Picspam: Peter Davison & Nicola Walker in Jonathan Creek (c1998)

[lost_spook]

(with unexpected naked!Ancelyn, as I promised Clocket).

Naturally, possible spoilers for the S2 episodes Danse Macabre and Mother Redcap under the cut (although I have done my very best not to reveal any of the how/whodunnit aspect, I promise!):

Comments

[jjpor]

Hmm, yeah, you're right about S6, actually. I thought that Bermuda Triangle one was just about the greatest thing ever the first time I saw it... I think the thing was, the "funny" episodes were like great novelties and instant classics back when they were less common, but when it got so that every other episode was a funny one, it kind of diluted it a bit for me (although in the later series, the funny ones were by and large also the good ones, 'tis true). I really liked S5 at the time of first viewing, iirc - Kill Switch and Bad Blood are two of my favourite X-Files episodes of the lot (and whichever one is the one where Scully takes a weekend off to solve some small town's spate of mysterious deaths all by herself). I think the film was...strange in many respects, but probably represents a missed opportunity to wrap up the whole alien conspiracy arc and move on, instead of beating the shaggy dog into the ground as they did in the later series. Yes, the garbage monster! Weren't they, rather hilariously, also pretending to be married at the time? And the one where the camera crew were following Mulder and Scully around was good, I think. I wish I had more X-Files on DVD, actually - if I ever come into any money...

The weird thing about the X-Files for me was that I spent the first two or three seasons really digging the conspiracy-arc eps and finding the "monster of the week" eps a bit tedious, and somewhere along the way the situation reversed so that the one-offs were the good ones as far as I was concerned and the arc episodes just inspired deep apathy in me, really (apart from the two-parter with the plane crash which is imho excellent for the precise reason that it kind of ignored what had by then become the repetitive aspects of those stories).

Well, you know, don't push yourself unnecessarily - slow and steady wins the race. I'm feeling much more, I don't know, much more "it", whatever it is this past week or so. Hope things continue to improve for you too. :)

[lost_spook]

I have S6 on DVD, you see, because I liked the eps I'd seen but kept missing them on TV. I don't have the others - I borrowed them off someone a while ago, though and rewatched the first 3 series. Maybe S5 would have grown on me again. It seems in my head as if there was an arc of Mulder not believing in things and him and Scully not speaking that went on for weeks, but knowing how things seem when you watch them week by week, it was probably not as gloomy as I recall. :-) (It was a compost monster, I remember now. And, yes, they were and being v grumpy about it.)

I don't think that's weird - I was exactly the same about it (and I had the plane crash one on a second hand video, before I gave it to my sister, and I seem to recall that was pretty good.)

Well, I'm glad things are continuing to get a bit better for you. I am improving, but it's just kind of slow, and also because I don't feel properly ill like when you have the flu or something, I feel a bit like a fraud at the same time. (You know, if I had a hacking cough, or something in a bandage, it would all be perfectly justifiable...) Except that I really *can't* do much, or not for very long, anyway... LJ's a very handy distraction at times like these! :-D

[jjpor]

Yeah, it'd help if it wasn't so long since I'd seen so many of the episodes, random cable repeats aside - I've got a lot on VHS, but nothing to play them on, which is as you can imagine a bit of a drawback... So, take any X-Files related opinions I may throw out with a pinch of salt. ;D

Yes, I think S5 was the point where Mulder finally became completely disillusioned in the whole alien-conspiracy thing after being double-crossed one time too many and became a bitter sceptic for a while. Ironically, just as Scully was becoming more open to the whole thing... But I don't think it lasted that long, really. I think S5 also sort of coincided with my own most intense obsession with the programme, so that might colour my opinions of it just a bit...

The plane crash one was great. Called Tempus Fugit, iirc, punnily enough. ;D

That's the thing with those sort of illnesses, though. Just don't try to do too much too soon, and look after yourself, and hopefully you will continue to improve. And yes, post things on LJ! Best wishes, anyway.

[lost_spook]

S2-4 were when I was at uni, watching them with my friends - after that rl interfered a lot. :-)

Thanks.

[jjpor]

I sort of went through stages, really - big fan of the early series, sort of stopped watching it for some reason round S4 (possibly due to uni and distractions contained therein, thinking about it), got heavily back into in S5 and then...kind of trailed off in my enthusiasm as the series itself declined in the later years.

Yeah, rl - can't live with it, can't live without it... ;D

[lost_spook]

Yea, uni in those days - you were lucky to get to see any TV, because most of the time you didn't have much access to a telly! (Ah, doesn't it make you feel all ancient now? :lol:) The X-Files was the only thing I watched all week, because the person who owned a telly in our flat was mad for it, so five of us used to cram into her room once a week, with a law that we had to watch it in the dark. The Non-X-philes leftover did once or twice do silly things like running round to knock of the window / switch *all* the lights off to amuse themselves. If we wanted to watch a video, we needed to rent the vhs player for the night, along with the video... (Or maybe it's just me that's ancient, sorry...) So, yeah S2-4 were the ones I watched that way; S5 I had a hard time catching; it was gloomy, so was rl at the time (even last year can't compete with that year), and by S6 I was where I live now and able to pick things up, but after that, as you say, it all seemed to go down hill pretty quick. But I'm afraid, as always, I fall for the humorous things & like S6 as a whole. Except for the really dull baseball one, of course.

[jjpor]

Aye, and all this here were fields... ;D But yes, I remember the days when somebody's mobile phone going off or if they were daft enough to walk around talking on it, it was a cause for merriment and ridicule and jokes about Yuppies that were probably a decade out of date even in those days (not that I or most of the people I knew even had them in those days)... Truly it was a different age! As for the internet... I think computers still ran on steam! ;D

But yes, baseball - one of those things that Do Not Translate Well, I fear... I liked the one with the typewriter that could warp reality (you typed stuff, and it came true), which was a later one - although I think they nicked the idea off some old Twilight Zone episode or somewhere. And speaking of nicked ideas, the Groundhog Day-clone where Mulder's waterbed kept repeatedly bursting and Our Heroes kept repeatedly getting blown up by the same bomb, I seem to remember that was a good one. You know, if I watched some of those later seasons again I'd probably start enjoying them more.

Have you seen the newish (2008?) film? Not the greatest, but maybe not as bad as people have claimed. It would have been a perfectly acceptable weird-happening-of-the-week episode around about S2, I think.

[lost_spook]

:-)

Oh, yes, the Groundhog Day; that's a fun one. That's got to be S6 (or possibly S7) as well, hasn't it, because Scully's puzzled by the fact Mulder even has a water bed for it to leak, which came in body-switch episode. And the typewriter one was one of those I mmissed on TV - not a bad reason to get the DVD, after all.

Yes, I saw it - it was kind of bad in the opposite way to the first one which got all excited that THIS IS A MOVIE and at least was entertainingly ridiculous and movie-ish; so they went the opposite extreme and we got what would have been a good episode stretched out forever. exactly as you say. But it was nice to see the X-Files again, Mulder and Scully having at least some sort of happy ending, and I was extremely pleased when Scully sent for Skinner. I would have rated it it v low if he had not appeared at some point.

Oh, and that reminds me of the other thing I like about S6. I'm pretty sure in the opener Mulder and Scully get told off for being in the X-Files movie as they spent too much FBI money etc. :-D

[jjpor]

I think that was around the point where they moved it to quite late on Saturday nights on BBC1, rather non-ideally, before they relegated it back to BBC2 for the last couple of series. LOL, yes, and Scully's like "you have a water bed?!"

Skinner was the highlight actually. And in some of the series episodes too, to be honest - Skinner was sort of the X Files equivalent of the Brig or something. I fondly remember the epic punch-up he had with "Mr X" around about S4 or so... XD

LOL yeah - something about their travel expenses wasn't it? Well, yeah, you know, going to Antarctica will do that... (And how did he manage to get to Antarctica without the baddies finding out, considering that probably only government/military flights go there? And then get back again?! Answers on a postcard, please...)

[lost_spook]

I do like Skinner. :-)

[jjpor]

Yeah, he's great :)