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| Originally Posted by Rob Rocco View Post Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space” (S3) |
That episode is one of humanity’s finest achievements.
“Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder!”
I was always a mythology guy, and found the M.O.T.W. episodes a pointless distraction from the “real” show. I think I’m really in the minority, at least here at Chud. I also lost interest after Fight The Future. A few of the Mulder-less episodes are pretty good, but the magic just wasn’t there.
Lots of love for the series, even though it went wildly off the rails in later seasons and the conspiracy arc never coalesced into anything exciting. For me, it all comes down to individual episodes and special moments.
The humorous episodes - Humbug, War of the Coprophages, Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’, the vampire colony, the Great Mutato, Michael McKean’s MIB, etc. My overall favorites, and one of my medium-term dvd collection goals is to get all the funny episodes for my library.
Home is arguably the best hour of horror produced for network tv. To this day I can’t hear “Wonderful Wonderful” without recalling the home invasion scene. I have chills right now thinking about it.
The only alien episode that really stands out for me is E.B.E. The sight of that small empty bed, and Deep Throat’s revelation of the ET execution policy, just affect me deeply.
As long as they were able to keep the plates spinning and the suspension of disbelief to a minimum (Mulder and Scully went directly against superior’s orders and broke the law so often that I’m amazed they weren’t fired, demoted, or just seperated) the Mythology shows were a lot of fun. I really like the sense of scale some of them were able to portray, that they were working at the enemy from inside the system was very interesting.
But the Monster of the Week shows were what put the show over the top. If it was just Monster of the Week, or just Mythology, I think it’d get rather dull. It was the show’s willingness to be flexible (with tone, suspension of disbelief, storytelling approach, etc.) that made it as great as it was. In the end, it’s this great pairing of characters who can be put in a number of situations to different effect. If they only toyed with the one-note conspiracy/thriller route, it’d get real dull real quick. As it was, we got a vérité episode where Mulder and Scully are on Cops, we got horror stories like “Home”, we got more private character driven pieces like “all things”, we got silly stuff like “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”.
I’m not as down on the Mythology as most, but you can’t dismiss the Monster of the Week as “pointless”.
Never understood the “Supersoldier Hybird” storyline.
(SPOILER) I though the Invasion plan was to infect everyone with the Black Oil Virus?
I tried to do the entire series over the course of last summer and just lost momentum at the beginning of season 5. Then I ordered it on netflix again recently and disk one came cracked.
My all-time favorite TV show, bar none. While I think there are shows that are arguably better overall, this is the one I’d take to a desert island.
The first season is very uneven, but by the end of season two it’s a classic show. For me the show peaked around season four. After the fifth season and the first film the show just started to lose it’s steam. For a long time I hated the last seasons without Mulder. Rewatching them now that the show’s been off the air for seven years they work a lot better, and the quality drop-off isn’t quite on the level of The Simpsons for example.
A lot of my favorite episodes have already been listed, some not mentioned yet are Ice (although it’s pretty much a rip-off from The Thing), Beyond the Sea, Paper Hearts, Small Potatoes and Drive.
I also urge you Patrick to check out Lost. I think it was the first show after the X-Files that hooked me the same way.
This is still my favorite show. One thing I loved about it was how they would have standalone episodes as well as the ongoing mythology eps, while both would develop the characters over time. Too many modern shows(many of which went for the cinematic flair of shows like this and Twin Peaks) go for nothing but an ongoing storyline, so if you miss a handful of episodes or get a late start, you’re boned.
So yeah, basically, I wish more shows were like this. I love the Shield, and have heard great things about Battlestar(never got into Lost or 24), but I can’t stand the lack of shows with standalones nowadays. Lots of individual X-Files episodes were like perfect short films.
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| Originally Posted by Nexus-7 View Post I can’t stand the lack of shows with standalones nowadays. Lots of individual X-Files episodes were like perfect short films. |
I always felt this was The Soprano’s strength as well. It balanced character arcs and standalone episodes very very well.
I’ve come to like “Hungry” quite a bit, it’s done from the perspective of the monster of the week, “Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man” is another favorite and “Bad Blood” was a good vampire episode.
and two of the later season episodes that I enjoy are “Roadrunner” about a some wierd cult in the desert that thinks some big 'ol parasite is the second coming of Jesus and “Improbable” which I’ve only ever caught twice, it’s a weird one with Burt Reynolds in it.
The Burt Reynold’s one was “Numbers”. A weird Season 9 episode.
“Triangle” deserves a mention. Especially the long 5 min tracking shot of Scully running around FBI Headquarters.
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| Originally Posted by felix natalya View Post “Triangle” deserves a mention. Especially the long 5 min tracking shot of Scully running around FBI Headquarters. |
The whole episode is an homage to rope, made to look like one fluid shot, with clever edits made here and there, where you can’t tell.
Pretty much any episode that was written by Darin or Glen Morgan & James Wong were usually always great. Final Destination aside you would think that they would have done some better stuff on the big screen, horror wise at least, I mean they wrote “Home”.
The very first X-Files episode I ever saw was “Home.” I was hanging out with some friends in college, flipped around the TV, and there it was. I was hooked after that, although I bailed on the show after the first movie.
Watched I Want To Believe recently. Terrible.
What’s the consensus on Millenium (the Carter series, not the awesomely bad Kristofferson movie)?
Guys who are talking about standalone 'sodes versus ongoing mythology, might I suggest reading the Mad Men thread. Or watching Mad Men. In that show Matthew Weiner is continuing to develop his style, from the Sopranos, of making little digressive short stories that also permanently change the characters.
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| Originally Posted by BrianM View Post What’s the consensus on Millenium (the Carter series, not the awesomely bad Kristofferson movie)? |
From memory …
Good first season. They were warming up for the second, which was by far the best. Still, some great episodes, like the Pilot.
Excellent second season. One of the best seasons ever on television, if not for the episodes “Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense” and “Somehow Satan Got Behind Me” alone. Absolutely loved the first episode, “The Beginning and the End”. Fantastic episode to end the season as well (“The Time is Now”, I believe it was called); pretend the show ends there and you’ll be fine.
Bad third season. Just dull overall and not very engaging. Wasn’t a huge fan of the partner they teamed up with Frank; she simply wasn’t all that interesting, nor did I think she really had much chemistry with Frank ala Mulder and Scully.
Yeah, “Somehow Satan Got Behind Me” is just great, pretty much my favorite episode of that an entire series.
“Get in that kitchen woman and make me some pie”
Me and my brother used to quote that line to each other all the time, just brilliant.
This was one of the few shows we’d watch as a family, I stopped watching once Mulder left. I still remember the episode where we get a day in the life of Cancer Man, he was one of the most powerful men in the world and he couldn’t get a book published, it actually made CM human.
I know it’s been mentioned a few times now, but I was a young kid when I first saw Home. Many of you probably had Alien, or Jaws to fuck you up as kids. Home was the one that got to me.
I was 10 or 11 when “Home” was first aired, I watched it with my mom and there was just this ‘what the fuck did we just see.’