Our very favorite FBI agent, Dana Scully, is back (oh, hey Mulder, you are back too, that’s great, maybe it’s time to try some meds? Hmmm?) with six new episodes of The X-Files.
We’ve seen the first three episodes, and we have thoughts. The more we talked about the show, the more apparent it became that our thoughts are less about the show and more about our own lives and experiences and personal connection to the show.
This is commentary, not review, but just to catch you up, the first episode, “My Struggle,” is a conspiracy episode in full Chris Carter mode (aliens, alien ships, video montages, the works). It consists almost entirely of inane babble that goes nowhere but remains entertaining because of Scully’s “Lord God here we go again” face. Chris Carter manages to retrain himself from mentioning 9/11 for seven full minutes, so…way to exercise self-control, you consistent bastard. There’s some CGI, because that’s a new thing since X-Files went off the air, and it’s awful CGI, because…I don’t know why. Seriously, dudes, if you don’t have the budget for good CGI, DON’T USE IT.
The second episode, “Founder’s Mutation,” is also a conspiracy episode, but more loosely so, and it’s both more restrained and more secure and emotional as an episode. This is a mad scientist episode, with a lot of gore and a lot of poignancy. It involves government cover-up but works pretty well as a stand-alone other its references to Mulder and Scully’s son, William. Through the episode they address their grief over the loss of their baby (back in Season Nine, in order to protect Baby William, Scully placed him in an adoptive home under such a closed process that they’ve never seen or heard about him since and they don’t know where he is).
The third episode, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster” is pretty much a glorious episode of Scooby-Doo. It’s written by Darin Morgan, one of the best screenwriters ever, and it’s very meta and full of Easter Eggs. It’s weird, it’s funny, and it actually shows that time has passed in a meaningful way. Mulder’s attempt to use his phone camera are just the best. This episode is very much a gift for long-time fans who get the show’s extremely surreal and deadpan humor.
Basically, if you liked the old X-Files, you’ll enjoy seeing these characters again, even though the first two episodes don’t reflect the show at its best. In our conversation below, we are focusing on the first two episodes.
Here in all it’s madness is the conversation we had online when I mentioned that I was watching.
CarrieS: Well, that certainly was a big bucket of crazy.
RHG: I’m interested in your thoughts, but it’s like, everything that I didn’t like about The X-Files and why I never really got into it. Monster of the week, yay. Arc episodes and Mulder talking a lot? Ugh.
CarrieS: The conspiracy stuff was always terrible. The monsters of the week were often sublime, sometimes meh, sometimes terrible. When it was good it was SUPERB. I watched the first four seasons pretty religiously, much of five, and bits of six, and Season 6 was the last I saw of it, so I’m really only referring to slightly more than half the show – but most fans seem to like to pretend that the last few seasons never happened anyway.
RHG: I am here for Gillian Anderson and her perfect hair and perfect skin and perfect “done with you” face.
CarrieS: She started off as an 11 on the 0-10 scale of wonderful and now she’s…I dunno…off the chart. I mean, sure, eleven is off the chart, but you can see the chart from there. She’s now beyond sight of the chart.
RHG: She started a new chart.
CarrieS: The Gillian Anderson Chart of Awesome.
Amanda: I will ship it forever and ever. Leo & Kate, Gillian & David, Dolly & Burt. My OTPs forever.
CarrieS: Mulder is an asswipe and Scully deserves SO MUCH BETTER and YET they are clearly soul mates so I dunno what to do with that.
RHG: Ugh, Gillian (and Scully) can do so much better
Amanda: She can do so much better, yes.
CarrieS: It’s not just that time is different (the show first aired in 1993, that’s TWENTY THREE YEARS AGO), but also I’m different. I have so much less patience for Mulder’s bullshit now. I had the biggest crush on him. Why? WHYYYYY?
Elyse: Pouty lips, duh.
Sarah: This is a little like going back to re-read a favorite and realizing you’ve changed too much for it to be the same.
Elyse: I would still fuck David Duchovny circa 1994.
RHG: It’s that dude that seems all deep when you’re trying to figure out how to be deep as a young ADULT LOOK I AM ADULTING. And then you actually Adult and it’s like, oh.
Elyse: I also think finding out David Duchovny was kind of gross IRL influenced me.
CarrieS: Part of the problem with Mulder is that his character arc failed us. Early on, Mulder’s shit did seem kind of deep, and he did seem like he might mature. But while Scully got awesomer and awesomer, he pretty much stayed the same. He’s still a self-centered little boy – and that was cute when we thought the self-centered little boy might grow up (and there were plenty of hints that it might happen, as he respects Scully and displays an abundance of empathy towards others) but it’s not cute all these years later. Plus, I’m a different person now. I have more of a sense of what a healthy relationship feel like and looks like, and I’m able to recognize that while Mulder’s obsessive qualities are fascinating and magnetic, they don’t make for a healthy relationship.
In the second episode of Season 10, “Founder’s Mutation,” they do a good job of showing how that arc might have played out. Initially Scully seems to be the one who still thinks about William. Mulder claims that he had to “put all that behind me.” He seems to feel a sense of loss and certainly a great concern for Scully’s pain, but he has his various other obsessions to keep him busy (hence, the completely self-centered and self-destructive version of Mulder that we saw in “My Struggle”).
Later in “Founder’s Mutation,” we see him fantasizing about being a father to William and he ends up looking at the same photo of the baby that Scully looks at earlier. In those fantasy sequences, the arc plays out. He’s still thinking about the Truth but he’s calmer, he’s more grounded, he’s more involved in the lives of other people. He’s a grown up. It’s that fantasy version Mulder that I’ll never stop being madly in love with even though he’s trapped in his obsessive, annoying version of himself by grief.
Elyse: True story, when I was in middle school I took a YM quiz to see which celebrity dude I should be with and I got David Duchovny because I was clearly super erudite at twelve, and I was like OMG YES I SHOULD BE WITH THE MYSTERIOUS GUY and I remember it to this day.
CarrieS: You are all infants.
RHG: HA.
Elyse: Watching it now I get the impression that Scully would slap him around during sex.
RHG: Mulder is TOTALLY a crier.
Elyse: Scully hugely influenced me in middle/high school because I was like, “Wait, this very smart, very rational, mostly not sexed up woman can be a hero?” I seriously would thank Scully and Buffy for all my professional success.
CarrieS: HAHA. You watched in high school and middle school because you are an infant! It started my last year of college and I got really into it right after college.
RHG: I also watched it in high school kind of.
CarrieS: Because you are a BABY.
Elyse: I am very crusty and old emotionally tho.
Amanda: I did not watch it until a couple years ago because I remember my parents watching it at night and I snuck out of my room to peep on the TV and was scared shitless. They were watching the carnival one where the dude had the twin that detached from his body and ate people.
Elyse: YES THAT WAS FUCKED UP.
Sarah: I think many hours of conversation could be had by asking, “Which episode of The X-Files scared the absolute shit out of you the most?”
CarrieS: I watched that one last night (“Humbug”). OMG so many great moments! Say what you will about David Duchovny, the man can deliver a line. His rather sad, “But I AM an FBI agent” had me ON THE FLOOR.
This is why I can’t stop shipping them. Everyone’s dialogue is awful half the time, but when Mulder and Scully talk to each other it’s just brilliant. From “Trevor:”
Scully: Spontaneous human combustion.
Mulder: Scully!
Scully: Well, isn’t that where you’re going with this?
Mulder: Dear Diary, today my heart leapt when Agent Scully suggested spontaneous human combustion.
Scully: Mulder, there are one or two somewhat well-documented cases.
Pause.
Scully: Mulder, shut up.
Mulder is a douche, but they have some solid romance qualities and one is that they KNOW each other. They have mutual respect, they care about each other, and they have that sort of recognition of each other’s best and worst qualities that is such a rush to see on screen. I think the reason so many of us can’t stop shipping them even though we know Scully really should dump his sorry ass permanently is that sense that they know each other and have a closeness and intimacy together that many couples, real and fiction, never achieve.
Elyse: Lol! Remember when he passed out and started singing the Shaft theme song?
CarrieS: Or at the beginning of “Small Potatoes” when she accurately guesses the insane theory that’s in his head and he looks incredibly delighted and says, “Scully, should we would be picking out china patterns or WHAT!”
Elyse: Or when they pretend to be husband and wife? “Who taught you to squeeze a tube of toothpaste?”
Sarah: That green face mask was everything.
CarrieS: “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”
Elyse: The other thing that was interesting about the X-Files was that it subverted gender roles. Mulder operated on intuition and emotion. Scully was logical and rational.
CarrieS: In a way the show fits great into today’s world because we live in the Vast Conspiracy Rumor Era, but I thought the pilot failed to address that properly. When Scully says that it would be irresponsible to broadcast Mulder’s theories, I wanted her to talk about why. How has the world of distrust changed over time? How do conspiracy theories reveal or obscure truth, how do they bring justice (because sometimes they are true) and cause harm (all these kids who aren’t getting vaccinated because their parents believe debunked stories regarding autism)? The show has never wanted to deal with it’s actual substance and I’m really over that. If Chris Carter wants to stay obsessed with conspiracies, the show should actually talk about them and not just blather about their surfaces. The X-Files both benefited from and influenced the conspiracy culture of the 1990s, and clearly wants to continue from the culture of today, and I’d like to see it deal with that.
Elyse: I think my favorite part of “My Struggle” is when Mulder calls Scully to tell her that Sveta might be the KEY TO UNLOCKING EVERYTHING and then when she says “What?” he replies, “Sorry, don’t want to talk about this on the phone.”
It’s the equivalent of the people who post on Facebook “Worst day of my life. Everything is so awful” and then when people ask what’s wrong, they reply “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Don’t be that guy, Mulder.
The second episode was a lot stronger. I had soooo many feels when Mulder and Scully were “remembering” their son. It just killed me. Part of me desperately wanted the series to end with them having some real happiness.
CarrieS: My attachment to The X-Files involves so many happy memories of the act of watching it that the quality of the show is almost peripheral to my current feels about it.
True story:
I started watching the show in about 1994. I had just gotten out of college and moved to a small town in Alaska, and my friend had me over to see an episode. It was “Talitha Cumi,” and Mulder cried.
WELL.
In my fantasy life, one of my major catnip types is the wounded sad skinny smart guy who wants to save the world. And Mulder CRIED. Because of his MOM. I was IN LOVE. So I went home and fixed my old TV with a paper clip because the antenna was broken.
Eventually a real-life skinny smart guy who wants to save the world moved to town and while he did not have deep-seated emotional trauma (thank GOD) but he DID have two very exciting things – a TV with a working antenna and a washing machine! He even had access to unlimited piped water! In my town, this was high riches.
So every Sunday night I would take a load of laundry to his house and we would watch The X-Files together, and in 1999 we got married with Mulder and Scully action figures on our cakes.
X-Files played a role for us beyond giving us an excuse to hang out every Sunday night. My husband and I are incredibly different. He’s all science and I’m pure English Lit. He’s all data and precision and I sort of wander around tossing verbal clouds of glitter in the air. I seriously did not think we could possibly be a viable couple (this was seventeen years ago, by the way). But in watching two very different individuals grow to respect each other’s differences on TV, and in understanding that Mulder and Scully only work as a couple BECAUSE they are so different, it allowed me to take a risk on trying to date someone who is in many ways my complete opposite.
There are aspects of the Mulder/Scully relationship that taught me what NOT to do (honestly Mulder, get your shit together, it’s been two decades). But it also helped me see a long-term relationship play out that depended on two characters having total respect for and trust in each other even though they were in almost constant conflict of one type or another.
The year after we got married my friends used to have X-Files viewing nights and after every episode we would dance around the living room singing, “David Duchovny, Why Don’t You Love Me” (a great song, by Bree Sharp).
Sarah: Also my singular favorite lip-sync music video ever in the history of everything.
Carrie: So for me, X-Files will always be attached to this incredibly formative period of my life where I was learning to be an adult, and then falling in love, and learning how to be married. And X-Files was this wonderfully crazy constant on Sunday nights. So I’m not always CONVINCED that the show is good, but I WANT to believe! And I’m always fascinated by stories that have this sort of intense emotional and cultural hold on us.
You can catch current episodes of The X-Files online through Hulu or FOX Now, or you can catch live episodes Monday nights at 8pm EST on FOX.
What about you? Are you watching? Are you a fan from way back when, or is this your first experience with the show? What do you think?
You guys make me feel ancient. A coworker got me to watch this when I was in my late 20s (I think). I loved it at first, but only stuck with it on a regular basis for several seasons before becoming an intermittent viewer. So many things started to bother me, but it was the general lack of real forward progress that annoyed me most.
I don’t remember the name of the episode, but the one with the Deliverance-type inbreds who drove around with their mother in the trunk of their car while they kidnapped women to mate with freaked me out the most. It may even have been the first episode I watched, which probably helped sear it into my brain.
I also find it difficult to separate David Duchovny from his roles. It’s pretty much impossible for me to not think about what a lousy person/husband he is when I’m watching him onscreen. But that’s true for me with a lot of actors.
I still have to check all the doors and windows at night to make sure there are no cracks where Tooms might fit through. And it’s been 20 years.
Watched it religiously back in the day, and have been watching the new eps. But I’m watching with my SO, who never watched it before, so it’s been interesting trying to explain all of the back history. Love love love Scully! Favorite episode was Bad Blood, which is the one above with Mulder saying he was drugged. Scully’s version of the events versus Mulder’s cracks me up everytime.
Susan, that episode freaked me out as well. I love Google; that episode was called “Home” and was about the Peacock family. It first aired in October 1996 (almost twenty years ago!). I also feel ancient, as I was 29 years old for most of 1993. I was never a real fan of the show; I just caught random episodes here and there when I was with friends.
I keep seeing Mulder in Californication, he’s the same guy. Scully is the best! She needs to not answer the phone when Mulder calls.
I remember watching the show from the beginning, and most of the way through. One of my biggest memories was being in Philadelphia to deliver a lecture and, being terrified of the way the entire city seemed to shut down after 5, staying in my hotel to watch “Darkness Falls.” The show was far from consistently good (early on Mulder always saw cool stuff no one would believe while Scully was conveniently elsewhere; later they had too many self-parody episodes and even replaced the two leads!) but when it was good it was damn memorable.
My problem with the reboot (apart from Duchovny’s almost sleepwalking delivery) is that in the first new episode they retconned the premise of the entire show, from an alien conspiracy to humans using alien tech for their own conspiracy. So what does that mean for those viewers who remember the black ooze and saw the actual aliens — and the war between aliens? It never happened? Or Mulder’s just confused again? (One article pointed out that they already had an episode where part of the conspiracy got Mulder to doubt there ever were aliens.)
Scully is awesome. Forever awesome. And it is sad that there are not more heroines like her. Smart. Confident. Accomplished. An adult. And still warm.
I watched the X-Files from the beginning, mostly in college, and my roommate and I were really into it. Dorm posters, etc. But I stopped at some point, I’m not sure when. I saw the first movie but not the second. Is it worth it to catch up and watch the whole thing?
My favorite X-Files related story, which we still tell: A bunch of us were at Waffle House and my roommate was wearing an X-Files hat, which said “trust no one” on the back. She turned and pointed at the back while saying this. I still remember the surprised looks of the people in the next booth who she told to trust no one. Waffle House can be weird.
I watched from the beginning while in college and from the beginning I was truly obsessed. No one was allowed to call me while the X-files was on. One year my birthday was on the date of the season finale so I subjected all my friends to a viewing, none of whom watched the show or knew what was going on. Birthday Queen for a Day powers are AWESOME!!
My most profound relationship with the X-files, though, was with my stepdad. When my mom started dating this new guy, Tom, he was kind of doofy, yet adorable, but I couldn’t really find any fault in him. I just didn’t think he was anything truly special (his awesomeness wasn’t revealed to me until much later). Anyway, he loved the X-files, too. We bonded over it. I made an exception to the “no calls” rule so we could talk to each other during the commercials. It was Cosa Nostra. It drove my mother nuts because she just “didn’t get it.”
Tom died in 2008 from cancer. I miss him so much.
My love for this season is purely sentimental. I spent most of the first episode crying because I wanted to reach for my phone. For all its flaws, I’m going to watch and I’m going to love because the show is so tied to someone I love. I just hope they have Hulu in Heaven.
Thanks for listening to me eulogize, I just needed to get this out.
Much love,
Ana
@Ana: that is so sad and beautiful, and I’m so sorry for your loss. I totally get the sentimental attachment. The bond we share over the stuff we love is a very strong one.
@SB Sarah: Thank you Sarah. I appreciate the kindness.
I watched every single episode of the original show and loved it.
Very important: Gillian is being paid way, way less than David and that makes no sense. It would not be the X-Files without Scully.
Also, something that confuses me. At the very end of the very last episode, Mulder and Scully were on the run together. I very much had the impression this was because Scully, who did not have to, went on the run with Mulder because she was in love with him. After all, they did have that baby together.
Now, maybe they weren’t in love, but they were on the run and I expected some resolution to that and it’s not there.
I miss the Lone Gunmen and they won’t be back because Carter killed them off.
In the second movie, it’s established that Scully and Mulder are living together (I can’t recall if they are married or not, but they live together as a romantic longterm couple. At the start of the revival, it’s repeatedly established that they are currently separated but clearly still very fond of each other.
Gillian was offered less money than David (which …grrrrr) but being the awesome Gillian that she is she stood her ground and forced the studio to pay her the same amount. for once, that story of sexism has a happy ending. http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/x-files-star-gillian-anderson-7327714
I love this post! (I loved X-Files so hard, even when it sucked. In fact, my first forays into fiction writing were X-Files fanfics.) CarrieS, your story about going to your future husband’s house to watch cracked me up. I did the same with mine and Buffy. We were in grad school together. He had cable, and I didn’t (This was in Canada, and you needed cable for Buffy.) I used to awkwardly call him and sort of invite myself over. Ah, romance.
Wonderful post. I have not watched any of the reboot and don’t know if I will. I watched the original series religiously except for the last couple of seasons. The one and only episode that really, really bothered me was the Peacocks. Seriously could not sleep that night. My favorite villain was Eugene Tooms played by Doug Hutchison. Loved him in The Green Mile also. I actually kept up with that guy until he totally weirded out a few years ago and married a teenager. Sheesh…
I watched X-Files from the beginning, and the first season, I used to ask people if they watched it, and nobody had heard of it! I was constantly recommending it to everyone. I didn’t make it to the end and didn’t see the movies, but I’m still thrilled the show is back & loved hearing that opening music again!
The episode that I remember really freaked me out was the one set at the circus with the “freaks and geeks.”
By the way, you’re *all* babies since I was over 30 when the show premiered! 😉
I am just now watching it for the first time. I’m not sure where I was when this originally aired but likely it was in the way to creepy for me to deal with time period. I am loving it, get totally creeped out but can’t stop watching it in a mini binge like way.
Loved reading your commentary on the new episodes, which I have DVR’d for when I get caught up.
The X-Files were, I think, my first TV fandom as an adult. (Remington Steele and MacGyver both beat it as they aired during my adolesence–but X-Files was the first one I watched fresh out of college.) And oh boy howdy did I love me some Mulder. My housemate Mimi and I frequently pronounced his name “Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmulder.” For us, I do believe his primary appeal was his superb sad puppy face. 😉
My entire household loyally followed the show up until around season eight or so, when Duchovny bailed and they brought in the new agent to try to work with Scully. By then I was all “if Mulder’s not involved, DON’T CARE”, because I had insufficient appreciation for Scully’s standalone awesomeness but also because I was irritated at Chris Carter for having sent the whole storyline off the rails. And I was REALLY irritated at how Mulder and Scully had suddenly had sex OFF CAMERA, after seasons of coy hinting about whether or not their relationship was platonic. I mean HONESTLY, show. You’re going to finally answer that question, at least have the decency to do it on camera where all the shippers can see it and cheer!
I’ve bought seasons 1-5 and the first movie, because if you take that section of the show, it’s still a pretty coherent story arc. The second movie, though, was… not good. And by not good, I mean wretched.
We came back for the series nine series finale, since we kinda had to. Now that 10 has started up–not entirely sure what I think yet, though of course I’m checking out the episodes. So far I’ve watched episodes 1-2 and they feel like they’re not entirely coherent. Part of this is because I’m a writer now and have a better idea of what cohesive dialogue should sound like–and in these two episodes, I frequently feel like Duchovny and Anderson are making appropriate Mulder and Scully noises, yet they aren’t really having proper conversations. o.O
I’m looking forward to episode 3 though!
No. And no. And no. By the end of X-files the original series, it was clear that there was no real vision of where the series was going. Continuity? Bah. Mythology? Bah. Integrity of characterization? Bah. At the point where Scully gives up her newborn child “to keep him safe” in a world where it had been repeatedly shown there was no hiding, no safety, I bailed in a big way. It was clear the writers had created an inconvenient baby, and had to ditch him. Add in the moronic end of the Lone Gunmen, and Miracle Mulder, and all that was left was Chris Carter and Co. trying to wring a few last episodes out of an aged lemon.
Watch Gillian Anderson in The Fall. She is luminous, intense and commands attention on the screen. Watch Gillian Anderson in X-files. She has bad hair, a whine, and no reason to return to a partnership with Miracle Mulder. Watch the writers dredge up the abandonment of a baby and insert a few moments of angst. Bah.
The monster of the week episode was so stupid that I can understand why it never made it to a Kolchak episode. Recycle. Reduce. Reuse. And never, never give an audience something authentic or original. X-files the Retread fails on every point of analysis. Bad acting. Bad writing. Stupid world building. It’s embarrassing and depressing to see where this series ended up.
Tickled that several of my top 5 favorite episodes are mentioned in this commentary 🙂 http://meloniejohnson.com/blog/2016/01/20/from-trailer-park-vampires-to-luke-skywalkers-baby-my-top-5-favorite-episodes-of-the-x-files/
Been looking forward to the new episodes but so far have only been able to catch the first since my Mondays are always booked. Regardless of good or bad reviews, I will be watching all of them eventually!
I’ve been an X-Files fan since the beginning. I was an original ‘shipper and read much fan-fiction in the 90s. This is my favorite show of all time. I am so happy they are finally addressing the William situation though. I cannot watch the episode where Scully gives him up and season 9 is not my favorite. The first episode wasn’t that great, but honestly, I’m so happy having them back that I can deal. I can’t get behind Mulder being a douche though. Nope. And I still love David Duchovny.
[…] note: You can see more of my X-Files thoughts on Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Can’t someone lock Chris Carter and George Lucas in a room somewhere and say, “Look […]