The Truth Is In Here: The X-Files Review Thread

[C_Miller]

Synchrony
(***1/2)

"Mulder suspects that the culprit of a bizarre murder in which the victim was frozen solid may be a traveler from the future."

The kid that died at the beginning was about as annoying as any character in The X-Files have been in a while. Rarely am I excited that a person doesn’t make it to the end of an episode, but alas here it is. This season has been focused a lot more on laboratory science as opposed to strange things happening in small towns and with only a few more Monster-of-the-Week episodes left, I can’t imagine we’ll be getting much more of that this season. Those are generally my favorites.

As for the plot, this was a fantastic story. I did figure out the twist extremely early on in the story, but that’s not the point. The idea of the story is so cool and extremely good Science Fiction. In fact, this is one of the better Hard Science Fiction episodes of the series. It could have been better in a lot of ways, like not ending with the Time Travel Mindf**k. If Jason Nichols died, how could old Jason Nichols come back and screw with everything? Oh well… moving on…


Small Potatoes
(****)

"A town celebrates a surprising number of births in a short span of time, only all the newborns have tails..."

And Darrin Morgan returns! However, this time he’s an actor not a writer. This episode falls firmly into the comedy episode camp, however, the comedy episodes this season haven’t had the same subtlety (which only includes this episode and Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man). Humbug, Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, War of the Coprohages, and Jose Chung’s From Outer Space are easily four of my series highlights up to this point and while this was a fine episode (just take a look at my rating), it wasn’t the same powerhouse as we saw before.

I did like giving David Duchovny the chance to stretch himself by playing Van Blundht as well as himself and the seduction scene was wonderful. I’m actually not a Mulder/Scully Shipper though. I know that’s probably where the show is going to end up, but I think they could be one of the best examples of a platonic love. Not many of those exist.


Zero Sum
(***1/2)

"While Skinner tries to negotiate a deal with the Cigarette-Smoking Man in order to save Scully's life, he becomes the prime suspect in a bizarre murder and discovers an incredibly cruel experiment using civilians as test subjects."

I love it when a story arc comes together. Here we see Walter Skinner working for the Cigarette Smoking Man after literally making a deal with the Devil in Memento Mori (after telling Mulder not to, which was a lovely scene). From pretty much his first appearance I liked Skinner and it’s a great direction for him to make the sacrifice that Mulder can’t. I loved the scene at the end where he confronted him and from the looks of it Scully is not going to get the cure from the Cigarette Smoking Man, which I’m okay with. I’d rather not have our heroes indebted to Evil Incarnate.

As for the story, again, I don’t see where they’re going with it. If I were to guess, I’d say that the bees are what the aliens use to create Alien Human Hybrids, but they seemingly don’t work. I’m sure that all of this will be explained later.

 

[C_Miller]

Elegy
(***1/2)

“When ghostly images of female victims appear near murder scenes, the apparitions may be harbingers of death for those who see them.”

Having just watched the Big Lebowski, that’s all I can think about when the episode opened up in a Bowling Alley. That and the owner sounded like Bill Cosby. But oh, man here we have another awesome episode. And one that ties into the story as a whole. We have a story about death and dying and one of our heroes is actually dying. One thing that has become a staple this season is there is a bait and switch between what is the original paranormal aspect and what the episode is really about. Like Small Potatoes started out about babies with tails and then became about a shape shifter, this started out about ghosts and then became about a crazed nurse.

And man, they aren’t taking the easy way out with Scully’s cancer. If this were Voyager, the reset button would have been hit a dozen times by now. I expect her to survive it, but any other TV show, she would have gotten over it by now. This is refreshing.


Demons
(****)

"While Mulder is haunted by flashbacks to his youth, he and Scully try to determine his connection to two unexplained murders in which he seems to have been involved."

This is seemingly going to take the same formula as the end of season 3. Reveal a little bit of the conspiracy in the penultimate episode and then I’d imagine have a huge episode about the Alien Mythology in the finale. As a stand alone, this is actually an extremely good one. At its heart, it’s a very good mystery and we’re just as in the dark as Mulder and Scully are. Like I have stated time and time again, it’s hard to create suspense when dealing with Mulder and Scully because in the end, the show is based around them. And at this point, they are the only characters and they cannot be easily replaced. However, when you still feel tension and worry about the characters; that’s when you can pinpoint good writing.

So Mrs. Mulder had an affair with the Cigarette Smoking Man… does that mean that he may be Mulder’s father or Samantha’s father? Rather poetic in a certain sense. I feel like this is a rather important episode and will come into play later on. But in the end, this was a fantastic episode regardless of where it goes.


Now onto the finale....

 

[C_Miller]

Gethsemane
(****1/2)

You know, if I were sitting here on May 18th, 1997, I could easily imagine Mulder taking his own life. I think over the past four years Mulder has found the one thing that matters more to him than exposing the truth and finding his sister: Dana Scully. And I’m not entirely sure he realized that until he found out that he may have caused her terminal cancer. For an extremely awful episode, I bring up “3” an awful lot. But I recall David Duchovny wanted Mulder to go into darkness and I keep finding that episodes like this show that better. Since then, he’s become my single favorite character in all of fiction and seeing him at literally the end of his rope is horrible and is perpetuated by Duchovny’s fantastic acting.

However, this episode did kind of show some of my problems with the mythology arc. It still seldom feels like an arc. Memento Mori kind of brought a lot of aspects together, but at the same time, a lot of these feel like they aren’t really interconnected and seemingly could be Alien-of-the-Week episodes as opposed to Monster-of-the-Week episodes. Supposedly the Pilot set up the arc, but I still can’t link the kids to Max Fenig to the Bounty Hunter to Jeremiah to the hybrids to Samantha Mulder to the Black Oil. At this point in the series they all seem rather loosely connected and I really would like to see the arc tighten up a bit in the future. However, these are my problems with the series as a whole, so I won’t use them to judge this episode.

I did like how it played off of the “cliché” of the Alien Autopsy which I think of as a major element of UFOlogy and the consciousness of aliens, something that X-Files hasn’t really touched. Now, I was two to eleven in the 90s and one of the things I remember is that aliens were everywhere and I’m not sure if X-Files had anything to do with that, but I do distinctly recall a lot of stuff dealing with alien autopsies and it’s a bit surprising they waited this long to not deal with it.

Something worth note, I believe this is the first season finale that we’ve had that doesn’t feature our friend the Cigarette Smoking Man and it felt a bit incomplete without him. And where was Skinner? I feel like he should have been at the inquiry. But I look forward to the next episode!

 

[C_Miller]

Okay, so I think I'm just going to use this thread to record random thoughts as I get them rather than go episode by episode. This will make it easier on me when I do marathons and I'm not keeping track.

So, I just finished Season 5 and I would easily agree with DevilEyes that the three parter at the beginning is the peak of the series. But some of that may have to do with the fact that Season 5 was a pretty weird season and that is probably because of the movie. It seems like Mulder and Scully were taking turns filming their scenes as there were several "spotlight" episodes where Mulder or Scully played almost back up to the other one and in some cases didn't appear at all. That made for a relatively uneven season.

That said, the writing was there 100% (Unlike when TNG was preparing for the movie and Voyager). In fact, there are very few episodes I'd call subpar. Christmas Carol and Emily were probably the weakest mythology episodes, just couldn't connect with them for some reason. Post Modern Prometheus and Bad Blood were good, but overhyped by some people talking about the series. Other than that, this Season was probably the most consistant in terms of quality.

However, if I were doing the series, I probably would have done movies after the TV series was done. I mean, we seemingly sacrificed a lot to do a movie that was supposed to tie two subsequent seasons together. Mulder and Scully are apart quite a bit. We get pretty much a Lone Gunmen solo show, but we see that they are much better guest stars than main stars (kind of makes me worry about their own show which I plan on watching after this). And was it just me or did the Special Effects take a hit this season? Not that they were obviously bad like season 1, but it seemed like there was a massive absence of cool visuals to make up for the movie.

That said, "The End" was fantastic and I feel like this was the turning point of the series. The final scene in Mulder's officer where it was completely destroyed was probably one of the best sequences in the series so far. Duchovny and Anderson's wordless acting, combined with the music and the demolished set that we've come to know and love over the years... man, just beautiful. This could really go in so many directions from here, but I fear that the writers are growing tired. Nine Seasons is a long time to carry on a plot line. But where ever this show goes, I will keep an open mind.

Now, on to the movie. I'll probably do a full review.

 

[Harvey]

I doubt the visual effects of the series were affected by the movie, which had its own staff and budget for such things. I'm surprised you didn't like "The Unusual Suspects," though. I think it's brilliant, and although I enjoy the Lone Gunmen spin-off, it's not as good as their first solo episode.

 

[C_Miller]

I doubt the visual effects of the series were affected by the movie, which had its own staff and budget for such things. I'm surprised you didn't like "The Unusual Suspects," though. I think it's brilliant, and although I enjoy the Lone Gunmen spin-off, it's not as good as their first solo episode.

Whether they were affected or not by the movie, I did notice that there were noticeably fewer episodes with major special and visual effects as opposed to earlier episodes.

As for The Unusual Suspects, I may have to watch it again. I don't recall when I watched it, but there may have been something going on in Real Life that hinders my memory of it. But I do recall not being impressed. I will watch it again though. When I watched Home on the TV instead of my computer, I liked it a lot better.

 

[C_Miller]

So I've watched the Movie and I'm now through Dreamland in Season 6 and the only thing I can really say is that the show has changed. I'm not sure whether I want to chalk it up to the move from Vancouver to LA, but you can certainly tell a difference in the way its shot. You can certainly tell that there was a location change.

Also the episodes have been strange. Triangle (though a fantastic episode) and Dreamland (which wasn't bad by any means) can't seem to figure out if they want to be comedies or dramas. Which, I'm fine with comedy in drama episodes and drama in comedy episodes, but these seemed to not be sure which direction they wanted to go in, making them a little strange to me.

Overall, while the writing is still good, the production changes and some of the new creative decisions make the show seem... typical, if you will. It's not as unique as it used to be.

 

[RoJoHen]

I love "Triangle" specifically because of the odd combination of comedy and drama. The scene with Scully walking around the FBI, going in the elevator, and ending with her and Skinner, is one of my favorite scenes of the entire show.

 

[C_Miller]

Don't get me wrong, I loved it. If I'm being honest, I probably wouldn't have even been critical over the tone if I didn't see Dreamland right afterwards. I'm not going to lie, Dreamland had me laugh out loud quite a few times, but that had more to do with Duchovny's comedic timing than the writing. It just bordered on too silly, but at the same time trying to be a mythology episode. That duality just kind of made me uneasy, especially if it continues. Add that on top of the change in location, the whole tone completely shifted. I'm... unsure about this season as far as now goes.

 

[Harvey]

I sure wish that "Triangle" had a proper transfer on the DVD. Fox just used the same crappy transfer that was made when they originally aired it -- since it is the only episode that was originally shown in widescreen -- and it's just garbage. The company initially announced that they were going to fix the problem, but then they reversed their decision.

As for season six, I was iffy on it when I first saw it, but upon re-watch I've grown fonder and fonder of it. Season seven still feels tired to me, though. Season eight (and, to a lesser extent, season nine) was a great shot in the arm the show desperately needed.

 

[C_Miller]

I sure wish that "Triangle" had a proper transfer on the DVD. Fox just used the same crappy transfer that was made when they originally aired it -- since it is the only episode that was originally shown in widescreen -- and it's just garbage. The company initially announced that they were going to fix the problem, but then they reversed their decision.

As for season six, I was iffy on it when I first saw it, but upon re-watch I've grown fonder and fonder of it. Season seven still feels tired to me, though. Season eight (and, to a lesser extent, season nine) was a great shot in the arm the show desperately needed.

You know, I believe that. I know whole heartedly that Mulder is not the problem as he remains one of my favorite characters in all of fiction. But, I do think the writers are growing relatively complacent with the Mulder/Scully dynamic and some fresh blood will be nice.