Writing Blind: The X-Files S4

Welcome to a feature called "Writing Blind."  In this series, I will be writing about seasons of television that I watched in the past year or so, but failed to write about at the time.  I call it writing blind, because I will be sharing my thoughts months after I have already finished the season.  This is both because I want to write about these seasons, but don't have the time to re-watch them and because it is a challenge to hopefully improve my writing.

I'm about to finish season five of The X-Files and I really hope I can write a review soon after finishing it, because I am tired of trying to recollect episodes I haven't seen in months.  There is however one thing I am certain about with the fourth season of The X-Files: it's the best season.  I guess a better way to put it is that it's the most cohesive one.  Season four is the first season to really feel like continuity matters.  

I appreciate that in the first three seasons, the show would have enough continuity to make it worth watching in order, but it's not really vital to watch it in order.  (Except for mythology episodes I guess, but I've never been that invested in them, mostly due to the incredibly widespread reputation the show has for shitting the bed with the mythology.  It's kind of hard to care when you know it's leading you nowhere.  And really here's every mythology episode: you learn something, but nothing actually changes.)

That changes in this season, starting with the last five minutes of "Leonard Betts," when we find out Scully has cancer.  It's a pretty bold move, a move the show would need to back out of one way or the other.  The rest of the season either addresses it directly or knowing she has cancer changes how you might perceive certain scenes.

There's also the fact that Gillian Anderson is a fantastic actor and nailed every emotional beat.  David Duchovny has grown on me the more I've watched the show, but I have zero doubt he would not be able to do what Anderson did in this season.  In fact, I don't think I've praised her enough in these reviews.  She makes this show.  This is pretty impressive considering the writers frequently write her as a wet blanket who gets in they way of Mulder's theories or simply don't give her anything to do at all.  So keep that in mind when I say that the smartest thing the writers ever did, besides maybe picking Vince Gilligan's spec script in season two, was giving Scully cancer so Anderson could finally play something up to her talent.

Duchovny isn't left hanging as this is the first time he's confronted with the possibility that the government is behind everything.  The writers wrote themselves into a corner here.  There are two possible scenarios on how to deal with the government conspiracy. One is that the aliens are real and the government is hiding it.  It's implied that the world of The X-Files is essentially the same as our world where most people don't believe in aliens or supernatural things.  Of course, presenting it as this version makes it hard to believe people aren't more accepting of things like aliens when there's been at least 100 or more instances (in other words, the episodes) where the impossible is real.  You'd think that bleed into everyday life.  But suspension of disbelief and what have you.  

The other scenario is that the government wants you to believe in aliens so that you ignore the other shit they do.  That's not what this season comes to because the show is far from being over so they can't make any conclusions yet.  But it certainly makes it seem like that's a possibility.  Which makes no sense in a world where we've seen so much evidence of crazy, impossible ghost shit happening.  You can't really say aliens aren't real and then have an episode on this ancient demon who is totally real.  (Relating to a previous point, it's frustrating to have Scully constantly reject Mulder's theories with common sense and science and then he's nearly always right.  Seriously it's not hard to imagine someone not named Gillian Anderson playing Scully and Scully being TERRIBLE to watch.)

Anyway, the fourth season still has good mythology episodes, though much like last time, I couldn't recite to you any plot points.  I read the episode descriptions and synopsis and still barely remember them.  Mythology episodes are exciting at the time (well some of them), but they leave nearly no lasting impression on me.  Am I alone on this?

This season has a ton of great episodes.  There's a lot of episodes that I knew were great before I even watched a minute of it.  "Home" is creepy and maybe one of the most fucked up things the show ever presented on screen, especially when you stop and think about it.  "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" has CSM killing John F. Kennedy, which is awesome.  "Paper Hearts" presents an alternative explanation for the disappearance of Samantha, Fox's long-missing sister.  "Leonard Betts" through "Memento Mori" are great as we discover Scully has cancer (though it came at the end of Leonard Betts and is a great episode before that), she has her own adventure (where cancer isn't mentioned, but certainly colors his actions), and then "Memento Mori" has both Scully and Mulder deal with the news that Scully has cancer.  There's also the awesome "Small Potatoes," meant by Vince Gilligan in the vein of Darin Morgan script, and "Zero Sum" where Walter Skinner gets framed for murder.

Combined, this season is a combination of long-form storytelling, season-long storytelling, and simply standalones.  It succeeds at all three.  Only the first season really has as clear of a season-long arc in my mind before this fourth season came along.  I feel confident in saying that the fourth season of The X-Files will be my favorite and my pick for the best season.

Grade - A