The X-Files Rewatch Thread

[Too Much Fun]

I think Home is one of the best episodes of The X--Files ever, and one of the best and scariest hours of horror I've ever seen.

Ah, we meet again, my nemesis. DevilEyes always seems to love stuff I hate and hate stuff I love. First she loves the Bajoran episodes of DS9, then she hates the mirror episodes, then she loves this one. Maybe she's like my mirror universe counterpart. I really, really hate that episode. I guess I couldn't call it the worst "X-Files" episode because it wasn't boring and I can't say there was anything wrong with the acting. I just found it needlessly gratuitous.

It was so gross and unpleasant to watch, I just couldn't enjoy watching it on any level. It also felt cheap and exploitive to me with all the incest/inbreeding/deformity stuff. It made a spectacle out of grotesqueness with no story or characters I could get involved with. Just a lot of blech. Reminds me of horror movies where the only point is to show increasingly disgusting kills.

I agree about "Paper Hearts" being one of the best of season 4 (and of the series) and I think "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" was a masterpiece that should have won a truckload of awards. It's my second favourite episode. The black and white cinematography is beautiful, and the whole thing feels incredibly cinematic. I love how poignant the build-ups to each assassination are, and the humour in this episode like Cigarette Smoking Man and his cronies rigging everything, his rejection letter from a publisher, and the Forrest Gump parody are some of the funniest moments in the series.

 

[Starbreaker]

Tempus Fugit [B-] Not much really happens
Max [A-] This was actually a very intense episode... very rare for this season
Synchrony I didn't realize that the X-Files had ever dabbled in Time Travel other than "Monday". Interesting episode.

Small Potatoes [A] one of the finest episodes of the series. There's lots of awkwardness between Mulder and Scully in that ending scene that's just great. I think this show pulls off comedy episodes very well most of the time. This is the second time Scully has come face to face with someone pretending to be Mulder. The first it was hostile, and this time it was all sexified.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I think of "Small Potatoes" as a trial run for "Dreamland". I like both episodes, but I think "Dreamland" was even funnier and more exciting. It took the same basic premise even further, making it even funnier and more suspenseful (it helped that this was a two parter). I like "Synchrony" a lot. The first time I saw it, I thought it's was like some wonderfully weird combination of Batman's Mr. Freeze and "Back to the Future". Tragic in the end, but fun on the way.

 

[Jack Bauer]

I really love Home. It's probably the creepiest and most disturbing episode of The X-Files. anytime it's on I feel compelled to watch. I remember when X-Files was in syndication they skipped this episode. Eventually a few years later they added it to the schedule. Fox made a big to do about it since they had described it as a banned episode for awhile.

 

[Harvey]

"Small Potatoes" is a lot of fun. It's also the last episode of the series in which the funnier Morgan brother participates (here, as an actor; he also writes and directs two episodes of the second season of Millennium, which are worth seeking out even if the rest of that season is not).

 

[Too Much Fun]

Yeah, Morgan rules. I love his "X-Files" episodes ("Jose Chung's From Outer Space" is my favourite episode of the series) and I watched his two "Millenium" episodes without watching any others of that series and loved them. They're excellent standalone stories, although the Jose Chung one is sort of a sequel, and I supposed you need to know the character from his first X-Files appearance to totally appreciate it.

 

[Starbreaker]

I kind of let this thread die. I can't believe it's been a year since I posted in here, but I have finished re-watching Season 6 and now am watching Season 7 and plan to see it through to the end now that my work schedule isn't as wonky. I actually haven't seen about 75% of the last three seasons, so this should be fun. I don't remember enough about each individual episode to give them grades right at the moment, but I will say that my favorites from Season 6 include Monday, Milagro, and The Unnatural. The Unnatural is easily one of the best episodes of the series ever. You can tell this episode was a labor of love, being written and directed by Duchovny.

7x01 The Sixth Extinction

Had to share this bit of info I found on Wikipedia first:

Fifty thousand dead crickets were rented from a local entomologist for the scene where Scully's tent was attacked by bugs. The live insects were portrayed by blowing popcorn and packing foam at Anderson with fans and editing it into insects in post production.

This is the really the episode where Scully starts believing in aliens. She's obviously always been skeptical up until this point, but she becomes obsessed over the craft and you can see in her eyes that there is really no denying extra terrestrial presence at this point. This is also when the show starts to come off the rails, though. The mythology just goes nuts. It's also annoying that Mulder begins to get less screen time starting with this episode. It would have been creatively better if they had just had 13 episodes focusing on the alien conspiracies for the next three seasons, but I know that was pretty much unheard of in the 90s.

Michael Kritschgau is interesting, also I honestly had to look up what episodes he had been in before. His character wasn't exactly memorable in his previous appearance.

Overall, a good episode.

 

[saturn5]

I really love Home. It's probably the creepiest and most disturbing episode of The X-Files. anytime it's on I feel compelled to watch. I remember when X-Files was in syndication they skipped this episode. Eventually a few years later they added it to the schedule. Fox made a big to do about it since they had described it as a banned episode for awhile.

Absolutely, ironically the scariest ever episode of the X-files is the one with no supernatural or paranormal element to it at all. When they're driving in the car to Johnny Mathis or when the mother is telling Scully 'You have no children' or referring to 'The War of Northern Agression', that's a lot scarier than any alien!

 

[RoJoHen]

This is the really the episode where Scully starts believing in aliens. She's obviously always been skeptical up until this point, but she becomes obsessed over the craft and you can see in her eyes that there is really no denying extra terrestrial presence at this point. This is also when the show starts to come off the rails, though. The mythology just goes nuts. It's also annoying that Mulder begins to get less screen time starting with this episode. It would have been creatively better if they had just had 13 episodes focusing on the alien conspiracies for the next three seasons, but I know that was pretty much unheard of in the 90s.

Maybe it's because on my last rewatch I only stuck to the mythology episodes and skipped most of the rest, but I never thought the mythology went too crazy. I was actually surprised at how consistent it turned out to be compared to what I remember from when it first aired.

 

[Harvey]

I remember not being crazy with where the mythology went in season nine, but that was because season eight seemed to be pretty definitively the final season...except not. And then season nine is the final season, and ends on a cliffhanger? Weird.

As for Scully being a believer now...well, sort of. That doesn't really happen until season eight, when she has Doggett to play off of. In season seven, the writers go back and forth. It's probably my least favorite year. Duchovny looks bored and the mythology is emphasized less than any previous season.

 

[The Habs Fan]

This is the really the episode where Scully starts believing in aliens. She's obviously always been skeptical up until this point, but she becomes obsessed over the craft and you can see in her eyes that there is really no denying extra terrestrial presence at this point. This is also when the show starts to come off the rails, though. The mythology just goes nuts. It's also annoying that Mulder begins to get less screen time starting with this episode. It would have been creatively better if they had just had 13 episodes focusing on the alien conspiracies for the next three seasons, but I know that was pretty much unheard of in the 90s.

Maybe it's because on my last rewatch I only stuck to the mythology episodes and skipped most of the rest, but I never thought the mythology went too crazy. I was actually surprised at how consistent it turned out to be compared to what I remember from when it first aired.

When I watched the entire series for the first time a couple of years ago, I also thought the mythology was consistently good. I kept hearing how it gets more convoluted and confusing as it goes on, but I thought it all made perfect sense and the series finale tied up most of the questions.

My theory as to why there's a difference in opinion is the manner in which you first viewed it. The viewing experience on DVD is much different than as it airs. Some people who watched the X-Files as it aired over the 9 years probably forgot some little things in each mythology episode, leading them to be confused and lost when the next mythology episode appeared. But to me, on my first time through the series over a few months on DVD, it made perfect sense.

 

[RoJoHen]

The viewing experience on DVD is much different than as it airs. Some people who watched the X-Files as it aired over the 9 years probably forgot some little things in each mythology episode, leading them to be confused and lost when the next mythology episode appeared. But to me, on my first time through the series over a few months on DVD, it made perfect sense.

I agree that watching the show on DVD makes a world of difference, and I think that extends to most shows with any kind of on-going arc.

 

[Starbreaker]

I'm up to the Season 7 finale now. Scully's radical personality change is interesting. Scully and Mulder are obviously sleeping together. Beginning with En Ami, she quits fighting Mulder and just goes along with it. She's just so far out there by the Hollywood A.D. rolls around and an absolute giddy school girl in Je Souhaite.

 

[saturn5]

Slightly OT but if you're a Gillian Anderson fan be sure to check her out as Miss Havisham in the BBCs version of Great Expectations, she really is a revelation

 

[Starbreaker]

So, 5 years have gone by since I last watched through the series. I just bought the first season on Blu-Ray and revisited these episodes. The older I get, the worse the bad episodes get.

The Great
Squeeze
Tooms
The Erlenmeyer Flask
Eve
Ice
E.B.E.

The Good
Pilot
Deep Throat
Conduit
Beyond the Sea
Darkness Falls

The Average
The Jersey Devil
Genderbender
Lazarus
Young at Heart
Fallen Angel
Roland

The Bad
Shadows
Ghost in the Machine
Space
Fire
Miracle Man

So overall, there are probably 12 episodes that are worthwhile. I know Fallen Angel is a mythology episode, but I'm just not a big fan of it. I'm just watching mythology episodes and some of my favorites from here on out. I'm trying to get as far as I can through the first 6 season with the big episodes before the miniseries airs.

 

[Saga]

i'm currently watching the season 1 Blu Ray too. i've owned the series several times, going back to those old giant dvd sets to the slim ones. the quality is amazing.

as for 'the bad' i'm kinda fond of Ghost in the Machine. and Fire is good too. Space is wretched. i think just about every fan agrees on that. Genderbender is a good ep but has a WTF ending that comes out of nowhere.