, but he couldn't wait to ditch it back in the day. He is half of why it failed.

[DennisMM]

I used to be on an X-Files mailing list (in fact, that's how I met my wife), and one of the members wrote the episode guides and usually a short article on each season for Cinefantastique. The editors refused to do a ninth-season episode guide. They thought the last season wasn't worth the page count the features would consume, that's how far the show had fallen by 2000-2001.

[The Vicar]

Though Xfiles had a nice long run, its seems clear that it ran too long & actually outran its "soul". I hated to see it end as a somewhat muddled pile of kark. At least the glory of its youth is preserved on DVD for future generations...if any.

[RogerRab]

These are the winners of a poll of Best X-Files Episodes Ever (voted for by about 3 thousand x-files fans)

1. Triangle
2. Jose Chungs From Outer Space
3. Clyde Bruckmans Final Repose
4. Home
5. Bad Blood

I'd pretty much agree with that (maybe not the order, but the episodes listed are all worth being in the top 5). It's 5-10 which is a bit more difficult, I would go with

6. Post Modern Prometheus
7. Humbug
8. Je Souhaite
9. DPO
10. Musings of a Smokey Thingie Smoking Man

[Keepcoolbutcare]

10. Musings of a Joint Smoking Man

you don't need to see the episode, just read my posts...

[RogerRab]

The piss take of Forrest Gump in Musings of A Smokey Thingie Smoking Man was fucking excellent.

[Peven]

Julia and I taped all nine seasons, but we just can't watch much past season five. Last night we went looking at a season nine episode with Annabeth Gish, just to see a guest star. We turned it off before we saw the guest and watched a different, good episode with the same actress.

Rarely has a program squandered so much goodwill among the viewing public.

seconded. i used to look forward all week to the next episode during the first 4-5 seasons, but the last several seasons it lost me to the point i stopped watching all together. and i have to agree with those who say some of the best shows are the stand-alone episodes, like the one about that guy who could squirm through ductwork and used a straw to suck out people's brains, or the man-sized parasite-worm-being that escaped into the ocean through the sewer system in the end of the show.

[DinoDeLaurentiis]

or the man-sized parasite-worm-being that escaped into the ocean through the sewer system in the end of the show.

I always a like a the ending to a that one with a the CGB Spender anna Skinner, eh?

Skinner: (Skeptically) You believe a these putzes?

Spender: (Incredulously) Of a course I do, eh?

[DennisMM]

These are the winners of a poll of Best X-Files Episodes Ever (voted for by about 3 thousand x-files fans)

1. Triangle
2. Jose Chungs From Outer Space
3. Clyde Bruckmans Final Repose
4. Home
5. Bad Blood

I'd pretty much agree with that (maybe not the order, but the episodes listed are all worth being in the top 5). It's 5-10 which is a bit more difficult, I would go with

6. Post Modern Prometheus
7. Humbug
8. Je Souhaite
9. DPO
10. Musings of a Joint Smoking Man

I thought "Triangle" was a total disaster. It struck me as an obvious shot by Carter at a directing Emmy. Carter was hardly the best director or writer the show had. "Prometheus" seemed like more of Carter showing off, with the B&W and gothic touches. "Musings" was artificial. C.G.B. Spender wouldn't bother to kill a Lone Gunman himself; that's for lackeys. I realize it was to set up the storytelling, but for me it didn't work. "Je Souhaite" was a lot of fun but not one of the best, in my opinion, and "Bad Blood" was possibly the most fun ever, but just fun.

All of the Darin Morgan episodes belong on my best-of list, especially "Jose Chung" and "Clyde Bruckman." "Squeeze" is one of my top ten. "Irresistible" was as frightening as the show ever got, and it wasn't even paranormal. "Paper Hearts," another episode with very little paranormal content, doesn't get nearly the love it deserves. Of the just plain fun episodes, "Small Potatoes" leads the pack for me because of Darin Morgan's performance.

I am especially fond of "Gethsemane" and thought it would have been a perfect sign-off for the show, had it been canceled after season four. "Monday," the Groundhog Day-style episode about the bank robbery, was very well done and Carrie Hamilton's performance was outstanding.

As you can see, I'm a fan of stand-alones. The conspiracy was fun until it branched off into more directions than I could follow even watching the show every week. By the end I wasn't even sure what the conspiracy was all about. How did the abductions tie in with the super-soldiers, bees and bee husbandry, the black oil and the million-year-old ship that was found on the beach in Cote D'Ivoire?

[RogerRab]

I thought Paper Hearts was fucking excellent.

One of my favourite underlooked episodes was the season five standalone where Mulder infiltrates a bunch of bank robbers (it was called Pine-Balm something I think). I just felt it was the perfect conspiracy episode, and got right what the mytharc was getting so wrong. If the mytharc conspiracy episodes had been that clever, and tense, and well written and paced, it would have been amazing.

There are a damn lot of really, really good episodes in those 9 seasons, though. Some real hidden gems, most of them better than the thriller movies in the cinema that week.

Even the last season had two or three fantastic episodes: Sunshine Days, Release, The Truth, and Improbable. Doggett was a good character, and would have worked better in one of the earlier seasons, as a kind of allie to Mulder and Scully in the FBI who didn't actually believe. He would have been better than that Mimi Rogers woman. What was that episode about her marrying Mulder all about, I saw bits of that and was like wtf.

[Ribbons]

Favorite X-Files episode ever for me is without a doubt "Beyond the Sea." I didn't see a lot of the middle seasons though, so I'm not totally educated on the matter.

[Rothgar]

I hated Beyond The Sea. Awful episode.

[Ribbons]

[Al Shut]

I hated Beyond The Sea. Awful episode.

Great, now you made Ribbons cry. I hope you are happy now.

[Carolian]

I hated Beyond The Sea. Awful episode.

Great, now you made Ribbons cry. I hope you are happy now.

No one's happy. No one can be happy over this.

*shakes fist at sky*

[AtomicHyperbole]

I'm rewatching the first series. As with some of you, I lost interest when they decided to overplay the elaborate overarching conspiracy - but then, that always happens to my favourite shows. They get overcomplicated, overblown and self important and can't sustain themselves before intellectualising or dumbing themselves down into oblivion.

Oddly enough, now I've said that, Beyond The Sea was the one I watched last night. What an intro, sends shivers down my spine - and Brad Douriff? He da man!

(un)Interesting Fact - he was in Myst 3 too.

[MiltonWaddams]

The X-Files is one of the greatest shows, ever. I bought the seasons, and I was wary, thinking the early seasons would suck, as is the case with a lot of TV shows. That shit is SOLID from episode one. It didn't go off the rails until the conspiracy shit overtook the show. I understand why they did it, they needed a string to hold all of the shows together, albiet loosely. When they started focusing on the string, people sort of gave up.

'Home' was scary as shit, but I really liked 'The Goldberg Variation', with the guy who turned out to be the luckiest man ever. It's good stuff. I'm too lazy to look up the name, but the one with the crazy voodoo guy who is killing off the family of the doctor who couldn't save his daughter, god damn. OH shit, and the groundhogs day episode, where the girl kept trying to stop her boyfriend from robbing the bank because he always died.

The scary episodes of the X-Files are a hundred times more frightening than any bullshit horror movies.

I'm reading a Richard Dawkins book, recommended by Adam Balm, who says that the X-Files is scientifically irresponsible and misleading. You have two people, one who sides with irrationality and one who sides with logic. Loe and behold, the irrational side always wins. He goes on to say this is no better than a crime show where their's a white and black suspect, and it always ends up being the black one. I'm calling bullshit on his arguement. The rest of the book is good, but come on, it's fiction.

[DennisMM]

The swamp magic episode was "Theef" and the "Groundhog Day" episode was "Monday," which I mentioned above.

Years before he died, Carl Sagan made similar comments about fiction always supposing the supernatural is real rather than bogus. In most cases it's quite difficult to make debunking nearly as fun as accepting the reality of the paranormal or highly unusual. Contact didn't turn out to be a hoax, though our chances of contacting an extraterrestrial civilization with whom we can share any sort of dialogue remains high unlikely.

[cinephile2000]

I just started watching this series last week and Im three disks in and loving it.

[anthonymous]

I'm also just discovering this show on DVD, about half-way through Season 1 at the moment and it truly is great..

'Ice' was intense and 'Eve' really freaked me out, though there have been one or two duds - 'tis only the beginning though!

[WillowFan]

I'm reading a Richard Dawkins book, recommended by Adam Balm, who says that the X-Files is scientifically irresponsible and misleading. You have two people, one who sides with irrationality and one who sides with logic. Loe and behold, the irrational side always wins. He goes on to say this is no better than a crime show where their's a white and black suspect, and it always ends up being the black one.

He was onto something there, but as soon as he made the comparison with the black suspect always being guilty, he lost the argument.

You know the theory that says 'whoever brings up the nazi's in an argument between two things, just lost that argument'? I think this just about falls into that very hole.

[Iconoclastica]

I'm reading a Richard Dawkins book, recommended by Adam Balm, who says that the X-Files is scientifically irresponsible and misleading. You have two people, one who sides with irrationality and one who sides with logic. Loe and behold, the irrational side always wins. He goes on to say this is no better than a crime show where their's a white and black suspect, and it always ends up being the black one.

He was onto something there, but as soon as he made the comparison with the black suspect always being guilty, he lost the argument.

You know the theory that says 'whoever brings up the nazi's in an argument between two things, just lost that argument'? I think this just about falls into that very hole.

Great point . . . as sad as that is . . . but what else would I expect from my very own entourage - nice handle (and welcome to the board!)

[WillowFan]

The first season did indeed have more duds than any other season (even season 9). The one with those amish type people, and the one with that guy who's face had been burned by fire and was now some church leader, were really bad.

[AtomicHyperbole]

Gender Bender was OK! The set was terrible though.

...

OK, I only know the name because I just watched it.

... stop staring.

I liked that circus freak episode. Anyone recall that one?

I just thought - if ANYONE says series one is old, I will personally hunt you down and administer an anal probe.

[DennisMM]

The first season did indeed have more duds than any other season (even season 9). The one with those amish type people, and the one with that guy who's face had been burned by fire and was now some church leader, were really bad.

I'd say "Genderbender" had some strong moments (and Nic Lea's first appearance, a year before he was Krychek). "Miracle Man" stands up fairly well compared to some of the bad shows."Space" was the real turkey of the first season. Even Chris Carter admitted it.

I simply can't agree that season 1 had more duds than season 9. Remember "Daemonicus," for the love of all the gods and devils? With a handful of shots in that episode they destroyed the wonder of "Irresistible," one of the best episodes. "Sunshine Days"? "Audrey Pauley"? That one was so dull I turned it off even though wanted to see a certain actor. The real sin of the last season was that most of the episodes were so boring I simply didn't care if I ever saw them again.

[DennisMM]

I liked that circus freak episode. Anyone recall that one?

Hell, Yeah! "Humbug" is one of the best episodes and one of the funniest.

[cinephile2000]

I was watching By the sea, and right after it plays for the funeral in the other room the tv plays an add with the exat same song, freaked me out.

[AtomicHyperbole]

LOL! Genius. You didn't see any relatives making a sudden appearence, I hope...

"Space" is genuinely one of the worst episodes there ever was. I remember hating it the first time, and time hasn't been kind to its effects either - strange when you watch Ice and see the excellent CG worms. Well ahead of their time. OK, they're worms, but they look real!

[Flumm]

Did anyone see the fornightly X Files magazine that came out in the UK a little while ago? It had a DVD with every issue, and covered things episode by episode. As much as I loved the show growing up, I didn't really wanna have loose DVD's about everywhere, and I know at some point I'll end up buying the official DVD's anyway. And I knew if I bought one, I would have to buy all of them or none at all...

Did anyone buy it? Was it worth the purchase?

[Seppuku]

Did anyone see the fornightly X Files magazine that came out in the UK a little while ago? It had a DVD with every issue, and covered things episode by episode. As much as I loved the show growing up, I didn't really wanna have loose DVD's about everywhere, and I know at some point I'll end up buying the official DVD's anyway. And I knew if I bought one, I would have to buy all of them or none at all...

Did anyone buy it? Was it worth the purchase?

Was that one of those scam deals where the first issue costs a couple quid, and the second one immediately goes up to 10 pounds or something once you've been reeled-in?

[Flumm]

..well if my ill advised subscription to Scam Monthly was anything to go by. Than I'm afraid so.

[WillowFan]

Ok stop right here: Sunshine Days was AWESOME!

Well I thought so. You know I think it's because I started off 'properly' watching the x-files in season 9...so I liked it then and like it now. But I can definately say that Mulder and Scully episodes are the best, I mean, what a fantastic duo.

[saucyminx]

I used to tape XF feverishly before the discovery of DVD years later. Love that series, and I still think it's the best one ever to grace TV.

My only disappointment? I often felt that Krycek was underused, despite some meaty episode (and losing an arm, even), and I really didn't like the way they killed him off. It's like, "What the??? That's it??!" to me.

[Fried Gold]

It's not just Krycek though. A lot of the later conclusions in the show were like "Whah? That's it?"

[Lady Sheridan]

That's pretty much the last line of X-Files as a whole.

Burn in hell, Chris Carter!!