The X-Files 1.01-02
So I figured it wasn’t a bad time to try and watch/rewatch The X-Files too, to go along with the Star Trek viewing. TXF is at a slightly different point on the scale of what I’ve seen before and what I haven’t, as it’s all contained to one series that fluctuated so much with; and until the new season I hadn’t watched any of it since...maybe not even since it went off the air, or at least not long afterward. There’s several episodes I know I’ve never seen, and a *whole* lot I only saw once when they were first on, with only a few that I made much point of rewatching and those not for more than a decade. So this should be quite an adventure though the 90s, and all the nostalgia. And shipping there will be shipping.
1x01: Pilot
(Previous status: watched a few different times, but not for a long time)
I feel like I should be doing some counters on this watch; Scully conveniently misses seeing things, Cancerman lurks, missing time, that kind of thing, but I probably won’t think to. And for all the X-Files tropes that are already present here, this episode is weird. Now, as I’ve said many times, all pilots are kind of weird; most first half dozen episodes are kind of weird; in times past most first seasons are weird (these days the first seasons tend to be the best because they have to hit the ground running, but then they stall and backslide where older shows got better for a while). This one just has a slightly different flavor of kind of weird.
It feels like it really wanted to be a two hour pilot. I feel like a lot of the exposition dumps could have been handled better if they’d had more time. Add in that Scully has to have an actual character arc that I don’t think was quite realized as well as it wanted to be. Mulder doesn’t really have a character arc here, we’re mostly just seeing him through Scully’s eyes, and while her opinion of him clearly does grow through the episode, it again isn’t as well realized as I kind of feel it was meant to be.
One thing I think is mostly a retroactive reading, but really works, is that you can kind of see Scully taking on the role through the episode; not exactly GA, but Scully herself. She seems to grow in response to Mulder, needing to react to his pushing her and his mistrust, her backbone works of growing into steel as required. She still isn’t necessarily the Scully we best remember by the end, but there’s been definite growth towards it; I’m just not sure it’s visible without the benefit of hindsight. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is, to a point, supposed to be there, I’m just not sure you’d see it without long view on.
I have to say, partly returning to this as an adult, and partly after seeing s10, Mulder does seem more unhinged than I remember. Maybe not quite as far gone as he does at his worst moments in s10, but not exactly right in the head either. Admittedly I think he might be playing that side up a touch in his first scene, pushing to see Scully’s reaction, but it’s hardly an affectation throughout the episode as a whole. When he does calm down a bit he manages to state his...beliefs/convictions/ideas in a way that doesn’t sound so wild; which is about the time Scully seems to actually start listening too, so maybe I’m just super with Scully here.
But speaking of that first scene with Mulder and Scully, yowsa do they spark off each other right away. Love at first sight? hell no; not even necessarily attraction at first sight, but once they start playing off each other they just have something between them that is basically what keeps the show going for so long (we may care about the mystery and enjoy the cases, but the show wouldn’t have lasted without the Mulder-Scully relationship, whatever form people thought that took; though for the record, my shippy tendencies should make it clear what side I fall on). Though maybe it’s weird that it’s that first scene that draws me in rather than happening at the hotel room scenes that got so many people onboard the ship, I’ve never been quite sure the show had earned the hotel scene when it happened.
In the great annals of the show, is this a particularly great episode? No, but it’s obviously pretty necessary, especially since it will keep being echoed all the way through. But it’s already rather nice to just be back and have a chance to go through this again, and even though I remember a lot of the big points, this time I’ll see them with very different eyes now, so it’s kind of like the first time again, and that’s nice too.
1x02: Deep Throat
(Previous status: watched a couple times, but not for a long time)
This episode is still clearly finding its feet, and not quite sure about how to go forward. For one, it seems a little unclear when its set, as it’s supposed to be months after the pilot, and sometimes Mulder and Scully act like they’ve been doing this dance for a while, but plenty of other times they still seem to be getting familiar with each other and how they work.
It’s also weird because Mulder and Scully seem about 80-90% on the same page with this case, and while that works for Mulder’s character as he seems a lot less crazed and more just driven and kind of weird, Scully ends up seeming fairly off. Even by the end of the season I’d buy Scully as becoming more paranoid and her devotion to Mulder, but it doesn’t feel earned here.
That said, the 80-90% Scully’s willing to agree with Mulder tracks fine with me if I saw the evidence before them. The government having advanced top secret aircraft, test pilots burn out trying to manage it, selective amnesia brought on by stress; at least within the world of TXF, perfectly plausible and arguably plausible in our world (the Desert Storm 2 phrase was jarring these days). And the 10-20% Mulder wants to push it is the leap in logic that, sure in the world of TXF is probably true, but should require a little more evidence to support. Yes, the evidence against aliens may not be entirely dissuasive, the episode is clear on that, but that doesn’t mean the evidence for aliens is entirely persuasive to people like Scully.
I don’t know if it’s that we’re less in Scully’s head, or if it’s something in the writing/acting/directing, but Mulder does come off...still kind of unhinged, but less so, and less...delusional. He actually is presenting evidence; questionable evidence, but evidence. His leaps in logic are better supported within the narrative; and I mean when he makes the leaps in logic, not just supported in the end when he’s shown to be in the right.
But I guess the point of this was more to ratchet up the paranoia, the sort of great conspiracy they’re going up against; it was certainly hinted at in the pilot, but mostly to the audience and it did little to touch the main characters directly, here they start to feel it hanging over them. But that causes the chicken and egg issue I said was going on with Scully’s character, it only shows up big time near the end, but she ends up acting like she’s already had cause to be feeling like a target of the conspiracy, when this is the episode that does a lot to make her aware of that.
It’s definitely an important episode as it introduces Deep Throat and a deeper look at the conspiracy’s abilities beyond hoarding evidence. While I’m glad they started off with a couple myth-arc eps so it didn’t feel like it was just a pilot idea, I kind of think this would have been better served with a few more episodes under their belts. I’m not sure that would have worked exactly, as elements did need to be put in place early, but I’m not sure it quite worked this way either.
1x01: Pilot
(Previous status: watched a few different times, but not for a long time)
I feel like I should be doing some counters on this watch; Scully conveniently misses seeing things, Cancerman lurks, missing time, that kind of thing, but I probably won’t think to. And for all the X-Files tropes that are already present here, this episode is weird. Now, as I’ve said many times, all pilots are kind of weird; most first half dozen episodes are kind of weird; in times past most first seasons are weird (these days the first seasons tend to be the best because they have to hit the ground running, but then they stall and backslide where older shows got better for a while). This one just has a slightly different flavor of kind of weird.
It feels like it really wanted to be a two hour pilot. I feel like a lot of the exposition dumps could have been handled better if they’d had more time. Add in that Scully has to have an actual character arc that I don’t think was quite realized as well as it wanted to be. Mulder doesn’t really have a character arc here, we’re mostly just seeing him through Scully’s eyes, and while her opinion of him clearly does grow through the episode, it again isn’t as well realized as I kind of feel it was meant to be.
One thing I think is mostly a retroactive reading, but really works, is that you can kind of see Scully taking on the role through the episode; not exactly GA, but Scully herself. She seems to grow in response to Mulder, needing to react to his pushing her and his mistrust, her backbone works of growing into steel as required. She still isn’t necessarily the Scully we best remember by the end, but there’s been definite growth towards it; I’m just not sure it’s visible without the benefit of hindsight. I wouldn’t be surprised if it is, to a point, supposed to be there, I’m just not sure you’d see it without long view on.
I have to say, partly returning to this as an adult, and partly after seeing s10, Mulder does seem more unhinged than I remember. Maybe not quite as far gone as he does at his worst moments in s10, but not exactly right in the head either. Admittedly I think he might be playing that side up a touch in his first scene, pushing to see Scully’s reaction, but it’s hardly an affectation throughout the episode as a whole. When he does calm down a bit he manages to state his...beliefs/convictions/ideas in a way that doesn’t sound so wild; which is about the time Scully seems to actually start listening too, so maybe I’m just super with Scully here.
But speaking of that first scene with Mulder and Scully, yowsa do they spark off each other right away. Love at first sight? hell no; not even necessarily attraction at first sight, but once they start playing off each other they just have something between them that is basically what keeps the show going for so long (we may care about the mystery and enjoy the cases, but the show wouldn’t have lasted without the Mulder-Scully relationship, whatever form people thought that took; though for the record, my shippy tendencies should make it clear what side I fall on). Though maybe it’s weird that it’s that first scene that draws me in rather than happening at the hotel room scenes that got so many people onboard the ship, I’ve never been quite sure the show had earned the hotel scene when it happened.
In the great annals of the show, is this a particularly great episode? No, but it’s obviously pretty necessary, especially since it will keep being echoed all the way through. But it’s already rather nice to just be back and have a chance to go through this again, and even though I remember a lot of the big points, this time I’ll see them with very different eyes now, so it’s kind of like the first time again, and that’s nice too.
1x02: Deep Throat
(Previous status: watched a couple times, but not for a long time)
This episode is still clearly finding its feet, and not quite sure about how to go forward. For one, it seems a little unclear when its set, as it’s supposed to be months after the pilot, and sometimes Mulder and Scully act like they’ve been doing this dance for a while, but plenty of other times they still seem to be getting familiar with each other and how they work.
It’s also weird because Mulder and Scully seem about 80-90% on the same page with this case, and while that works for Mulder’s character as he seems a lot less crazed and more just driven and kind of weird, Scully ends up seeming fairly off. Even by the end of the season I’d buy Scully as becoming more paranoid and her devotion to Mulder, but it doesn’t feel earned here.
That said, the 80-90% Scully’s willing to agree with Mulder tracks fine with me if I saw the evidence before them. The government having advanced top secret aircraft, test pilots burn out trying to manage it, selective amnesia brought on by stress; at least within the world of TXF, perfectly plausible and arguably plausible in our world (the Desert Storm 2 phrase was jarring these days). And the 10-20% Mulder wants to push it is the leap in logic that, sure in the world of TXF is probably true, but should require a little more evidence to support. Yes, the evidence against aliens may not be entirely dissuasive, the episode is clear on that, but that doesn’t mean the evidence for aliens is entirely persuasive to people like Scully.
I don’t know if it’s that we’re less in Scully’s head, or if it’s something in the writing/acting/directing, but Mulder does come off...still kind of unhinged, but less so, and less...delusional. He actually is presenting evidence; questionable evidence, but evidence. His leaps in logic are better supported within the narrative; and I mean when he makes the leaps in logic, not just supported in the end when he’s shown to be in the right.
But I guess the point of this was more to ratchet up the paranoia, the sort of great conspiracy they’re going up against; it was certainly hinted at in the pilot, but mostly to the audience and it did little to touch the main characters directly, here they start to feel it hanging over them. But that causes the chicken and egg issue I said was going on with Scully’s character, it only shows up big time near the end, but she ends up acting like she’s already had cause to be feeling like a target of the conspiracy, when this is the episode that does a lot to make her aware of that.
It’s definitely an important episode as it introduces Deep Throat and a deeper look at the conspiracy’s abilities beyond hoarding evidence. While I’m glad they started off with a couple myth-arc eps so it didn’t feel like it was just a pilot idea, I kind of think this would have been better served with a few more episodes under their belts. I’m not sure that would have worked exactly, as elements did need to be put in place early, but I’m not sure it quite worked this way either.