Personal Experience Of The X-files.

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

I thought I'd start out here by outlining what the show meant to me and how it was received (or what I experienced of that) here in the UK. When the X-Files appeared over here, it was the most exciting thing to have come on in years. Everyone and his dog watched and to miss an episode was sacrilege. But I would point out that this didn't last; by the mid-point of the third Season (roughly) UK interest was starting to plummet at least in my area. By the start of S4 most people (including me) had simply stopped watching altogether. So why was this (and believe me, I was a HUGE fan during Seasons 1 and 2)? Well... I think here in the UK, we just didn't really go for the whole mytharc thing. Seasons 1 and 2 promised something along the lines of a Government that was covering up the knowledge of aliens to salvage their tech and incorporate their DNA to make 'better humans'. Heinous acts but compulsive viewing. S3 started the notion that they were working -with- the aliens and this completely contradicted what had come before. Shapeshifting alien bounty hunters, comedy episodes and rehashs of old episodes pretty much killed what had been a massive hit up until that point. Plus, I think people were not as won over by Mulder and Scully as in the US. Sure, they were good characters but by S3, we knew them and we knew the others too. So seeing the CSM behind everything and having them fired, reinstated then fired again began to drag. Also, 1013 become enamoured with the 2-part mytharc episode - something which would recur again and again regular as clockwork to more and more tiresome effect. The standard of the standalone episodes plunged as more and more time was given over to the (often ridiculous) mytharc and interest evaporated. A big shame. When the series were all going on Special price (£20 a set can't be bad eh?), I picked them up and decided to watch them all to see if my decision to quit after S3 was a bad one. Was it? Well...

It is largely still my opinion that if you have seen up to (and including) Season Four, you have seen all the episodes that you HAVE to see. The later Seasons have many worthy episodes but plenty of poor ones and the mytharc gets so repetitive and silly as to be unwatchable (Seasons 4 and 5 have particularly bad mytharc episodes). Pretty much the whole of Season 5 is one long boring mess. Mulder doesn't believe in aliens anymore after a quite frankly unconvincing story, Scully doesn't do much of anything other than find she has a daughter and lose her immediately (Vince Gilligan hand your head in shame). After that we have Seasons 6 and 7, entertaining in their own way but filled with annoying, allegedly funny episodes that merely irritate with their slight content. The mytharc finally sees some progression in S6 but all but breaks down in S7 (no bad thing really for anti-mytharc people like me). Season 8 thankfully dispenses with the 'humour' and returns to the old style. Unfortunately the main writer for the Season is Frank Spotnitz, a man of decidedly varied quality at writing episodes. All the real heavyweights besides Carter had left (Howard Gordon and Alex Gansa, Glen Morgan and James Wong plus Vince Gilligan writes only 1 episode - the very dissapointing 'Roadrunners').

So that is my experience of the X-Files. I'd be interested to know others experiences - what you thought was good and bad and particularly how much you cared about Mulder and Scully and the mytharc. It is my feeling that continuity is at least as important as characters. Millennium didn't have it really between seasons and neither did the XF past S2. With greater continuity and introducing new characters earlier than S8 (because ti felt like a breath of fresh air and worked much better than I thought it would or could), maybe the UK and myself could have cared right up until the end. As it was sadly, we just lost interest and that was unfortunate because in its time, TXF was one of the true greats of TV.

[Guest amnesic]

i agree with a lot of what you said. i have always hated and never really understood the mythology part. to me it was largely nonsensical. i have S4 on DVD, and i like S4 so long as i skip any myth-arc episodes (which i still haven't watched). there are some S5 eps i like (killswitch, folie a deux, the vampire one com e to mind) though i recorded them of BBC when it was on (rather than buying the DVD which was that same price as the other seasons despite being a few episodes short of a traditional season!). i may, just, may, buy S5 when it is re-released in the summer at £25.

i think the success of the early seasons on the BBC and Sky, apart from the fact that they were genuinely more interesting episodes, was that they were stand alone eps. You could sit and watch an episode one week and not worry if you missed one the following week. less detailed arcs about scully's abduction, krycek (in the beginning) were easier to keep up with because they didn't overload the viewer with information that was, frankly, ridiculous (requiring superb memory and concentration to work out what the fek was going on).

unfortunetly, as much as i like the XFs earlier seasons, i will forever associate that show with the dumbing down of the TV audience. After XFs debuted normally rationale people began spouting mumbo jumbo, conspiracy-paranoia, pseudo-science that they'd gotten of the show. Even today, the effects of the faulty thinking and pseudoscience that were peddled by this show are still prevailent in society.

[Guest chrisnu]

I will admit that by "Tunguska"/"Terma", it felt like the mythology was being made up as it went along. However, some of it was still exciting and fun to watch. I'd rank the seasons as follows, from best to worst:

Season Three

Season Two

Season Four

Season Six

Season Five

Season Seven

Season One

Season Eight

Season Nine

[Raven Wolf]

Well, as a rabid X-Files fan, I have to say that, though I still throughly enjoyed all 9 years, there were some problems, as you said, in keeping their "storys straight", so to speak. I noticed, also, the change from working against the aliens, and working WITH them. For example, in the whole Anasazi, The Blessing Way, Paper Clip trilogy, Mulder found a train car, filled with alien bodies, that had obviously been experimented on. How, then, were they planning to wipe us off the planet? I was never sure. Then, later, when people started shooting these aliens, at times, their blood was like acid, and would blind us, and at others it did not. Much later, after it had been established that the only way to kill them was with a special blade, inserted in the back of the neck, suddenly Scully manged to shoot one in the back of the neck, killing it. But, I let that slide...At least it was in the same aria. The problems that The X Files suffered I think came from too much interference from FOX big-wigs who wanted another monster show, not something intellegent and thought-provoking. It was apparent to me that Chris Carter was as frustrated with the death-grip FOX had on him and all of his shows, as it came out periodicaly on each of his shows. Still, even with the problems it had, it is still, in my openion the best series to have hit the airwaves in our lifetime. Sad to think of how much more it, Millennium, and all the other 10-13 productions would have been if everyone would have just gotton out of the way.

[Guest Pencil Machine Operator]

I think the consensus (if there is ever such a thing) is that TXF reached its peak maybe around Memento Mori (or even before that) and gradually declined from there. I know that a lot of people gave up about half-way through s6.

I havent seen s8 or 9. For me the only seasons that I didn't really like were 5 and 6. Season 5... too many, for me, very weak episodes: Chinga, Mind's Eye, Schizogeny...

and Season6... too many high-concept, one idea episodes like Monday and Triangle. (But then again it has some of my faves: Milagro, Arcadia...).

I know its not that popular but I really liked Season7. It was nothing like what had gone before, it had a strange kind of mood all of its own. (some s7 eps I didnt like: Chimera, Fight Club, Signs and Wonders).

Seasons 1-3 are, for me, pretty much perfect television; eclipsed only by seasons 1 and 2 of Millennium. The mythology is pretty coherent, and the one-off eps are fresh and original. Season 4 is great also; the mythology eps were enjoyable, but nonsensical, romps. And the one-offs were still mostly of a high quality (except for Synchrony, yuck!).

Personal experience of the X-Files? I'll always remember sneakily tuning into TheX-Files, when I was 11 years old. I knew my parents would'nt let me watch it, so I would be scared of two things: 1) the spooky stuff in the episode, and 2) that one of my parents would walk in! First episode I watched was Eve, it was the scariest thing I had ever seen (not anymore!), so I'm proud to say: I was there from the beginning.

Edited April 30, 2004 by Pencil Machine Operator

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

I also liked Season Seven (and I really liked 'Signs and Wonders' actually...) as it does have a strange atmosphere. It is by turns melancholy and religious with some very good episodes (or at least ideas for episodes). Because in my opinion S7 is let down by the actors not once but twice. Firstly, DD and GA (DD in particular) seem to have completely run out of steam. They just seem like they can't be bothered at all with playing the roles of Mulder and Scully anymore. See the start of 'Orison' for instance after the front credits. Mulder is speaking of one of their deadliest opponents from the past but DD is sleepwalking his way through the lines!

The second letdown is that roughly halfway through the Season it abandons the creepy mystique that had been slowly building throughout 'Millennium', 'Rush', 'Orison', 'Signs and Wonders', 'Closure' etc and started showing more obviously experimental and silly episodes such as 'X-Cops' and the deplorable 'First Person Shooter'. This is married with the terrible decision to let the actors start writing the episodes again. They had a team of writers so why not use them? Instead we have episodes by DD, GA and William Davis - all of them distinctly sub-par ('En Ami' is just impenetrably boring, 'All things' meanders around accomplishing nothing and 'Hollywood A D' shows that DD should never be allowed to write anything ever again). Of the final half only 'Theef' is even nearly worthy of note (although I suppose 'Requiem' isn't actually all that bad).

Just to close for now, I actually thought S6 wasn't too bad either. Lots of poor episodes but a greater proportion of good episodes than S5 surely? I can't believe you like S5 amnesic! It's awful! I bought it on video and have no desire at all to waste more money on it by upgrading to DVD... Still, if you like it, good luck to you. Incidentally, what do people see in 'Killswitch' - I thought it was a ridiculous episode and pretty terrible to boot?

Thanks guys (and gals).

[Guest Pencil Machine Operator]

Killswitch? Its just a fun episode, really. The science is obviously nonsense, but get a load of kung-fu Scully! Also, the Lone Gunmen have pretty prominent roles, which is always a good thing.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who liked Closure, MDM. Most people seem to hate it.

I have to say, I quite liked the actor-written episodes. All Things DID occasionally seem like a vanity piece, but still, I liked it a lot more than most people.

Hollywood A.D, I thought was very funny (especially Wayne /slash/ Federman), and quite interesting (especially when Mulder is talking about how the dead are remembered). And how can you hate an episode that features the line "...my sniper zombies are everywhere, Mr. Mulder!!"

X-Cops, I think, could have been really great, but was let down by silly, and frankly homophobic, characterisation.

Acting-wise, I didn't really notice anything terrible in Season7. But I think, yeah, Duchovny does, very occasionally, 'phone it in', as they say.

Edited April 30, 2004 by Pencil Machine Operator

[Guest amnesic]

i don't think i said i liked S5, just that i liked a few eps from it. I think i have about 5 on tape from that season, and they are recorded from TV on an internal arial, so the picture is not very good quality (mono sound too!). given that i spend huge volumes on buying TV series on DVD i could see myself buying S5 for £25.

[Raven Wolf]

I know its not that popular but I really liked Season7.

Hey, I loved season 7 too! I guess to me the best ones were season 3, 4, 5, & 7.

[Guest ModernDayMoriarty]

For my money, Seasons 6, 7 and 8 are all fairly good, just not as good as the early Seasons. They are still worth watching, just don't expect such classics as 'Beyond the Sea' etc. I wasn't trying to get on your case amnesic - it's just that S5 was such a huge letdown for me and I do consider it by far the weakest of all the 8 Seasons I have seen. So how about summing up the Seasons in terms of what you did and didn't like about them? I'll have a think about it but seeing as how you've said what Seasons you like in order Raven, why don't you clue us in on why you thought they were good/bad?

Cheers.