when the ship goggles come off
My X-Files rewatch continues apace (actually at rather a faster pace than it probably ought, but this is not a post about the fact that I'm feeling a bit low and am compensating with too much television), and I've found season 4 and the beginning of season 5 to be so interesting in a number of senses that the rewatch of the first couple of seasons was not.
My own history with the show is roughly this: I started watching in season 2, but a little haphazardly, since I was a teenager in a one-TV-and-VCR family, and no one else in my family liked the show; I was frequently outvoted. But somewhere in season 4, we got a second TV, and I was able to watch more regularly. I was 16, and although I didn't know the term yet (I didn't discover internet fandom until a few years later), I was a giant shipper. So opportunity made me a more dedicated fan just at the time the show was playing the 'ship card more overtly: happy coincidence.
So coming to seasons 4 and 5 now, I'm coming to episodes I know well, some of which I taped and watched over and over again, always through an almost exclusively shippy lens. Well, fast-forward to 2012, and my ship goggles are still pretty broken (sort of; I mean, I was a hard-core shipper for so many years that it doesn't just go away, but Mulder and Scully together is now the sort of thing I concede, sometimes grudgingly, rather than hope for, and I'm pleased to see that this doesn't really disappoint me). As a result, I feel like I'm watching an entirely different show, which is fascinating! To wit:
* I really cheered all of Scully's choices in "Never Again," even if she did risk getting a murderous tattoo.
* I wish Bill Scully really had beat Mulder up.
* How did "Redux" not entirely collapse under the weight of the Mulder!pain????? And how did I watch those two eps over and over and over and over again when I was 16? (Rewinding the Mulder-weeping-by-Scully's-bedside scene even more frequently. Gah! How did I not notice what a terrible crier David Duchovny is?!)
* Oh, "Small Potatoes" and "Post-Modern Prometheus." Le sigh. Why did two such otherwise excellent episodes have to be so rapey? I mean, at least "Small Potatoes" calls it rape, and Eddie Van Blundht goes to prison in the end. But he's just a schmuck, not a scary predator. "Post-Modern Prometheus" is so much harder because there's not even lip service paid to the rape, on one hand, and on the other, it's such an excellent episode otherwise. It was once my favorite episode of the series. It might be still, except for the part where the whole plot is about rape, only no one ever calls it that, and instead we're asked to sympathize with the rapists. Gah! (Also, I guess it doesn't surprise me too much that I didn't notice this when I was 16, but I wish I had. And I will still always associate Cher singing "Walking in Memphis" with this show, and I think always in a good way.)
Anyway, if nothing else, I entirely recommend re-watching the things you madly adored in your most embarrassing teenage years: it's hilarious and enlightening, though also sometimes a bit disappointing. Fortunately this is a good enough show overall that it stands up (well, so far, anyway). And my love for Scully has, if anything, only grown over the years, and it also turns out that some of my best-beloved old scenes--even the shippy ones--are still wonderful. Scully singing "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" will never not be fabulous, after all.
I am curious to see what will end up as my favorite ep of the rewatch, now that "Post-Modern Prometheus" is pretty safely out of the running, I think. Early money is on "The Unnatural," perhaps (though not enough Scully in that one), but of course I haven't gotten to it yet. We'll see. In the meantime, tell me yours!
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.
My own history with the show is roughly this: I started watching in season 2, but a little haphazardly, since I was a teenager in a one-TV-and-VCR family, and no one else in my family liked the show; I was frequently outvoted. But somewhere in season 4, we got a second TV, and I was able to watch more regularly. I was 16, and although I didn't know the term yet (I didn't discover internet fandom until a few years later), I was a giant shipper. So opportunity made me a more dedicated fan just at the time the show was playing the 'ship card more overtly: happy coincidence.
So coming to seasons 4 and 5 now, I'm coming to episodes I know well, some of which I taped and watched over and over again, always through an almost exclusively shippy lens. Well, fast-forward to 2012, and my ship goggles are still pretty broken (sort of; I mean, I was a hard-core shipper for so many years that it doesn't just go away, but Mulder and Scully together is now the sort of thing I concede, sometimes grudgingly, rather than hope for, and I'm pleased to see that this doesn't really disappoint me). As a result, I feel like I'm watching an entirely different show, which is fascinating! To wit:
* I really cheered all of Scully's choices in "Never Again," even if she did risk getting a murderous tattoo.
* I wish Bill Scully really had beat Mulder up.
* How did "Redux" not entirely collapse under the weight of the Mulder!pain????? And how did I watch those two eps over and over and over and over again when I was 16? (Rewinding the Mulder-weeping-by-Scully's-bedside scene even more frequently. Gah! How did I not notice what a terrible crier David Duchovny is?!)
* Oh, "Small Potatoes" and "Post-Modern Prometheus." Le sigh. Why did two such otherwise excellent episodes have to be so rapey? I mean, at least "Small Potatoes" calls it rape, and Eddie Van Blundht goes to prison in the end. But he's just a schmuck, not a scary predator. "Post-Modern Prometheus" is so much harder because there's not even lip service paid to the rape, on one hand, and on the other, it's such an excellent episode otherwise. It was once my favorite episode of the series. It might be still, except for the part where the whole plot is about rape, only no one ever calls it that, and instead we're asked to sympathize with the rapists. Gah! (Also, I guess it doesn't surprise me too much that I didn't notice this when I was 16, but I wish I had. And I will still always associate Cher singing "Walking in Memphis" with this show, and I think always in a good way.)
Anyway, if nothing else, I entirely recommend re-watching the things you madly adored in your most embarrassing teenage years: it's hilarious and enlightening, though also sometimes a bit disappointing. Fortunately this is a good enough show overall that it stands up (well, so far, anyway). And my love for Scully has, if anything, only grown over the years, and it also turns out that some of my best-beloved old scenes--even the shippy ones--are still wonderful. Scully singing "Jeremiah Was a Bullfrog" will never not be fabulous, after all.
I am curious to see what will end up as my favorite ep of the rewatch, now that "Post-Modern Prometheus" is pretty safely out of the running, I think. Early money is on "The Unnatural," perhaps (though not enough Scully in that one), but of course I haven't gotten to it yet. We'll see. In the meantime, tell me yours!
Crossposted from DW, where there are
comments. Comment here or there.