Early X-Files

[Me-Ike]

Yes, I did find the threads on the seasons of The X-Files, but I intend to take this thread in a slightly different direction. I hope it's enough to not count as a repost.

Anyway, being blessed with a good amount of time these last two weeks I decided to have a go at the very first seasons of The X-Files again. (Next to checking out all the shows you guys recommended me, I'm still on that. ) I haven't seen the show in, I think, over ten years; the early seasons are probably even longer ago than that. I used to love it so much and I was a little afraid I wouldn't hold up today.

I was wrong! Not every episode in the first season is a winner, but damn, that show is still good. And I love its nineties charm.

But apart from it being still a fantastic tv show, it also brings back all the memories of when I first watched it. Sometimes it feels to me as if The X-Files was one of the last big show that seemingly everybody knew, watched, and talked about. It used to be so big, at least from my point of view. It paved the road for all those other mystery shows after it. (Which, in my youthful ignorance, I all declared to be cheap knock-offs!) The excitement I felt whenever Monday night quarter past eight approached ... never felt that again. Okay, I was pretty young back then, but it's something I'll forever connote with it.

Do you have anything similar connected with The X-Files? You like it at all? Do share!

P.S.: There's one memory that has been bugging me ever since the first season, maybe one of you can help me out. Internet research didn't turn up anything. I wasn't allowed by my father to watch every episode since he thought that the show was too violent for me. So once I tip-toed to the living-room door where he and my big brother were watching an episode. I listened at the door and only caught the last minutes. Something about Scully saving Mulder (I think she threw him a rope?) and her later asking him how his eye was.
Does that episode exist or did I invent this?

 

[byron lomax]

I'll always have a special place in my heart for the first two seasons of the X-Files. When the show debuted, I was a total paranormal/Fortean junkie, and I just loved the idea of a programme that based it's stories on the kind of "believe it or not" phenomena that were debated by sceptics and believers in real life. And the show itself was marvellous - intelligent, scary, imaginative and, most importantly, ACCURATE. The writers clearly did their research into topics like UFO sightings, out-of-body experiences, occult beliefs, spontaneous combustion etc. and integrated arguments about these topics into the dialogue between Mulder and Scully.

I didn't mind in the least when the show became mega-popular. I loved to talk about XF with everyone else, and it does seem, looking back, like one of the few major sci-fi franchises of the last 20 years.

The early X-Files also had a sense of genuine mystery about them, that still really stands out. A lot of later eps fell too easily into the basic "stuff happens that's clear from beginning, M&S arrive and see it happen, people die, the end" plot outline. The convoluted conspiracy arc really took its toll on my enthusiasm for the series in later years, as did the increasingly common humour episodes (which I like in one way, but hate in another) and reduction of the "realism" that was initially one of the show's strong points.

But all in all, XF will always be one of my favourite series.

 

[Starbreaker]

I watched S1 not too long ago. The ones dealing with the Mythology and Tooms are good, but there are several that are clunkers... like any first season.

 

[crouteru]

The only episodes I felt The X-Files generally did poorly were the religious ones, such as Miracle Man from season 1. The first season holds up pretty well after 15 odd years. The Pilot is still superb.

 

[byron lomax]

I watched S1 not too long ago. The ones dealing with the Mythology and Tooms are good, but there are several that are clunkers... like any first season.

Not as many clunkers as in seasons 5 - 9, in my opinion!

The only episodes I felt The X-Files generally did poorly were the religious ones, such as Miracle Man from season 1. The first season holds up pretty well after 15 odd years. The Pilot is still superb.

They were few and far between - personally I thought they were a nice change of pace, with Scully being the believer and Mulder the sceptic. The religious symbolism in some later Mythology eps was very childish, though.

 

[Harvey]

I didn't see more than two or three episodes while the series was on the air, but I watched the entire series two summer's ago on DVD (there's a thread hidden away summer about that). Loved (almost) every minute of it.

The first season is surprisingly strong, especially with the mytharc episodes, but also in other standalone installments. Although they didn't try out humor-centric episodes until the second season, its surprising how much of Mulder's biting sarcasm is already there in the first year, as well as how characters like Cancer Man start off completely in the background, only to emerge in a greater capacity at the end of the year.

 

[Me-Ike]

It may be that the show became/becomes better as it progresses, but right now I am still a little wary of that. I have vague memories of me liking it less after it's third year.

Who knows how much I can rely on that feeling, though. I think I was 13 when I first fell for The X-Files. I am amazed already at how differently I am perceiving it now! Who knew that Mulder and Scully were actually that flirty from the very beginning!

 

[sidious618]

I've been going through the show again (I'm up to the end of season six) and it has been a lot of fun. I agree that the first season was very good with The Erlenmeyer Flask being my favorite of the season.

 

[mswood]

Yeah I loved the show, and its funny for me its like original Trek in that I loved it yet still found it extremely uneven in quality.

Take the first season I really liked Pilot, Deep Throat, Squeeze, Conduit, Ice, Fallen Angel, Eve, Beyond the Sea (loved), EBE (loved), Erlenmeyer Flask (Loved).

But I very much disliked Jersey Devil, Shadows, Ghost in the Machine, Space, Fire, Lazarus, Young at Heart, Miracle Man, and BOrn Again.

The rest were average to me.

Usually if a show has that many misses I don't watch it. But there was that immediate chemistry between the leads, and the spark of what they show could hit was enough to make me forgive the bad, and love the good.

There has really only been a handful of shows that has happened to me with (Trek, X-Files, Supernatural, Lost, Six Feet Under, and Battlestar Galactica).

Those shows just really, really connected to me in a very strong way.

And its to bad what did end up happening to the X-Files, because I hated what the show eventually turned into.