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RoboChrist 9000 posted:This show was so great when it was good, what happened? I understand that Carter is a hack, that much is evident, but then how/why was it ever as good as it was? There's plenty of excellent videos and articles discussing, say, the hows and whys of what happened to the Simpsons, and for something like Game of Thrones or Battlestar Galactica there's also readily apparent explanations for why the shows took the nosedives they did when they did. But what the heck happened to the X-Files? Part of it certainly seems to be the fact the Syndicate plotline was thoroughly wrapped up in season 6 but then trotted out once more as a zombie, but the issues seem more fundamental and far-reaching than that. Like the problems with the latter seasons, and especially last season, go deeper and farther than simply 'the mytharc has nowhere to go' I'm rewatching the series from episode 1 and am currently 3 episodes away from finishing season 7. Season 7 still has some good stuff, but the cracks are definitely starting to show. The biggest issues I've seen are: 1)The mytharc ends after season 6, but they keep going back to it in season 7. The Cigarette Smoking Man goes from a weird enforcer of the cabal to some kind of evil mastermind that's just kind of hanging around at the fringes and screwing around with Scully and Mulder. 2) The monster of the week stuff starts retreading old ground and getting more complex and convoluted as a result. "Chimera" was an enjoyable episode in season 7, but it felt a lot like a mishmash of 3 or 4 other episodes. 3) The tone of the show is going a lot more comedic. Which is fine, some of the best episodes are equal parts sci-fi and comedy. But almost every episode is getting goofier and losing that horror edge. Season 8 and 9 have these problems, plus you lose the Mulder and Scully dynamic that keeps even weak episodes entertaining.
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Jan 5, 2018 18:15
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:00 |
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I finished season 7 in my rewatch and just started season 10. We finished "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" last night. My fiancé loved that one, and after this rewatch I'm considering that one of the best episodes ever made. Possibly my favorite one just for how it's everything I want in an X-files episode: weird, funny, a little scary, and it makes you think. I also totally missed a gag the first time I watched the episode. Mulder goes to meet Guy Mann at the cemetery after talking to Guy Mann's shrink. Guy breaks a bottle, trying to get Mulder to stab him in the appendix and kill him. He then tosses away that bottle and pulls out ANOTHER bottle, which he sets on the tombstone. After the story, Mulder pulls a bottle out of his own pocket. I missed that somehow, and just thought Guy had the bottles. So Mulder heard the shrink's bullshit "green glass lance" story and thought "Eh, maybe I should take it just to be safe." Freaking amazing.
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Jan 8, 2018 17:38
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Open Source Idiom posted:Oh, wait, did you skip 8 and 9? Yeah, we'll probably revisit them at some point. But my fiancé wants to get through Season 10 this week so we can catch up to Season 11. It's taken us over a year to get through everything and we're looking forward to watching Season 11 with fresh eyes together. Regarding MOTW sequels - Tooms was good, and I liked the return of Pusher, the guy who could mentally push people to kill themselves. I would be 100% on board with a return of the inbred freaks from Home (in fact, I thought Home Again in season 10 would be about them) or whatever the hell alien intelligence/AI/government program was going on in "Blood".
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Jan 9, 2018 15:12
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I'm finally all caught up with the X-Files! We finished Season 10 and got caught up on Season 11 as well. "Babylon" and "My Struggle II" were better on rewatch, but still not great. My fiancé hated Miller and Einstein, since they're way too transparently "Mulder and Scully but young" and don't add anything beyond that. Mulder's tripping out sequence in Babylon was enjoyable, but the overall message got really muddled. Terrorism is born of hatred, but they never really do anything but say that and make the mother the only really sympathetic character. "Home Again" was pretty dang good, though. "My Struggle III" was okay - I hated the opening and the reveal of William's conception (assuming it's not a lie) but I enjoyed the action bits and Skinner's moments a lot. "This" was awesome. Great action, amazing comedy between Mulder and Scully, and a genuinely terrifying and interesting twist to the "secret cabal of rich people runs the world" bit. I also LOVE them incorporating some real-world politics. Skinner mentioning that the FBI is on bad terms with the President, the Russian and NSA bits - I felt like they added to the episode without feeling like it's going to be instantly dated or anything like that. Overall I'm enjoying Season 11 more than Season 10 at this point. "Weremonster" is still the highwater mark, but Darin Morgan has another episode coming up.
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Jan 15, 2018 16:09
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I initially put this below Were-monster, but I've been thinking more and more about the episode and it might be my favorite. The Trump stuff is hilarious but also kind of terrifying since, as they stated several times, we really are in a world where truth means different things to different people. I'm going to have to let this one stir in my brain a bit; there's a LOT going on. Nostalgia, lies and truth, and the whole fact that conspiracies today are 100% crazier than they were during the X-files initial run. Great stuff for sure, and I loved the ending so much. This whole season has been knocking it out of the park. If it ends, at least it's going out with a really strong season.
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Jan 25, 2018 19:06
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That episode was amazing. It started as a "technology is bad" thing, but very quickly subverted that to "technology is like raising children - you have to do it right", which is a much more accurate message. The horror doesn't come from the robots themselves, it's from the idea that we built robots and then proceeded to gently caress them up with our own hatred and anger. So now we've created a world that should be a utopia, but it has all the same issues we deal with now because we imprinted it on our technology. The scene where Mulder came back to the Sushi restaurant and saw those red lights in the kitchen looking out at him? That was legitimately creepy.
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Mar 5, 2018 17:04
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This was a great season overall, but that was a wet fart of a finale and really sucked the wind out of my sails. Scully suddenly decides she doesn't care about William because she's pregnant again? Skinner's fate is to be pinned under an SUV, possibly dead? Reyes just kind of dies with no fanfare or anything? All of that sucked. The only part I liked was the Cigarette Smoking Man's death, since you could sense Mulder's anger and it was a dirty and undignified way to die. I'm also assuming he's not really dead anyway, but whatever. Excluding the premiere and this episode, the season ranged from pretty dang good (Ghouli and Kitten) to freaking amazing (Forehead Sweat and the robot one). I still consider it a success, and way better than last season. But this was one of the worst episodes I've ever seen.
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Mar 23, 2018 14:30
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 00:00 |
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Gromit posted:Skinner lived for sure. No way was he going to do all those magic secrets revealed shows without picking up a trick or two. I think you just saved the finale for me - Skinner disappears in a puff of smoke right before the car hits him. Next season is Mulder and Skinner teaming up, and Skinner keeps trying to work magic tricks into the cases. "Mulder what if we let this guy handcuff us, I can get out then with the key I keep lodged in my molar! Then we can hide in a box but really, we're escaping through the floor!"
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Mar 27, 2018 14:56
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