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How HR would have ended

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Guest Laurent.
And I remember in some interview he was asked how the show will end, and he said (kinda joking) that Mulder and Scully will be in bed together. LOL I think it's really funny that the show is actually ended that way. :) Again, in Requeim Mulder and Scully were also in bed together and in Existence they kissed. So it really looks like he always wanted that ending: alien colonization and Mulder and Scully are together. :)

Never though of that... it's a good point although Requiem was also a possible series finale and Mulder and Scully could not have been further apart than in this one (he was in a spaceship; far away from Scully, or even a bed for that matter). To be really shippy, you could say that she was actually carrying him within herself as she just found out about her pregnancy. But I'm not going to say that. No.

As I'm writing, I'm filled with doubt. Haha. I know that Requiem as announced as a series finale at some point; I actually have a X-Files guide book where they constantly refer to the show's seventh and final year. But was the annoucement of season 8 done before the production of Requiem or after (as I believe)? I was already following the show by then, but I can't remember. :doh:

P.S. I won't say anything about your english if you don't say anything about mine!!

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I know that Requiem as announced as a series finale at some point; I actually have a X-Files guide book where they constantly refer to the show's seventh and final year. But was the annoucement of season 8 done before the production of Requiem or after (as I believe)?

As far as I know they filmed last scene of Requeim after they anounced Season 8. And if Season 8 wasn't greenlighted, they had another ending for Season 7 -- Mulder would be abducted and in last scene we would see him on alien space ship with his father approching him, and Scully wasn't supposed to be pregnant. So yeah, they weren't supposed to be together at the end of Season 7 but I meant that in Requiem there's a scene with Mulder and Scully together in bed which is kinda reminded me Chris Carter's words that we'll see Mulder and Scully in bed at the end of the show. ;) In in The Truth we indeed saw them together in bed. :)

Anyway the point is -- Chris always had that ending in his mind and I actually enjoed it very much. :)

P.S. I won't say anything about your english if you don't say anything about mine!!

LOL :) Okay. ;)

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Guest Laurent.
As far as I know they filmed last scene of Requeim after they anounced Season 8. And if Season 8 wasn't greenlighted, they had another ending for Season 7 -- Mulder would be abducted and in last scene we would see him on alien space ship with his father approching him, and Scully wasn't supposed to be pregnant.

Awesome! Where did you get that information?!

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Awesome! Where did you get that information?!

https://web.archive.org/web/20011201031808/...e/sd_07x22.html

(site taken offline by FOX, accessed through archive.org)

But even with what they shot, (M&S separated and Scully pregnant) I think it would make a decent series finale. There's nothing wrong with going out open-ended. And I'm always defending the seven-season XF versus the nine-season :)

Carter certainly had no long-term plan in s1. It was in s2 that he started building it up -- I believe at that time he only had Mulder discovers the colonization date and Samantha reunites with Fox as the ending. As the series kept on, it was eventually decided that Samantha would be dead. All the details, about the virus, the Syndicate, the hybrids etc, were made as they went along, organically as he wished to. Seasons 8 and 9 were planned altogether in advance.

All this discussion has made me wonder if Carter had any kind of long-term plan for MillenniuM. If he did, it doesn't show...

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Guest Laurent.
All this discussion has made me wonder if Carter had any kind of long-term plan for MillenniuM. If he did, it doesn't show...

I believe he even felt that the long-term apocalyptic mythology was hurting the show (for mainstream success). I'm pretty sure he just wanted MM to be an intelligent, thoughtful, scary "serial-killer-of-the-week" show. The first signs of mythology were brought up by Morgan and Wong in season 2. Before that, the "polaroid stalker" storyline was just an ongoing longer case and did not imply any plans for the series.

Anyway, I think that back in the 90s, series rarely had some long storyline (or on a bigger scale; mythology as we now call them). Viewers were just not interested in that kind of storytelling and the series kept a weekly story format most of the time. Now, it seems to be a requirement for success; you need to reward the viewer by adding something to the story and not just go in circle on a 30 or 60 minutes period.

Harsh Realm might have been some kind of pioneer if given the opportunity. The show never really had the strict distinction between standalones and mythology episodes that The X-Files had. We just follow the characters in the HR world, never knowing what they'll fall upon. But their motives are always evolving; even in episodes like Kein Ausgang, which has a story that stands on its own, they have reasons to be there and it shows in their actions as they are trying to recruit Wolfe. It's a structure similar to what is now popular because of shows like LOST.

What do you guys think? How innovative would Harsh Realm have been in terms of storytelling format?

edit: I just read my post. I really did a good job to smoothly bring the discussion back on the HR topic! Hahaha.

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What do you guys think? How innovative would Harsh Realm have been in terms of storytelling format?

Well, from the storytelling point of view Harsh Realm wasn't really innovative. I mean, Carter admitted himself that he was trying to do a modern day version of the Odyssey and the Iliad and in the history of mankind we can see that this kind of stories (an endless quest for something) were always pretty much popular. :)

But as a TV show and as a TV narrative it was quite ahead of its time, I agree. :)

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  • 8 months later...
Guest Laurent.

Sorry I never replied to you on this blackoil!

Anyway, you are right that the format itself is not innovative (except maybe as a tv series). But I think that Harsh Realm's originality goes beyond mimicking Homer's epic poem.

In fact, I think that it mirrors Homer's work only because of the structure: Hobbes wages a war away from his home and will then have to find his way back.

So like the Iliad and Odyssey, it's a story about a Ulysses-like character who travels to a different world and tries to go back home.

The story might be the same, but its meaning is different. Instead of having the character's odyssey question human nature like in Homer's poems, Carter used it as a metaphor to reality.

Is our world more real than Harsh Realm? What are the differences? Our religions also use tales of the existence of another world above our own like the myths in the realm. What if we live in someone else's virtual reality? And if the real world is destroyed (like Santiago planned to do), does Harsh Realm becomes the definition of reality?

He can use the Realm as a way of communicating what went wrong and to discuss the true nature of human being when confronted with extreme situations, just like you can with every post-apocalyptic world. But because it's also a VR, he can use it to discuss reality.

I think that was an innovative way to spin and mix Homer's Odyssey storyline, Plato's allegory of the cave and Descartes' Evil Genie.

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