Favorite X Files Episodes: Stand Alone

[kirarakim]

So in my rewatch of X-Files I decided to try to come up with my favorite episodes. Well these are my favorite MOTW episodes are stand alones. I also included a few honorable mentions

Comments

[everlasting_day]

Oh wow, what a fantastic selection. I love all of those except maybe How the Ghosts Stole Christmas which is entertaining but a bit thin on content for me. As you say, it's a real opinion-divider.

Other Standalone Favourites of Mine:

Beyond the Sea
Fresh Bones
Humbug
Oubliette
Grotesque
Avatar
Home
Unruhe
Leonard Betts
Kill Switch
The Pine Bluff Variant
Drive
Triangle
Monday
Hungry
Theef
Roadrunners
Invocation
4-D

EDIT: I watched Irresistible for the first time when I was watching the entire series last summer and it was the only one I watched through my weary 20 year-old eyes that scared the shit out of me. Which says a lot about how disturbing that episode was.

[everlasting_day]

I think if I had to choose then Humbug is my favourite Darin Morgan script. I love all his episodes, and the ones he did for Millennium, but Humbug is probably the least...indulgent I suppose and definitely the tightest script of the lot with a more straightforward narrative. And it's hysterically funny, which helps!

Oubliette definitely needs more love! Really underlooked stuff and extremely powerful, thanks mainly to David Duchovny.

The X-Files really does contain a ton of greatness. There are so many more episodes I adore that I had to leave off or else the list would be insanely long.

[kirarakim]

Oubliette definitely needs more love! Really underlooked stuff and extremely powerful, thanks mainly to David Duchovny.

I agree that Oubliette is very good and it does have a great performance by David. I think I just picked Paper Hearts as the best kidnapped related story since I think it is even better than Oubliette. Although I love Mulder in general in those type of episodes. He always breaks my heart.

[everlasting_day]

I'd give Paper Hearts the nod, certainly. That episode was absolutely incredible, probably because it was just a bit more personal and it's got one of the all-time great Duchovny performances in it. But Oubliette is almost like a trial run for that episode, it's just even more unpleasant and uncomfortable to watch.

[kirarakim]

Oh I feel really bad that I left so many great episodes out. (although I did give Triangle an honorable mention :) )

I really love a lot of the episodes you mentioned up there as well but I had to limit it somehow. Although with Home I am not sure if I really like that one because it's well written and really unnerving or not because it's hard to watch.

I think originally the Fox Network didn't want to air Irresistible because they found it too disturbing.

Edit: Also icon ♥ I love that movie. :)

And the video you posted below is awesome. I love how they call it lullaby. XD

Tithonus from season six. If it's not that then I'll eat my hat.

Oh yeah I forgot about that. Although I have a feeling that they didn't plan out Tithonus when they wrote Clyde Bruckman. I am guessing Vince Gilligan decided to add that part in because of the other episode.

[everlasting_day]

Home is very, very unnerving to watch. It's not a pleasant experience at all, yet it does have quite a bit of rewatch value - the dialogue between Mulder and Scully is absolutely sparkling, and it's great to show to friends and gauge their reactions (or maybe that's just me).

Irresistible scares me in a way Home doesn't. It's far, far too routed in the real world for comfort. The sequel episode, Orison, is very good as well, if a bit more overblown.

Oh knowing The X-Files, Tithonus was definitely not planned pre-Clyde Bruckman. Gilligan's a great writer with an excellent eye for detail though, so it wouldn't surprise me if he was building off that episode.

[kirarakim]

I actually think Home is one episode I wouldn't show a friend to start off with unless they like really disturbing things. XD

But you know my favorite part of that episode is when Scully and Mulder try to get the pigs out of the pen. That's a classic moment for sure.

[everlasting_day]

I definitely wouldn't show it first, maybe second or third, just for kicks. With the optional crying baby sound effects on the DVD. >_>

That IS a classic moment. Scully referencing Babe is hilarious.

EDIT: You totally need to do a post about arc episodes next. :D

[kirarakim]

You totally need to do a post about arc episodes next. :D

Overall I am more of a MOTW fan because of what happened to the mytharc but I love all the ones from the second season I also really love Anasazi/The Blessing Way/Paper Clip. Those are my absolute favorites. So I am an early mythology fan.

But I also enjoy Memento Mori, the Redux episodes, the Sixth Extinction episodes and Requiem at least for the Mulder/Scully moments if not for the conspiracy anymore.

[everlasting_day]

I'm definitely more into the MOTW, but there are nonetheless a lot of pretty fantastic arc episodes. I dig all the ones you've just mentioned, especially One Breath which is probably in my all-time top three. I rather like Patient X, too. And I don't understand the hate for Tunguska/Terma.

I know you're not much of a season eight fan, but I think that kicked some real life back into the arc (Essence/Existance are really, really exciting and This Is Not Happening/DeadAlive are a pretty excellent return for Mulder) before it went totally and utterly down the toilet in season nine.