The X-Files
Scully: “Mulder, it’s such a gorgeous day outside. Did you ever entertain the idea to try find life on this planet?”
Mulder: Whatever tape you found in that VCR, it isn’t mine.
Scully: Don’t worry, I put it in the drawer with all the other videos that aren’t yours.
Started rewatching X-files. From the very beginning. First episode down. I’ll allow myself to stop at any time, no hard feelings.
It’s like 10-15 years since I’ve last seen this series. Because we used to tape the episodes on VCR, I may have a surprsingly complete coverage on the episodes seen. Since then I’ve read the wikis on couple occasions, so I remember more than from just watching back then. I guess I’m expecting a watered down experience, mostly because of discredited tropes and writing that is allowed to be irrational when convenient. But I think it will be spooky and worth watching, especially for the myth arc. But yeah, I don’t expect I’ll endure very far. (Update 2025-08: I ended up watching it all, but it took years)
Impressions from the pilot: Don’t really remember at all. Individual scenes maybe, but given the length of the series I might be confusing to plenty of similar scenes that I’m misremembering. It seems like I will probably have forgotten the plot conclusion of every episode, so nothing is really spoiled for me. Besides, it’s the dialogue, atmosphere and some other things that really make this enjoyable this time around.
Even though the paranormal explanations can be really handwavy and thus dissapointing to the viewer, the way they happen is consistent (IIRC). It’s kind of a Skinner’s box or randomized rewards where you sometimes get satisfying answers (some myth arc episodes, some monster-of-the-week episodes too), other times you get nothing. And you keep pressing the VCR lever once more the next episode. Also, even if the episode conclusion is mystical, most of the events are reality based and follow people — big part of each episode is the typical criminal procedure series stuff, so it may feel like the paranormality is adding on that instead of eating from it, at least if you want something bit different.
Second episode down. The suspense was great in both episodes - I think I should seriously try analyzing these: I now tried rewinding the episode while paused from the beginning to the end. I thought about each scene, why was it there — what if it wasn’t? Probably it would be more powerful to write some of the analysis down, but I have a feeling that would take too much effort and dissuade me from repeating the exercise. Trying to do a little in my head is okay.
Third down. Creepy! I almost spilled out my yoghurt when I heard an agent in this episode refer to the “world trade center bombings”. Turns out that was some other unrelated terrorist act prior to 1993 when this was filmed. A quick Google search reveals not all think that is a coincidence ;)
Doing the same analysis on this episode, noticing interesting details.
Now it’s time to sleep. Let’s hope I won’t be having any bad dreams, although if I got writing ideas it would be worth it. Seriously speaking though, I definitely may have had a few nightmares when I used to watch this around 12 years old (reruns, I was even younger 1993). I remember two episodes in particular, just something especially spooky, both monster-of-the-week episodes. The lesser one had some Chinese man wagering his organs in illegal gambles. I thought it may have been first time I realized you could make monetary benefit from mutilating humans (in theory), and the way the game was actually rigged for house to always win was just pure evil. I also suspect that episode may have had some disturbing imagery - I usually averted my eyes at those moments, and I still do! Not as much, but I do.
The second scary episode I’ve heard others mention too. It’s the one with… oh dear, I don’t even want to try to remember. Those who have seen the episode might get it from these hints: Incest and mother in a box. Checked now, it’s the episode titled “Home”.
Watching X-Files. I got to admit, some of these episodes are creepy as hell. Like they leave a feeling that doesn’t go away when the episode ends.
Watching X-Files. This episode Zero Sum is pretty good. Skinner erases evidence of an X-File by Cigarette smoking man’s instructions in deal to save Scully from her cancer. But Mulder is just damn good a detective and reports to Skinner moment by moment how he is getting closer to the mystery man.
Watching X-Files. Since Mulder is always the one to have the right theory, and Scully is left to always offer the counter-arguments, it makes seem like she always pushes the agenda to convict the wrong person, which makes her quite non-heroic. Without Mulder, wouldn’t she fail to solve every case? I guess you could reason Mulder is the main character and Scully’s main role is the one assigned to her upon joining the X-Files investigation — to scientifically evaluate Mulder’s work. You don’t expect Watson to solve the mysteries. But it’s rather different from how modern tv series and fiction in general aim to show all heroes in good light.
Watching X-Files. This cyberpunk episode Kill Switch is pretty good. “It was written by William Gibson and Tom Maddox”. I remembered the goth girl from when I saw this episode long time ago. Somehow in my mind I associated it to raves, and I had the thought this episode may have inspired me that goa trance and hackers go well together.
According to Spotnitz, “Kill Switch” was the most expensive episode that the show produced during its original run in Vancouver, and it took a total of 22 days to film.
The show hired a freelance computer artist to generate a 3-D image of Scully for the scene in which she fights off a group of nurses in a virtual hospital. Gillian Anderson was very pleased with the scene, later noting, “I happened to be in good shape at the time and was just raring to get in there and be taking those half-naked nurses out with some karate chops.” David Duchovny was not as exuberant; when showed the script and directed to “be impressed with [Scully’s] karate skills”, he responded that “But I have no arms. I’ve lost my arms. Why would I care about Scully’s karate?” Dean Haglund later called the sequence “one of the great fight scenes, ever”.
Watching X-Files. This episode Unusual Suspects, the origin story of The Lone Gunmen is amazing. There aren’t many episodes that I remember as favorites, although I remember a handful of episodes because they were so scary or intense with the myth arc. Some such episodes I remembered even from many years back before starting the current rewatch, for example “Home” and “Hell Money”. But lets see (looking through lists on wikipedia), the most rememberable in the four first seasons that I saw during the last years: The funny episode about cockroaches. The episode that spoofed Plan 9 from Outer Space. Cigarette Smoking Man’s origin story. The myth episodes featuring American Indians uncovering a train wreck. The one with high school teachers forming a Satanic cult and summoning a giant snake. The one where a town eats chickens mashed together with humans. The two myth arc episodes about Japanese scientists performing an alien autopsy in a train and later Mulder getting trapped in it.
I tend to like myth arc episodes with Krycek, Skinner, Cigarette Smoking Man or “the oiliens”, and dislike the ones about abductions and the aliens in human form. I love those moments when Mulder stumbles upon some secret government laboratory, site or a filing archive. All the informant characters are great (so far Deep Throat, Mr X, and the woman from the UN).
A whole group of impactful episodes are the ones where Mulder and Scully are stuck in some remote and dangerous location: The one where they unnaturally age on a submarine. The one in the arctic research facility where members (and the dog) go crazy one by one. The one in forest with glowing green nanobugs.
Writing the above it became pretty clear I love this series even more than I thought I did. I could probably compile a similar list for Babylon 5 if I wanted to, but I don’t have a strong connection to that series at the moment, as it’s been a few years since I rewatched it, although I skipped the last season and the spin-off. Or I could do a list for The Mentalist since I watched (half of) it recently and it’s quite long. I don’t know if I’ve seen so many other American tv series with at least a hundred episodes. I’ve been meaning to make that media list to complement my anime and manga lists, but I still don’t have the software ready. Speaking of anime, looks like Gintama is the only series I’ve seen over hundred episodes of. Or two hundred if you want to adjust for tv series being about 45 minutes long and anime 22 minutes.
Unusual Suspects (The X-Files)
Gilligan went to great lengths to make the story—set in 1989—as accurate as possible. Purportedly, he tasked Ken Hawryliw, who worked on props for the show, to find “the biggest cell phone you can find”—a search that yielded the Motorola featured in the episode. Gilligan also met with a group of hackers who ran a seasonal publication called 2600 in order to learn correct hacker terminology.
Started watching X-Files from where I left off, apparently over two years ago. There’s something nice about how the series’ episodes are written and paced. Then length of 45minutes is excellent as well. I think I started rewatching this years back for the same reason, that it might inspire me.
Heh, I have to say though that in the end X-Files is still American television with most of its good and bad sides.
Watching X-Files. Few episodes now in a row I don’t recall at all, maybe never saw them. Didn’t like this latest, “Triangle” with dream-Nazis on a ship caught in time-warp and it all turns-out-to-have-been-a-dream. There was a cool visual effect at one point, shown on the Wikipedia page and described as: “The sophisticated split-screen mise en scène was inspired by the music video for Semisonic’s 1998 single”Closing Time.””
I should remember to watch the extras for this show one I finish the last season/movie. Was about to check out an extra now, but realized it would probably be bad for my ongoing immersion, eg seeing the actors out of character. My immersion even broke a little ever since I read that the Cigarette Smoking man actually smokes herbal cigarettes. I’m not sure how that’s different from knowing something like how all the dead people in all tv shows are actually live actors. I guess that one man smoking is a rare enough thing, so that I always make the mental connection when I see it. So similarly, if I were to look at the extras, the knowledge I gained from it could keep bubbling up as I continue to watch the series, ruining the immersion.
Now watching episode 15 of the same season 6, and there was a scene of a man panickedly unscrewing a just burnt light bulb and burning his hand in the process, and I remembered that detail very well from having seen this before when I was young.
The episodic style of X-Files (and many other tv series) really lends itself to many types of episodes. For example I think the humoric episodes fit very well, and even the “it was just a dream” ones tend to be okay. And the way they put the very serious mythology episodes on top of it, or sometimes even slightly mixed with the other content, it’s just great. Now watching the episode with an alien baseball player.
The episode Field Trip was also pretty cool. I saw a lot of it coming, but it was well done. It works well in this show to question all the weirdness that is going on. Scully always suggesting the simplest solution, and Mulder always being right anyway. In this episode Mulder calls out that fact specifically to Scully “How many times I’ve ever been wrong? Every time we play out this exchange, and I turn out to be right 99.8% of the time. If I say it’s aliens, won’t you give me the benefit of the doubt?”, so of course this is the one episode where he is wrong. But it’s executed in a nicely layered way so that Scully is also wrong, then Mulder, and finally Scully again and in the end it’s a third party who saves the day.
Mulder: “Come meet me either for a very late or very early birthday present.”
A boy creates living nightmares for others by using his imagination. I chuckled at the ending of the episode: He is put into a “treatment” to “stifle his imagination” — he is shown sitting in a room, watching TV (dozen sets at once actually).
This episode X-Cops was absolutely brilliant. A fictional crossover with the reality show Cops. Of course it’s again written by Vince Gilligan.
Watching X-Files. The episode “Release” had one of my favorite character types — a silent genius. It’s a young black forensics doctor student who makes wild predictions by looking at dead people. Collects photos of victims of unsolved murders. Claims they talk to him. Gets suspected of being a murderer himself, turns out he is just schizophrenic who escaped a mental hospital to solve a case.
The last episode of 8th season: So many obvious parallels to birth of Jesus, not bad actually.
