X-Files Season 8 is neat!

[RoJoHen]

I haven't watched The X-Files since it originally aired, so a lot of it a blur to me. All I really remember is that Season 8 is when Mulder goes missing and when Doggett and Reyes join the cast.

Here's what I didn't remember that I am now realizing is awesome:

1) Scully is now a full-on believer in aliens and everything that Mulder has been trying to prove.

2) Not just Scully, but Skinner too! His breakdown in the Season 7 finale, after years of not really believing, was amazing. "What I saw I can't deny." Frickin great. I love that it has carried on into Season 8 and that he is more Scully's partner than Doggett.

3) Doggett is wonderfully frustrating. He's like Scully was in Season 1, and Scully is like the new Mulder. Their dynamic is great!

4) Scully is pissed all the time, and why not? Mulder is missing. She might be pregnant with an alien baby. She has absolutely nobody she can trust. I would be pissed all the time too. Gillian Anderson does a fantastic job conveying all of this while still very much being Dana Scully.

5) I remember being annoyed that David Duchovny left the show. I mean, what the hell is the point of the X-Files is Mulder isn't there, right? What makes Season 8 so awesome is that the show is still about Mulder. It's about his mission. It's about how Scully and Skinner have been effected by him. And more than that, it's about finding him. Even though he's gone, you still get the sense that this season is very much about him.

Anyway, I'm gonna keep watching. I'm glad it's been so long since the last time I watched the show because this is an awesome ride. Most of my memory from the show are from the events of Season 2-5, so even though I've seen all of this before, it's almost like watching it for the first time.

 

[startrekwatcher]

For me the show came off the rails in S6 and the last two seasons felt like a completely different show. The nucleus that formed the show and the main reason why I watched was no longer there--namely the Scully/Mulder relationship and their various interactions on several levels. Duchovny leaving, Doggett being added, Scully's presence being continuously reduced and ultimately being replaced by Reyes except for an occasional brief appearance, and the retconning/rebooting and continuous tweaking of the mythology turning it into a complete incoherent mess just really marked a "jump the shark" moment for the series.

Parts of the show were still good--namely the season premiere 2 parter and the return of Mulder--really powerful and moving stuff seeing what both Scully was going through without him and Mulder's torture on the alien craft but the rest I have tried to rewatch to give it another shot and it is as mediocre or bad as I remember. Even the standalone stories were nowhere as good or entertaining as they used to be in the show's great years. Yet another example of a show kept around way passed its expiration date.

 

[Pingfah]

5) I remember being annoyed that David Duchovny left the show. I mean, what the hell is the point of the X-Files is Mulder isn't there, right? What makes Season 8 so awesome is that the show is still about Mulder. It's about his mission. It's about how Scully and Skinner have been effected by him. And more than that, it's about finding him. Even though he's gone, you still get the sense that this season is very much about him.

Yeah, to me that just felt like they were pretending he was still in the show when he wasn't.

I thought 8 and 9 were mostly unadulterated crap, and the series finale was pathetic.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, in all fairness, I have strictly been watching the mythology episodes. I skipped a lot of the filler episodes in the last couple seasons.

Season 7 definitely felt off. After the events of Season 6 when the Syndicate is destroyed and Mulder effectively wins, and then with him finally coming to terms with his sister's death, it really felt like the show should have ended. It would have been a perfect finale, but then the show kept going.

Season 8 feels like a new chapter of the X-Files, much like the last two seasons of Stargate SG-1, with a new set of characters and a new story, but still good continuation of the previous years.

 

[RoJoHen]

5) I remember being annoyed that David Duchovny left the show. I mean, what the hell is the point of the X-Files is Mulder isn't there, right? What makes Season 8 so awesome is that the show is still about Mulder. It's about his mission. It's about how Scully and Skinner have been effected by him. And more than that, it's about finding him. Even though he's gone, you still get the sense that this season is very much about him.

Yeah, to me that just felt like they were pretending he was still in the show when he wasn't.

I thought 8 and 9 were mostly unadulterated crap, and the series finale was pathetic.

See, that's how I remember it when it first aired, but I'm enjoying a lot more this time around.

 

[Pingfah]

I'm actually rewatching the whole thing myself, i've only seen it through once before, besides catching a few episodes when it originally aired, so I have only seen each season 8 and 9 episode once each.

I'm undecided if i'm going to bother with 8 and 9 or stop after 7.

 

[RoJoHen]

You should at least watch the mythology episodes in those seasons. I think I'm enjoying it as much as I am because I'm skipping all the filler.

This is the list I've been following, and it's worked out really well:
http://www.xfilesforum.net/index.php?topic=4355.0

 

[Aragorn]

I thought season 8 breathed new life into the show. Season 9, on the other hand...

 

[RoJoHen]

I thought season 8 breathed new life into the show. Season 9, on the other hand...

Yeah, I'm kind of dreading it.

 

[Aragorn]

How they tried to explain Mulder being gone while keeping Scully, in addition to what they used Scully for, was pretty horrible. It would've been better if they let Anderson out of her contract and focused on Doggett and Reyes. Maybe convince Anderson and Duchovny to guest star from time to time until the big blown series finale which would NOT have been a clip show!

 

[RoJoHen]

I definitely remember being annoyed by the finale. However, I also remember the final scene with Mulder and Scully in bed and Mulder talking about how the dead are not lost to us. Keeping that scene in mind makes watching the series a lot more emotional because these characters lose so many friends and family members along the way.

 

[Captain Craig]

I liked X-Files till the end.
Did S8&9 have some lame eps, sure doesn't mean the whole season was that way.
I think both seasons have more Average-Above Avereage than they do Below.

The flip of Scully now as a beliver and Dogget the new Scully was what made these seasons great. Even if Scully had bowed out I still would have watched a Dogget&Reyes S10 cause Reyes was becoming the most Mulder-esque of that pairing.

 

[RoJoHen]

I liked X-Files till the end.
Did S8&9 have some lame eps, sure doesn't mean the whole season was that way.
I think both seasons have more Average-Above Avereage than they do Below.

The flip of Scully now as a beliver and Dogget the new Scully was what made these seasons great. Even if Scully had bowed out I still would have watched a Dogget&Reyes S10 cause Reyes was becoming the most Mulder-esque of that pairing.

I wasn't a huge fan of Reyes, but I enjoyed her introduction in Season 8, with her smoking Morley Lights.

 

[sidious618]

How the hell is the series finale a clips show? I understand not liking it but calling it a clips show is ridiculous.

 

[RoJoHen]

How the hell is the series finale a clips show? I understand not liking it but calling it a clips show is ridiculous.

Well, it's definitely partially a clip show. They sit all the characters down one and at a time and they explain what's been going on the last 9 years.

 

[Captain Craig]

I liked X-Files till the end.
Did S8&9 have some lame eps, sure doesn't mean the whole season was that way.
I think both seasons have more Average-Above Avereage than they do Below.

The flip of Scully now as a beliver and Dogget the new Scully was what made these seasons great. Even if Scully had bowed out I still would have watched a Dogget&Reyes S10 cause Reyes was becoming the most Mulder-esque of that pairing.

I wasn't a huge fan of Reyes, but I enjoyed her introduction in Season 8, with her smoking Morley Lights.

I wasn't either but Reyes like Scully was tough to like at first. My ex-girlfriend is watching them and her comment is that its tough to like Scully right away cause she is so off putting. Reyes episodes remind me of that. Always nice to rewatch those early S1 eps with fresh commentary from someone new like my ex. She's hooked though, she just came by my place for S2. I think that like Doggett became Scully that Reyes would've warmed into an even more likeable type of Mulder.

 

[sidious618]

How the hell is the series finale a clips show? I understand not liking it but calling it a clips show is ridiculous.

Well, it's definitely partially a clip show. They sit all the characters down one and at a time and they explain what's been going on the last 9 years.

That's not a clips show; that's an explanation which was soemthing people had been clamoring for for years (even though they had already laid things out well enough). A clips show is like Stargate's "Politics." If you put the clips together in the finale you'd probably get less than a minute worth of shots.

 

[RoJoHen]

Well, it's been years since I saw the finale. I remember a lot of clips. Perhaps I am wrong.

 

[Harvey]

Season eight is my favorite season. It has all the energy that the seventh season lacked, and it kicks the mythology into high gear for the first time since Two Fathers/One Son from the middle of season six.

Season nine is a big misstep, though, no doubt about it. But season eight is a lot of fun, and it even comes to a conclusion that's not a bad end point if you'd like to conclude the series there.

 

[The Borgified Corpse]

I've always been in the minority of X-Files fans. I thought Mulder had a lot of great moments, but there were just as many moments where Duchovney was clearly phoning it in, particularly in Season 7. (They go to all the trouble of moving production from Canada to California and he's still not happy?)

But I think Robert Patrick is one of the coolest guys on the planet and John Doggett injected some much needed life into the series. I prefer the Scully/Doggett pairing in Season 8 over the Doggett/Reyes pairing in Season 9 but I don't mind Reyes. She's hot & she's got some interesting quirks.

I would have been very much on board with a Scully-less Season 10 with Doggett & Reyes. Hell, with both Mulder & Scully gone maybe they could still do movies with those 2 while continuing the TV series with Doggett & Reyes.