X-Files season 7 re-watch
I was reading that apparently Amor Fati was written when Chris Carter and David Duchovny weren't speaking, so they both wrote their their half by themselves, and then Chris Carter merged them. Seems like an awkward way to co-write an episode! My main comment on this episode would be that the dream of an ordinary suburban life made no character sense for Mulder, it was Scully in season 6 that asked Mulder if he ever wants a normal life, and he's the one to respond that, "this is a normal life", so what exactly was CSM supposed to be tempting him with here? The only part I could see tempting Mulder would be getting to see Samantha again, but living in the suburbs with Fowley? Living next door to CSM? That made NO sense when Mulder has never seemed the least bit conflicted about his life choices, he never wanted to do anything but chase aliens and look into the paranormal
Hungry and Millennium were both pretty good, you can really tell that they're trying to get back to the darker and more traditional episodes at the beginning of this year. And finally Mulder and Scully kiss :D I know there's speculation about whether Millennium was their first kiss or not, but I always felt like it was just based on how Mulder was obviously hesitating a bit at first, and then the looks they give one another afterwards. It just feels like a first kiss to me :shrugs:
Rush was the first episode in season 7 to disappoint me unfortunately. I mean it was okay, it's watchable enough, but it just feels like such an unambitious attempt to ~get back to basics~ Also I'm really not a fan of the episodes where Mulder and Scully barely play any role in resolving the plot, it reminds me of what I disliked about The Walk back in season 3
I really enjoyed The Goldberg Variation, the main guest actor was perfect for the role, and it was just a really charming and whimsical episode. This one, and The Rain King, are my favourite episodes by Jeffrey Bell. I enjoyed The Amaing Meleeni a lot as well, it really comes across how much fun David and Gillian were having with those episodes
And hmm with Orison do people generally feel like Donnie Pfaster turns into a literal demon or not? I always thought that the scene in the graveyard was supposed to be similar to the one in Irresistible with Scully just imagining seeing a demon because of how she sees his true nature, but reviews I've read seem to see it as the sequel letting down the original episode by making him a literal demon and no longer a man?
And it's really starting to get tiresome that, whenever Scully's the one with a more out there theory, Mulder immediately has to dismiss it. It feels like a pretty lazy way of bringing in their usual skeptic and believer conflict, he would have been all over it if some random person on a case believed that they were being haunted by a song, but with Scully he near enough rolls his eyes at her
And Scully's rather severe new haircut is going to distract me for the rest of the season, I hate this haircut of hers /shallow
And I really found Signs & Wonders quite offensive. I felt like they tried way too hard to try and outguess the audience by having the more tolerant and liberal Reverend turn out to be the bad guy, and the crazy fanatic be the good guy. And then it basically ended by endorsing being more fanatical and dogmatic in your beliefs. Actual exchange from the episode "It’s an intolerant culture, Mulder", "Sometimes a little intolerance can be a good thing". Excuse me?!
And I found Sein und Zeit and Closure both very interesting because of their radically different approaches towards Mulder trying to make sense out of what happened to Samantha. Sein und Zeit is the sadder episode with the idea that the world is a random and cruel place where bad things happen to children for no real reason, while Mulder is trying to make sense of his mother killing herself and can't accept that it isn't all going to tie together somehow, but then Closure gives Mulder exactly that with the whole starlight idea to rescue the suffering children. I felt like there really wasn't a plot that held together very well in Closure, that it was more about Mulder finally just accepting that he's not going to get any conclusive answers on what happened to his sister, but he's ready to stop searching and just accept that she's in a better place now. Kim Manners talks in the extras about how originally Mulder was scripted to break down crying after he sees Samantha's spirit, and it was David who suggested playing it as Mulder having a look of peace on his face after he sees her
I wasn't a big fan of the whole starlight idea, it felt like a pretty lame way to end that mystery (and Samantha was meant to be 14 by then, so frankly it felt like she was a little old to want to spend her afterlife running around and playing with other kids in the way that they presented it), especially after all of the many hints that Samantha was still alive. Still I can understand why they wouldn't want to bring Samantha back for good as part of the regular cast, so I guess this was as good a resolution as any for Mulder's character :shrugs:
And CC mentions in the commentary that First Person Shooter was one of their most expensive episodes ever. That's...pretty depressing. He also mentions that David felt like Mulder was being written out of character when he joins in with the cops all leering at the female suspect, and umm yeah? They wrote him as a total frat boy idiot, I could not stand this episode
And I'm not sure how I feel about All Things really, there were some interesting ideas, but it didn't come together for me. For a start the older doctor was written as such a creep that, even as just a symbol of the life that Scully didn't choose, it didn't really work for me because I couldn't see what had attracted her to him in the first place! Ultimately I think that season 7 is just too late to present these alternative life paths for Mulder and Scully, whether it's with Fowley or with this old guy, nobody is really buying it at this stage when we've seen just how deep Mulder and Scully's connection goes
And Gillian mentioned in the commentary that she added the teaser in as a late addition to the script, the production team felt like the time was right to imply that Mulder and Scully had started sleeping together. Honestly it's all so coy that I can't really make sense of it though lol, Scully being so tired that she peacefully falls asleep on the coach doesn't really seem like the time for Mulder and Scully to get passionate to me? Plus Scully leaving the next day while Mulder was still sleeping seems odd if that night was the first time they were ever physical with one another. I interpret it more as they're already been sleeping together, and this is just the first of many times of Scully crashing at Mulder's place
And I really enjoyed Hollywood AD, even though the plot was a bit messy. I just wish they had spend more time on the Hollywood setting, I wasn't really that interested in everything with the Lazarus bowl. Loved it for seeing Skinman in a bubble bath, Scully telling Mulder to sit down after he just can't take any more of the movie, and of course their smile and banter at the end :D
I hated Fight Club sooo much that it's really making me angry to think about it now. It didn't even make sense, all of the other doubles were played by the same actors and were actually identical, but Mulder and Scully's doubles weren't, yet something apparently happened somewhere to make them beat the crap out of one another? And apparently that's meant as a comedic ending? Those final images of them made me nauseous, what the fuck is wrong with Chris Carter????
And CC talks in the extras about how the finale was originally written as a series finale, even though it ends on a really incomplete cliffhanger of Mulder being abducted and Scully announced that she's pregnant?!? Well that tells me a lot about why CC choose to end season 10 on a cliffhanger, even with no assurances that they would be back! I suppose it's a similar thing though, they left season 7 open-ended because they were originally hoping for a movie franchise, and season 10 ended on a cliffhanger because they wanted another season
My top five episodes would probably be:
The Goldberg Variation
The Amazing Maleeni
Sein und Zeit
X-Cops
Je Souhaite (Scully's excitement over the invisible man was just adorable!)
Hungry and Millennium were both pretty good, you can really tell that they're trying to get back to the darker and more traditional episodes at the beginning of this year. And finally Mulder and Scully kiss :D I know there's speculation about whether Millennium was their first kiss or not, but I always felt like it was just based on how Mulder was obviously hesitating a bit at first, and then the looks they give one another afterwards. It just feels like a first kiss to me :shrugs:
Rush was the first episode in season 7 to disappoint me unfortunately. I mean it was okay, it's watchable enough, but it just feels like such an unambitious attempt to ~get back to basics~ Also I'm really not a fan of the episodes where Mulder and Scully barely play any role in resolving the plot, it reminds me of what I disliked about The Walk back in season 3
I really enjoyed The Goldberg Variation, the main guest actor was perfect for the role, and it was just a really charming and whimsical episode. This one, and The Rain King, are my favourite episodes by Jeffrey Bell. I enjoyed The Amaing Meleeni a lot as well, it really comes across how much fun David and Gillian were having with those episodes
And hmm with Orison do people generally feel like Donnie Pfaster turns into a literal demon or not? I always thought that the scene in the graveyard was supposed to be similar to the one in Irresistible with Scully just imagining seeing a demon because of how she sees his true nature, but reviews I've read seem to see it as the sequel letting down the original episode by making him a literal demon and no longer a man?
And it's really starting to get tiresome that, whenever Scully's the one with a more out there theory, Mulder immediately has to dismiss it. It feels like a pretty lazy way of bringing in their usual skeptic and believer conflict, he would have been all over it if some random person on a case believed that they were being haunted by a song, but with Scully he near enough rolls his eyes at her
And Scully's rather severe new haircut is going to distract me for the rest of the season, I hate this haircut of hers /shallow
And I really found Signs & Wonders quite offensive. I felt like they tried way too hard to try and outguess the audience by having the more tolerant and liberal Reverend turn out to be the bad guy, and the crazy fanatic be the good guy. And then it basically ended by endorsing being more fanatical and dogmatic in your beliefs. Actual exchange from the episode "It’s an intolerant culture, Mulder", "Sometimes a little intolerance can be a good thing". Excuse me?!
And I found Sein und Zeit and Closure both very interesting because of their radically different approaches towards Mulder trying to make sense out of what happened to Samantha. Sein und Zeit is the sadder episode with the idea that the world is a random and cruel place where bad things happen to children for no real reason, while Mulder is trying to make sense of his mother killing herself and can't accept that it isn't all going to tie together somehow, but then Closure gives Mulder exactly that with the whole starlight idea to rescue the suffering children. I felt like there really wasn't a plot that held together very well in Closure, that it was more about Mulder finally just accepting that he's not going to get any conclusive answers on what happened to his sister, but he's ready to stop searching and just accept that she's in a better place now. Kim Manners talks in the extras about how originally Mulder was scripted to break down crying after he sees Samantha's spirit, and it was David who suggested playing it as Mulder having a look of peace on his face after he sees her
I wasn't a big fan of the whole starlight idea, it felt like a pretty lame way to end that mystery (and Samantha was meant to be 14 by then, so frankly it felt like she was a little old to want to spend her afterlife running around and playing with other kids in the way that they presented it), especially after all of the many hints that Samantha was still alive. Still I can understand why they wouldn't want to bring Samantha back for good as part of the regular cast, so I guess this was as good a resolution as any for Mulder's character :shrugs:
And CC mentions in the commentary that First Person Shooter was one of their most expensive episodes ever. That's...pretty depressing. He also mentions that David felt like Mulder was being written out of character when he joins in with the cops all leering at the female suspect, and umm yeah? They wrote him as a total frat boy idiot, I could not stand this episode
And I'm not sure how I feel about All Things really, there were some interesting ideas, but it didn't come together for me. For a start the older doctor was written as such a creep that, even as just a symbol of the life that Scully didn't choose, it didn't really work for me because I couldn't see what had attracted her to him in the first place! Ultimately I think that season 7 is just too late to present these alternative life paths for Mulder and Scully, whether it's with Fowley or with this old guy, nobody is really buying it at this stage when we've seen just how deep Mulder and Scully's connection goes
And Gillian mentioned in the commentary that she added the teaser in as a late addition to the script, the production team felt like the time was right to imply that Mulder and Scully had started sleeping together. Honestly it's all so coy that I can't really make sense of it though lol, Scully being so tired that she peacefully falls asleep on the coach doesn't really seem like the time for Mulder and Scully to get passionate to me? Plus Scully leaving the next day while Mulder was still sleeping seems odd if that night was the first time they were ever physical with one another. I interpret it more as they're already been sleeping together, and this is just the first of many times of Scully crashing at Mulder's place
And I really enjoyed Hollywood AD, even though the plot was a bit messy. I just wish they had spend more time on the Hollywood setting, I wasn't really that interested in everything with the Lazarus bowl. Loved it for seeing Skinman in a bubble bath, Scully telling Mulder to sit down after he just can't take any more of the movie, and of course their smile and banter at the end :D
I hated Fight Club sooo much that it's really making me angry to think about it now. It didn't even make sense, all of the other doubles were played by the same actors and were actually identical, but Mulder and Scully's doubles weren't, yet something apparently happened somewhere to make them beat the crap out of one another? And apparently that's meant as a comedic ending? Those final images of them made me nauseous, what the fuck is wrong with Chris Carter????
And CC talks in the extras about how the finale was originally written as a series finale, even though it ends on a really incomplete cliffhanger of Mulder being abducted and Scully announced that she's pregnant?!? Well that tells me a lot about why CC choose to end season 10 on a cliffhanger, even with no assurances that they would be back! I suppose it's a similar thing though, they left season 7 open-ended because they were originally hoping for a movie franchise, and season 10 ended on a cliffhanger because they wanted another season
My top five episodes would probably be:
The Goldberg Variation
The Amazing Maleeni
Sein und Zeit
X-Cops
Je Souhaite (Scully's excitement over the invisible man was just adorable!)