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I've been watching the show through from the beginning and I'm presently trying* to get through season seven. There's been some very good episodes but they don't seem to have had as much of a direction for the show since "Two Fathers" / "One Son". I mean, I knew when I got into it that it would eventually become "Chris Carter was making the mythology up as he went along" but even the mythology episodes ("Sein und Zeit" / "Closure" for example) seem to be slightly wanting. * I say "trying" because my laptop seems to have this defect where it sometimes won't play TV series DVDs; movies are fine but with TV shows - especially when they're from a box set - it's a flip of a coin whether they'll work when you put the disc in the tray and close it; lots of whirring and clicking and chugging for some reason.
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Mar 1, 2014 13:57
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MisterBibs posted:After 9/11, when our government was shown to be vulnerable to outside threats, that notion was shattered. On the other hand, I've read one or two reviews which suggest that the "rally around the flag" effect that 9/11 provoked (or even just a desire to feel that someone had a steady hand on the tiller) briefly made government conspiracies, especially those enacted to pull the wool over the eyes of their citizens, seem less patalable (although this trend was reversed as the 2000s wore on).
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Apr 1, 2014 10:02
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Having taken a break from the series after season seven (I watched the first two seasons of seaQuest DSV) I've started back into season eight. I'm not far in so I can't pass judgment yet. I like Doggett well enough. The last three episodes in a row that I watched ("Surekill", "Salvage" and "Badlaa") were all a bit dull, unfortunately. Hopefully it picks up with the next one ("The Gift"). I've heard it's meant to be okay.
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Apr 11, 2014 23:51
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I've finished season eight, and it was pretty good on the whole. It was a bit sluggish at the start and some of the MOTW episodes weren't as strong as they were in earlier seasons but it improved as it went on, and the streak of episodes from "Per Manum" through to "Existence" might very well have been one of the best the series has done. I guess it's kind of like season six of Buffy, in that respect (that is, insofar as I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did because I'd heard that it wasn't great, but it ended up exceeding my expectations).
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Apr 15, 2014 00:29
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And that's the end of The X-Files. It was quite an experience. I hope they get to make their third movie one day. Maybe I will watch I Want To Believe at some point, but for now I'm moving on to something that I think will be a little bit sillier.
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Apr 20, 2014 02:01
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haveblue posted:X-Files can be subtle when they want to. At one point Mulder semi-jokingly threatens Scully with being sent to a women's prison with a cellmate who "reads a lot of Gertrude Stein". Large Marge!
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Jun 27, 2014 16:28
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I've not seen Millennium before, aside from the finale episode absorbed into The X-Files (I'd no idea what was going on). How was it? Worth tracking down, maybe?
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Jan 19, 2015 01:23
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Read an article lately observing that Gilligan's said he'd be keen to be involved in a revival of the show if it got off the ground. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I didn't make a note of the website's address. 
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Feb 27, 2015 22:20
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Octy posted:Fun fact, Michael Emerson is now 60 years old. Where did time go? Perhaps, if you've been on the island for too long, you age more rapidly when you leave?
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Mar 11, 2015 10:19
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What I've read is that what was meant to happen in season seven was CSM establishing a new Syndicate with Marita Covarubius and Alex Krycek, but it never really came to anything. I'm not sure, though, if the episode where Krycek shoves wheelchair-bound CSM down some stairs and (seemingly) kills him was meant to be the start of it only for it never to take off, or if that was meant to be the climax of events that had been set up beforehand. I can't remember.
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Mar 11, 2015 20:37
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Is there any particular reason why they replaced Krycek with Adam Baldwin's character? Did Nicholas Lea just want out or did they decide to write him out?
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Mar 11, 2015 21:04
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Basebf555 posted:There has to be at least some throwaway acknowledgement of the myth arc because the invasion should be in full swing by now. There has to be some explanation for why the colonists cancelled their plans or postponed them. They intercepted a Harold Camping (remember him?) radio broadcast and decided it wasn't worth invading a world that was going to end that year anyway.
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Mar 23, 2015 16:56
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I'd have thought there'd be TV directors waiting in line to work on The X-Files, but I might be overestimating how big a deal it was in its heyday (I was too young for The X-Files while it was on).
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Mar 25, 2015 01:39
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Acer Pilot posted:CSM is probably a human alien hybrid clone now? 
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Mar 28, 2015 19:24
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Bob Ojeda posted:It's clearly the redheaded British woman from Fire A shame they never had Mark Sheppard back, though.
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May 1, 2015 19:59
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Jack Gladney posted:I hope it's a timely "X-Cops"-style crossover with 19 Kids and Counting. With special guest star Mike Huckabee.
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Jun 17, 2015 21:30
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Chairman Capone posted:I remember at the time there was some review on the end of the show about how The X-Files was such a product of the Clinton era and its view on government, the conspiracies it generated, etc., it already seemed anachronistic in the new Bush era (at least those early years). I think the AV Club review for "Nothing Important Happened Today" said something like that as well, namely that The X-Files couldn't continue as it had in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 because, in that short window between the towers coming down and the start of the fighting in Iraq, mass audiences in America weren't keen on the idea that the government was scheming against them and hiding the truth from them. Now, this was before the PATRIOT Act and wire-tapping and what have you, and I imagine there still would've been a place - perhaps even a very important place - for The X-Files in that cultural context, but by then, I think mainstream TV had moved on to 24.
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Aug 12, 2015 21:23
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I guess it's because the 1990s were meant to be the end of history, when the Cold War was ended, liberal democracy had driven all before it, communism was defeated, and the success of the Western coalition in Kuwait seemed to suggest that the most we (by which I mean the Anglosphere) would have to worry about on the geopolitical scale was working through either NATO or the UN to resolve local political disputes (though obviously Somalia and Rwanda had put paid to that last part by the middle of the decade). There was no Soviet Union to represent an existential external threat, and radical Islamic terrorism hadn't yet emerged to replace it. So, people looked inwards for something to be suspicious or paranoid of. The 1990s were the decade of Posse Comitatus, conspiracy theories about FEMA death camps and black helicopters, the Waco siege, domestic terrorism and so on. For example, keep in mind that one Tom Clancy novel where the villains were originally Muslim terrorists mounting an attack on the continental United States, but were changed to a far-right militia before publication because it was felt that it would be more believable that way. You also had a seeming preponderance of doomsday cults like the Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple, Heavens Gate, Aum Shinrikyo (in Japan), teh Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God (in Uganda) etc. People who believed that the dawning of the new millennium would herald the emergence of the evil planet Nibiru from behind the Sun, the inevitable and fatal approach of which would be obscured by the perihelion of the Comet Hale-Bopp. Of course, just about every decade has had all of these things and more, but I think in the 20th century the 1990s are set apart by the fact that there wasn't a Soviet Union looming on the other side of the world. (Disclaimer: I read a bunch of end of history stuff when I was researching my dissertation and ended up using none of it.  )
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Aug 12, 2015 21:45
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Yes, that's what I was thinking of - cheers for clarifying the details.
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Aug 13, 2015 00:31
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Yannick_B posted:Yes! Post-9/11, there was something comforting and needed about 24 and Jack Bauer pulling all the horrible stops to prevent terrorist attacks. I think it may be somewhat telling that, by the time they each came to an end, the characters in both 24 and Spooks seemed to be dealing with shadowy international conspiracies that might as well have been the Syndicate more than terrorists.
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Aug 13, 2015 09:44
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I watched Fringe before The X-Files so I was amused by some of the parallels (in terms of MOTW plots they both use in season one) between them when I watched the latter. It's a bit like how I watched Red Dwarf before I saw TNG, and when I watched the latter there was an episode that I'm sure directly influenced Lister's line, "Kryten, don't give me that Star Trek crap. It's too early in the morning."
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Aug 14, 2015 09:08
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I also really liked how the flashback episode had a retro version of the theme played on eighties synths.
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Aug 15, 2015 15:46
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Supernatural has been on my list for ages but I've never quite gotten around to watching it. I think it's the length of it that puts me off - sure, The X-Files and SG1 were both pretty long series as well, but I started them after they'd finished and I knew I was working towards a definite ending. I'm pretty sure the producers of Supernatural have said they're fully prepared to keep it going for ten more seasons if they're not cancelled first. Personally, I sometimes wonder if they're trying make it to 12 so they can beat Smallville for episodes, then wind it up.
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Aug 22, 2015 20:57
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According to Wikipedia, the first movie made money, so it must have been decently popular by itself, but it must be pretty unique as a theatrical film that requires audiences to have some knowledge of a TV series. Of course, I may be underestimating how popular The X-Files was when it was on - I'm too young to have followed it when it was new.
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Oct 7, 2015 13:19
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Somebody please remind me: was it The X-Files or Fringe where the monster of the week was once the ghost of a vengeful elephant?
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Oct 10, 2015 21:28
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As a Christmas present, I was given all three seasons of Millennium on DVD, and the very odd thing is that the third season doesn't have a slipcase while the other two do. It's odd how that happens sometimes.
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Dec 25, 2015 09:43
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Right, so I'm about half a dozen episodes into the first season of Millennium and I've enjoyed it so far. I reckon if this had come out maybe 10 years later, it could've been a huge hit; it reminds me a lot of Criminal Minds, only with a kind of mystical dimension.
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Dec 28, 2015 01:39
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I liked how Highlander was set in a town called "Seacouver" that was meant to be part-Vancouver, part-Seattle. Speaking of Seattle, I'm still on Millennium and I'm into season two now. It's been most enjoyable so far - I especially liked "The Curse of Frank Black". It was something a bit different. Lance Henrikssen reminds me a lot of someone but I'm not sure who. Maybe either James Woods or Gary Cole? I think he sort of looks like them.
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Dec 30, 2015 22:45
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Right, so I'm on "The Mikado", and the cold open involves three guys enthusing over how there must be at least 39 (39!) hours' worth of porn on the Internet, then in the first two minutes or so after the credits, Frank asks, "Did any of these women have an email address?" Ah, the late 1990s. 
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Dec 31, 2015 23:58
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I'm about halfway through the third season of Millennium - I know a lot of people don't like it but I think it's fine.  I'm just a bit worn out on apocalyptic stories, so while season two certainly impressed me a lot, I wouldn't say it completely blew me away.Anyway, I have this image of the Cigarette-Smoking Man watching everything the Millennium Group does while smugly narrating to himself about how they're a bunch of rank amateurs who he could run rings around if he thought they were worth the effort. 
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Jan 3, 2016 04:13
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Millennium and The X-Files between them are clearly the originators of the idea that science-fiction shows need to have ludicrously byzantine mythology plots replete with secret societies working against each other and trying to fulfil or prevent ancient prophecies, usually involving Terry O'Quinn. They started it, then J. J. Abrams picked it up for Alias and Lost, then everyone else copied it, but they didn't succeed (possibly because they lacked Terry O'Quinn).
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Jan 3, 2016 19:18
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Basebf555 posted:Anyway I told you all that to make you jealous, did it work? Yes.
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Jan 4, 2016 22:48
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You can probably come up with some kind of continuum of science-fiction shows like that. I tend to think it starts with TNG, because it showed the potential for science-fiction (and its syndication model was no doubt influential for similar programmes as well). For example: Star Trek: The Next Generation -> The X-Files -> Buffy the Vampire Slayer -> Alias -> Lost -> More or less everything post-Lost branches off here. I think Doctor Who would branch off from Buffy.
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Jan 9, 2016 20:07
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I'm surprised I forgot Quantum Leap because it's definitely a big one as well (also my dad really likes it and always watches reruns of it when they come on). It definitely fits in there as well, I think. Re: Doctor Who: Davies cited Buffy as an influence but I'm not sure about X-Files, though it's very probable, seeing as the series was as popular in the UK as it was anywhere.
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Jan 10, 2016 14:29
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Astroman posted:The entire concept of "Monster of the Week" and "Mytharc" episodes that so many shows use was literally invented on X-Files. At least that's when people started talking about it. Even outside science-fiction / fantasy shows, most dramas - I suppose the "prestige dramas" of the late 1980s / early 1990s, all the Steven Bochco and David E. Kelley police and lawyer shows - were episodic with a few ongoing plots. They weren't serialised in the way modern dramas are; Bochco tried that when he made Murder One, which ended up with like 10 minutes' worth of "previously on" recaps at the start of each episode by the end of the season. quote:When X-FIles came on, the big sci-fi was stuff like Star Trek, Doctor Who, and other series that were often short lived with small budgets, laughable effects, and in popular culture were considered the provenance of nerds. X-Files was pretty unabashedly supernatural/sci-fi but somehow it was amazingly popular and mainstream. Wasn't Doctor Who kind of a cult thing outside the UK and some Commonwealth countries back then? I was of the impression that the obscure British sci-fi shows you cited to show your early 1990s nerd cred were Doctor Who and Red Dwarf.
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Jan 10, 2016 16:11
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There's also an entertaining Easter egg in the second season finale of Millennium where Peter Watts breaks into a secret government bunker and discovers one of CSM's discarded cigarette packets.
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Jan 11, 2016 23:07
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Payndz posted:I've also wondered how much TXF paved the way for shows like CSI or Hannibal by raising the bar for the level of gore allowed on network TV. I know that by the 90s we were a long way past the days when corpses couldn't be shown with open eyes on US TV (Star Trek used to get regular reminders from the network censors not to do it), but by 'Bad Blood' we had the bloody entrails of a murder victim being thrown about on screen for laughs, and plenty of gruesome scenes involving bodies or parts thereof before that. It's sort of a strange thing, isn't it, where you can have gore and it's fine so long as it's funny? Like that Monty Python with the big fat guy who eats all the food in a restaurant and explodes.
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Jan 12, 2016 01:15
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haveblue posted:Morleys have actually shown up a whole lot of places, not all of them deliberate X-Files nods, wherever a cigarette is needed but you can't or won't use a real brand. Oh, yeah, I know, but in the context of The X-Files, they're CSM's brand, and they wouldn't have gone out of their way to focus on the packet in that Millennium episode if that wasn't what they were hinting at. Chairman Capone posted:Speaking of CSI, I just remembered that Nicholas Lea (Krycek) had a recurring role early on in the original CSI. I think he was dating Marg Helgenberger's character. I really enjoy the episode of Highlander where Nicholas Lea plays an Immortal who McLeod and Amanda knew in the 1930s when he convinced Amanda to go and by the Bonnie to his Clyde, and every time they were inevitably killed in a shoot-out with the police, McLeod had to go and dig them up so they could start over.
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Jan 12, 2016 02:57
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Turns out the Syndicate discovered the secret antidote to the black oil written in invisible ink on the back of Obama's Kenyan birth certificate.
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Jan 13, 2016 00:38
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Chairman Capone posted:Turns out the conspiracy leader is the OSS agent that Mulder met in 1939 from Triangle. Every "conspiracy" show should probably just end with the main character being shaken awake by Terry O'Quinn yelling, "WE'RE STILL ON THE ISLAND, JACK!"
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Jan 25, 2016 23:01
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