Writing Blind: The X-Files S7

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 rarely noticed it, but this is the season most commonly referenced as to when David Duchovny stopped giving a shit.  I didn't notice it most of the time, not because I'm not particularly enamored of his acting ability, but because he's always been kind of a sleepy, low-key performer.  With that said, after having watched season eight, I do appreciate Duchovny a lot more than I did because his absence is felt in the first part of the season so he's clearly doing something right.

The seventh season of The X-Files is a weird season.  It's a really weird season.  There are episodes of creativity, doing things that somehow hadn't been done before.  There are signs that the writers have run out of ideas, lacking enough good ideas to fill a 22-episode season.  To be fair, maybe one or two seasons have sustained 22 good ideas as most seasons will have a clunker or two.

Unfortunately, it's a sign of The X-Files exiting their golden age.  There's not a single episode in this season that is a classic.  If you want to quibble with that, I'll amend it a little: I don't think any of these episodes would make a top ten X-Files list.  I'm not saying there aren't good episodes.  "En Ami" pairs together Cigarette Smoking Man and Scully for a solo episode of sorts.  It works very well.  "Hollywood A.D." goes meta and I always enjoy a good meta episode that constantly pokes fun at itself.  "The Amazing Maleeni" is elevated by a strong guest performance by Ricky Jay (Deadwood alum).  I'm just saying none of these are your all-time greats.

In addition, season seven has some of the worst episodes of the entire series (Season 9 possibly excluded as I have not seen it and I plan to skip most of that season so I'll probably never really know).  These are episode titles I knew were bad before I even got to season seven.  "First Person Shooter" and "Fight Club" are legitimate competing candidates for worst episode of the series, or at the very least worst episode of the series when it was still good.  Duchovny has proved surprisingly adept at both writing and directing (He wrote and directed one of my favorites from this season "Hollywood A.D.")  Gillian Anderson... well let's just say there's a reason her only writing and directing credit on IMDB is her writer-director effort "all things."

It's pretty clear, at least until season eight comes along, that they are simply out of ideas.  They gave both Anderson and Duchovny their own episodes, they have an admittedly entertaining gimmick episode in "X-Cops," they have what I think is an afterword to the cancelled Millennium show, and they have the most clunkers since season one.  While I admitted that Duchovny's absence is felt in season eight, they did need a change and his lessened involvement provided the necessary excuse.

Plus, at this point, the mythology had been well past the point of being interesting.  I don't remember much about these mythology episodes except I remember them being a slog to get through.  I've always kind of had an issue with the mythology episodes though.  Part of it was knowing that it was going nowhere: the heroes almost discover something new, only for it be taken away at the last minute, probably because somebody gets killed.  In the back of my mind, I just can't really be invested in those episodes unfortunately.

As always though - for the most part, The X-Files remained mediocre to good for the whole season on the strength of its directing.  The directors never let down the script at this point in the show's run.  Kim Manners, Rob Bowman, and whoever copied them in the other episodes, had effectively nailed the show's tone.  There's a few episodes purposefully straying from that tone, but they tended to at the least direct it as well as it is written on the page and frequently elevating the story.  (I wonder if a more experienced director could have improved Anderson's episode; hard not to think so).

So season seven is a victim of a show being in its seventh season.  Nearly all shows either don't even make it to its seventh season or they no longer can be called a good show.  The X-Files could still be called a good show, it just probably wasn't a great show by this point.  Sometimes, making lots of consistently good episodes is enough though.  Despite the bad episodes, most of these episodes were solid.  That's how I would describe this season: solid.

Grade - B

Rewind: The X-Files S6

When I started this series, I expected to immediately like it.  I had high expectations for the show and I thought I would have no trouble getting into the show.  I also weirdly expected a small peak that the show would only reach for a couple seasons, and gradually declining years until it became unwatchable.  As you've probably gathered, this is not at all what happened to me.  The high expectations made the first season a disappointment - it has one of the better season-long storylines and a few good episodes, but that's pretty much it.  That initial disappointment kept me at arm's length from loving the show for longer than it otherwise would have - although I'm only now seeing this in hindsight.

Anyway, my other "problem" with truly getting into The X-Files is that I was fully aware of the mythology before I started.  By that I mean, I knew it wasn't really going anywhere and would ultimately stop making sense or just start getting stupid.  While this did lead to not being frustrated at all when the mythology got that way, it also meant I pretty much never got invested in any early season mythology.  Welcome to the only show where I infinitely prefer the standalone episodes to their serialization.

So here I am in season six and the show's been mostly churning out 20 or so quality episodes each year for the past five years (with the exception of the fifth season, which had less episodes due to the movie).  So I didn't really expect to gain an appreciation for the show in its supposed decline years.  But my opinion of the show is much higher than it was in the second season or third season, perhaps because there are very few shows that remain good in its sixth season.  It's clear the show is starting to run out of ideas, but they are responding to this by being creative and experimenting with ideas.

The mythology is never less important than the sixth season, which I certainly am not going to complain about.  The show also took some backlash for two developments and I'm not sure how related they are to each other: season six tries to be funny for like six episodes in a row (it seems that long at least) and the production moved to California because David Duchovny didn't like Vancouver (this is at least what I've read so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong).

Despite the brighter colors and the shift in tone at points, you can't really say the show is that much worse than before.  It's probably not better than the 2-4 seasons, but during the fifth season, they were so clearly focused on the movie that it led to an inconsistent season with some rather high points.  The sixth season, whatever flaws you may give it, is a fairly consistent season at the very least.  "Milagro" is about the only really bad episode in the season, but to be fair wow did I hate that episode.  Thanks for wasting John Hawkes guys!

However, the best episodes of the sixth season tend to have one or two flaws preventing it from really matching the best episodes of the previous years.  "Triangle" is a lot of fun, but it makes no damn sense.  "Tithonus" is basically Vince Gilligan's attempt at writing Darin Morgan, and while he's a great writer, it's no "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose."  Not many things are, but it kind of invites the comparison and can't help but pale in comparison.  "Arcadia" is another fun episode, but the monster is fairly bland, dragging it down a bit.  "The Unnatural" is mostly a great episode because Jesse L. Martin is fantastic and it's kind of pointless to write down the flaws since those are also what makes it kind of endearing.

There's also "Drive," the episode that brought Bryan Cranston to Vince Gilligan.  Cranston is pretty much as good as advertised and you can definitely see how he convinced Gilligan to cast him in Breaking Bad.  "Monday" is the X-Files Groundhog Day episode (does every long-running genre series eventually have this type of episode?  I saw a Star Trek: Next Generation episode like this, but it aired before Groundhog Day.  It's basically the perfect format for TV).  I don't think I have ever not liked a Groundhog Day episode before, but I'm sure a bad one exists somewhere.

"Field Trip" is maybe my favorite episode of the season (oh look Vince Gilligan had a hand in that.  Shocker).  "Three of Kind" is a perhaps unexpected an dunnecessary sequel to the Lone Gunmen episode from the fifth season and probably falls apart if you think about it, but I had a lot of fun watching it.  Lastly, "Dreamland" has no business being a two-parter, but its got Michael McKean and he's always great.  I keep naming episodes I liked, but there's a lot of them.  (Last one: "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" is great if nothing else for the performances by Lily Tomlin and Edward Asner.)

Are there X-Files fans who are mythology-driven and those who only want the standalone episodes?  The mythology probably sheds more light on the character of the two leads than the other episodes so they had their use in the beginning seasons.  But still...  I think I can count on one hand the number of mythology episodes that seemed useful.  (My impression is that I didn't really love those episodes even in the early seasons, but that could be just because I don't remember them at all.  Seriously these episodes do not stick in my brain like other episodes do for some reason.)

The sixth season was much better than I ever expected.  Besides season three, it might even feature the most good to great episodes.  (Though looking at my past grades, season four might have something to say about that.)  If I decide to rewatch the series and limit it to my most enjoyable or favorite episodes, this very well might have the most episodes on that list.  You'd think five seasons and a movie would diminish the writers' capacity for new ideas, but you can't really tell by the quality of these episodes.

Grade - A-

Rewind: The X-Files S5

Season five is a weird season and it's one that's weird almost by necessity.  In the summer after the fifth season, The X-Files movie came out in theaters, which means that either before or concurrent with the shooting of the fifth season, they shot the movie.  So Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, and the writers weren't exactly available for your regular full TV schedule.

Hamstrung by time constraints, the show was forced to get creative with how to make a season of television while also making a movie for theaters.  This led to inventive and exciting new episodes while also having the most duds of any season since the first season.  Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny are both either missing or barely present in multiple episodes.  One of the show's two primary directors, Rob Bowman, only directed two episodes in this season because he was also directing the movie.  He had directed 23 episodes in the first four seasons.  (I find it interesting he was chosen for the movie.  Kim Manners directed more episodes of the show and also directed the finale.  Despite his obvious talent, he didn't seem all that interested in movies so maybe that was the reason?)

So the fifth season ends up becoming uneven and unfocused (especially contrasted with the extremely cohesive fourth season.)  But that's not a huge problem with a show as creative as this one got.  In "Unusual Suspects," The X-Files had a spotlight episode on its tertiary characters, the lone gunmen.  These weren't exactly characters I would have guessed could carry an episode on their own, even knowing they eventually got their own (failed) TV show.  But by focusing on the most normal one of the group, John Fitzgerald Byers, it ended up being similar to a typical noir story where the everyman is duped by a woman.  Predictable maybe, but still entertaining.

"Post-Modern Prometheus" evokes an old-fashioned type of horror by being shot in black-and-white where we are dropped into a small town.  The X-Files episodes that focus on small towns are at the very least always interesting and tend to seem like real places.  But this is definitely considerably different than most X-Files episodes.  "Bad Blood" is one of the best episodes they've ever done with a "Rashomon" like story where we get two skewed perspectives and no sense of the truth.  "The Pine Bluff Variant" puts Mulder in a position where he robs a bank!  "Foile a Deux" is one of the creepier monster of the weeks they've ever done.  Just the idea that you can see a huge insect-looking thing coming towards you and nobody else can is one of the most terrifying things imaginable.

With the excellent come the very bad episodes as well though.  "Schizogeny" is confusing, not scary, and doesn't have a compelling monster of the week.  It's a slog to actually watch.  "Chinga," the Stephen King-penned episode, is quite awful.  Those two at least have good reasons for being bad.  Stephen King works haven't really tended to work that well either on television or in movies unless someone takes his idea and goes in a different direction.  The other one was a spec script that they accepted because they needed another episode.  "The End" has no such excuses with a child prodigy who can read minds and a forced love triangle from a completely new character.  That was the last episode of the series so even if the movie was on your minds, you'd think you'd actually put your best foot forward.

The fifth season, as I look at all the episodes I talked about, wasn't quite as uneven as I thought.  It has a rough middle stretch and the mythology episode at the end is probably the worst one thus far, but most of these episodes are good.  In fact, I'm not sure there've been so many off-the-wall ideas in any season thus far and nearly all of those ideas work.  The fifth season is rarely in its typical format which lends an unpredictability to the season.  While previous seasons have been better, when you click on the next episode, you usually know what you're getting.  That is definitely not the case in this season, for better and for worse.

So I'm pretty intrigued going forward to say the least.  I have seen from a number of people that Duchovny at some point stops giving a shit.  I can't help but speculate that the heavy workload this season could have been a factor, if true of course.  But this season, while somewhat of a letdown from previous seasons, in no way indicates a drop in the show's quality.  The top episodes are as good as the show has ever been and the weaknesses can simply be explained by the tough schedule they put themselves in.

Grade - B+

As an added note, I plan to watch The X-Files movie and the sixth season before the special six episode season coming out in January.  Since most people have recommended I stop after seven seasons, I'll probably end up recording the newest season, watching the seventh season and then finally watching the new episodes.  So it might be fair to say I won't get to the new episodes until March.

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

Writing Blind: The X-Files S3

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.

Back in the day - you know as early as 20 years ago - TV shows necessarily created a safe haven for viewers.  You can watch this Thursday, skip next week's, and be none the wiser when you turned back in for the next episode.  They needed to not alienate new viewers in order to gain viewership.  So talking about full seasons of any show that was mostly procedural and you could mostly just drop in on an episode without much issue is difficult.  Because the quality varies week-to-week.

Even on a season as consistent as the third season of The X-Files, they still have possibly one of the worst episodes in the series that I've seen in "Hell Money."  To be honest, I don't remember much about that episode except that it was dreadfully boring and terrible.  (It's either that or "Teso dos Bichos" - I don't remember which, but both were just terrible.)  But that just serves to strengthen my point.  How the hell am I supposed to grade a whole season of a show that is designed to allow you to skip episodes.

Now The X-Files is one of the rare shows that rewards people who watch it in order.  It doesn't reward you THAT much.  But it's clear the writers want to maintain some continuity even if it's just in the subtext.  You can only notice that if you watch it in order and probably only if you watch episodes over the course of days and not say the normal TV schedule of a network show.

If there's anything I take away from this season, it's that this is the season where I will re-watch the most episodes.  If I'm being honest, right now at this date, I'm probably watching the entirety of The X-Files and then not returning to it after I finish watching it.  I'll sometimes come back and re-watch maybe 10-20 episodes that I really, really liked.  More than a few will come from this season.

Because this is the season of Darin Morgan.  I read X-File episode reviews/recaps after I watch each episode and the comments always list their favorite writers of the series.  Morgan is almost unanimously the first name that is mentioned.  Sometimes he's listed second, because his episodes comment on the show itself in a mocking tone and none of them are the essence of X-Files.

I'm not in a position to pick a side of the debate on that yet, but I will tell you I will return to every one of his episodes in this season.  "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," "War of the Coprophages," and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" are all classic X-File episodes.  As a Scully fan first and a Mulder fan second, I like how these episodes usually good-naturedly mock Mulder.  (As a side note: Am I the only one totally not shipping Mulder/Scully.  She's too good for him)  They're also cleverly written, entertaining as hell, and they bring the best out of the two leads.'

This season also features Vince Gilligan's first great script.  Remember when I said Morgan was the first name mentioned on top writers.  Gilligan is the second name.  Sometimes, he's first because his episodes represented the typical X-Files while still being original and spooky.  "Pusher" is that episode.

Another challenging thing about writing about a season for a show like the The X-Files months after I've seen it is that I can't really go into detail about specific episodes.  I'll try to write the fourth season soon, because it's relatively fresh in my mind, but most of these episodes I don't remember from just the title.  Anyway, I think that could work to my advantage because I don't want to go just describing each good or bad episode anyway.

I've seen written that the third season is the best mix of the Mythology and the standalone.  The fourth season comes close, so close I'm not willing to make that determination.  But the third season certainly has the best standalones of any season so far, and probably of the whole series judging by what I've heard about the later seasons.  I mean the four episodes I mention are all standalones and not at all required for the mythology.  (The Morgan episodes somewhat need you to be familar with the standard tropes of X-Files and the Mulder/Scully dynamic so they aren't typical)

I'm going to go by memory that I enjoyed the mythology episodes, because wow do I don't remember any details about any of the mythology episodes in this season.  Like the Indian saying mystical stuff in the first episode and... Mulder and Scully on a boat in one of the best scenes.. and uhhhh.... Yeah, in ten years, I won't remember anything about the mythology probably.  Doesn't matter.  I liked them when I watched them.

In conclusion, The X-Files third season is a model of consistency with only one or two duds in it.  The usual price for consistency is that the show will just re-hash the same formula over and over.  The X-Files changes it up enough to keep it interesting.  Not to mention, it's not only consistent, but has some of the best episodes of the entire series.  I'm not sure if I think season three or season four is better, but I can feel reasonably confident that this season is a solid lock for at least the second best season of the entire series.

Grade - A

Rewind: The X-Files S2

At the end of the first season, The X-Files had disbanded the x-files.  Agents Mulder and Scully were separated and the entire format of the show was in question.  Sort of.  Look, it was pretty obvious the show was returning to normal sooner rather than later, a fact which somewhat hurts the show.  But at the same time, it seems a little much to expect the show to completely change the status quo after one season.

As opposed to the first season, which was only serialized in the sense of character growth and development, the second season is serialized much more heavily.  It probably didn't hurt that the writers needed to work around Gillian Anderson's pregnancy.  Unless they wrote the pregnancy into the show - and at this point in the show's run that seems unlikely - they needed to either hide her pregnancy or have her go away for a few episodes.

So hamstrung with limited options, the writers created a first six episodes worthy of the status that The X-Files has achieved.  In the first episode, Fox Mulder goes through a crisis of faith and a non-believing Mulder is just weird.  But it's necessary.  Deep Throat had just been killed and he was removed from his pet project.

The next two episodes see Mulder on his own, without Agent Scully.  Mulder does his best to contact Scully and it's hard not to wonder at the time of watching these episodes, how they could possibly maintain the show without getting them together.  These episodes suffer ever so slightly from the diminished presence of Anderson.  It's a necessary evil to reduce her screen time rather than explain her pregnancy (something I happen to agree with), but Anderson is just light years ahead of David Duchovny as an actor.  (Unpopular opinion: I don't think Duchovny's that great of an actor.  He tries to cry later in the season and its painful.  He may not be a bad actor, but his range is certainly limited)

The diminished presence continues for Scully, but they add a new player to the game in the fourth episode: Alex Krycek.  As played by Nicholas Lea, he seems like a by-the-book, earnest employee with strong ideals.  Instead, he's a badass killer, spying on Mulder.  I wish there could be more of an arc with Krycek and Mulder as partners, played nearly completely straight.  The show reveals much too quickly that Krycek is a bad guy.

Nonetheless, we get what we get and what we get is still very good.  Not hurting the show is good mysteries independent of what's happening with Mulder.  A sleepless man goes around murdering his Vietnam buddies for what they did in Vietnam and thanks to Tony Todd, it's freaky.  Then Duane Barry, a former FBI agent who was abducted, goes kind of crazy and holds a travel agency hostage.

At first, Barry seems to want to bring his psychiatrist back to the aliens, because if he finds a replacement, they won't want Barry anymore.  Or so the theory goes.  He changes his plans when he's captured by escaping and kidnapping Scully instead.  Barry's kind of clearly crazy, but he also seems to have been genuinely captured by aliens and the ambiguity works in the episode's favor.

All of these episodes reveal the true potential of The X-Files, which makes the next few episodes disappointing.  The jump down in quality from "Ascension" to "3" is enormous.  Scully returns quickly in "One Breath" somewhat abruptly, but I'm not complaining if "3" is any indication of what The X-Files looks like in Anderson's absence.

At this point, the show returns to the old structure with Mulder and Scully visiting monsters-of-the-week.  This isn't a bad thing necessarily, although they are unquestionably inferior to the beginning of the season.  The positive and negative thing about MOTW for The X-Files is that usually it's still entertaining television, but normally it doesn't exceed anything approaching greatness.  That is until "Die Hand die Verletz," which is awesome.  Mulder and Scully are mostly just witnesses to what's happening and don't really have much effect on what's happening, but the story is so great it doesn't matter.

In this whole season I was impressed by the show's added emphasis on Mulder and Scully's history.  Scully's sister is introduced and I instantly wanted to see more of her in this show.  Similarly, while Mulder's sister isn't exactly his actual sister, the two-parter "Colony" and "End Game" lets us see the relationship that motivated Mulder's career path.  The ending result is a bit frustrating and seems largely symptomatic of the show's path - heroes come close to uncovering a mystery only to not end up making any ground up at all - but it's not worrisome yet.

Plus, making Mulder's father in cahoots with the federal government goes a long way towards explaining why he's allowed to do everything he does.  Plus, it makes the quest more personal for Mulder.  And it's always better to make a threat more personal than unknown, generally speaking - at least if it's well done.

Like the middle of the season, after "End Game" the show mostly goes back to the MOTW format.  But for whatever reason, these episodes are just better.  "Humbug" is from the acclaimed Darin Morgan, who's got an amazing reputation purely on the basis of six television episodes.  This is the first one I've seen and it's certainly off-the-wall and creative.  Looking forward to his next The X-Files episode personally.

"F Emasculata" is related to the entire mythology in a way and it's another very strong episode.  "Soft Light" is intriguing and was Vince Gilligan's first script on the show.  I've read that Gilligan was the most consistent X-Files writer in later seasons so I'll be looking for his credit in the future.

Lastly, the show ends on a major cliffhanger with Mulder in an underground something with a bunch of dead alien bodies.  Oh yeah and he's not found and the place is burned.  Previous to this we saw Mulder see no openings so the cliffhanger is pretty effective at making you wonder what the fuck exactly happened and how will Mulder come out alive.  (I suppose this is a benefit of having a character you know you won't die.  If it was an expendable character, there would be a threat of death but it'd feel like a cheat if they made it alive.  Whereas in this instance, it's kind of understood he'll survive.)

The X-Files second season is a definite improvement over the first season.  There's more genuinely great episodes, less outright stinkers, and more serialization making it worth it to watch it in order.  The show starts and finishes the show as good as it has ever been and the mythology still makes a certain amount of sense - in that it doesn't seem overly convoluted and ridiculous.  I'm hoping that the third season can continue that momentum.

Grade: A-

Playlist
1. "Seconds" - Ghost Loft
2. "Mother & Father" - Broods
3. "Superstar" - Sonic Youth
4. "Soul Food" - Logic
5. "Changing" - Airborne Toxic

Rewind: The X-Files S1

It's sometimes easy to forget that television shows used to not have much in the way of serialization.  In the case that there was serialization, it was in the form of character development.  That is definitely the case here, although there are "mythology" episodes which don't necessarily scare away newer viewers anyway because those episodes rarely answer anything.  Thankfully, The X-Files was able to both use a formulaic structure while also making it necessary to start at the beginning.

To say I'm disappointed in The X-Files is not accurate, but it definitely didn't blow me away.  I suppose the reason is because I had relatively high expectations.  I really wasn't expecting two things that probably harmed my enjoyment 1) I knew this was basically a procedural, but I didn't know just how much it was a procedural.  Most of the episodes follow the same structure and only a few tended to deviate from that structure. 2) Somewhat related to the former, but this season has quite a few forgettable episodes at best.  That's part of the issue with procedurals - it's easier to have a long-running ongoing story than to create 25 new stories.  So it's bound to have some clunkers.

I suppose it's just really hard to believe how far TV has come in the past 20 years.  At first glance, 1993 does not seem like that long ago.  But on my list of Shows that Changed Television (coined and created by Alan Sepinwall I must add), none of them were created before 1997.  The only show that preceded this show that I absolutely need to see - if only because it's so annoying how much I read about its influence on shows I have seen - is Twin Peaks.  My point is that context is everything.  The X-Files came before it became common for good shows to have serialization.

With all that said, it's extremely unfair to call this a procedural show.  It's clearly beneficial to watch from the beginning and watch it in order.  The only difference from serialized shows is that you can probably make contact with an expert of The X-Files and ask them which episodes to skip without losing anything.  Based off this first season, I'd say there's about 10 solidly skippable episodes.  That's not to say they were bad - I really only had trouble finishing one of the episodes, and the rest, while kind of forgettable, are really enjoyable. 

The best thing about this show is clearly the relationship between Dana Scully and Fox Mulder (great names by the way).  Their burgeoning connection throughout the season as Scully grows more appreciative and less skeptical of Mulder IS the reason to watch it in order.  And so far at least, Scully consistently questioning Mulder when she's usually wrong has somehow not made her seem like an idiot.  It's a pretty tough line and the show has managed to both make her still stick to her values and make a good partner.

What's really great though about that aspect is that the relationship clearly follows a distinct, natural pattern to where by the end of the season, you see how they got to that point.  It all perfectly culminates into the last episode where Scully apologizes to Mulder for being wrong (which I don't believe she had done yet) and sneaks illegally into a government building in order to save Mulder.  If I were forming the episodes that needed to be watched, I'd pay close attention to any episodes where the dynamics of their relationship changed, and not just the obvious like the final episode and Tooms.

On that same note, Mulder's obsession with the extraterrestrial and government cover-ups has a nice arc.  People call him "Spooky" Mulder - which honestly is kind of a terrible nickname since nothing about David Duchovny is spooky.  The natural developments occur - eventually Mulder ends up embarrassing himself in "Tooms" when he tries to sell Eugene Tooms as a 100-year-old man in front of a jury.  And while I'm sure it's not the last time he tries to sell an unbelievable story to someone who won't understand, it kind of ends in "Roland" when he tries to tell the special needs caregiver that Roland was psychically overtaken, and Scully cuts him off before he can get it out.  She's looking out for him to make sure he doesn't make a fool of himself - even if Mulder seemingly has no capacity for being embarrassed or fooled. 

Duchovny is good as Mulder - I remember having a bit of an issue with him for the first few episodes, but by the end, I'd forgotten all about those issues.  And Gillian Anderson is incredible as Scully - it's a little hard to believe that the network objected to Anderson on accounts of her attractiveness (especially now).  And Jerry Hardin is solid as recurring character Deep Throat.  Anyways, I don't think I've ever written about a show with so few principal actors.  So notable guest stars that stuck out to me would have to be the always creepy Doug Hutchison as Tooms, Xander Berkley in "Ice," Harriet Sansom Harris as Eve 6 and the always fantastic Zeljko Ivanek in "Roland" singlehandedly making that episode better than it had any right to be.

Speaking of the acting, one of the things that has not aged well is that sometimes the acting is painful.  Not by any of the above, but a small, one-off character is sometimes played by someone who cannot act.  That is one of the issues with having so many episodes rely on consistently having completely new characters.  (That's one of the impressive things about the original Law & Order to me: very rarely is there bad acting.  Perhaps because they unashamedly re-use actors)  An actor needs to make an impression for you to remember them because they will soon be gone.  In the case of Ivanek, impression made.  In the case of most others, it's probably better if they didn't make an impression.  It's not a big deal, but it's a little frustrating to have the quality of an episode dictated by whoever the new actor is.

And while I'm probably overstating the badness, I look at an episode like "Ice" and I think it's more of a matter of just being unconvincing than bad.  In "Ice," I don't think that episode works near as well if the actors aren't Xander Berkley, Felicity Huffman, Steve Hytner, and Jeff Kober.  While "Fire" isn't a bad episode, it probably works a lot better if Mulder's former love interest is more convincing as an actress. (That and if Mulder's fear of fire didn't seem so random)

I'm not going to create a list of the essential and inessential X-Files, but I will mention some memorable episodes for one reason or the other.  The pilot of course is a great introduction to the series instantly setting the tone for what to expect.  My favorite episode of the season was probably "Ice", where Scully and Mulder are stuck in Alaska with a creature that spreads paranoia and violence.  Somewhat similar to that episode, "Darkness Falls" is another episode where they are stranded trying to find a way to escape that worked nearly as well.  "Beyond the Sea" is great both for Brad Dourif and for making Scully the one who believes the impossible while Mulder is the skeptic.  "Tooms" is actually a sequel to "Squeeze," but is much better than the first and "Roland" is worth watching if only for Ivanek's peformance.  Lastly, the finale works better not knowing that the second season will probably return everything back to the status quo.  It's daring, it's shocking, and it's a perfect capper to a season-worth of development between Scully and Mulder.

Episodes I would recommend wholeheartedly skipping would have to be "Ghost in the Machine," which is a computer hysteria episode that worked better when computers could do anything; "Space," improbably the most expensive episode of the season that is wholly uninteresting with bad graphics; and "Young at Heart."  The rest aren't bad, although it's surprising just how many episodes are carbon copies of previous episodes with a few details changed.

Then there are the mythology episodes, which work effectively enough.  They've mostly made more questions than answers.  That's fine with me as the questions are usually more interesting than the answers.  And from what I've read, the show ends up digging itself a hole ala Lost.  I don't have a problem with that as the journey is what matters.

I find myself in the strange position of both understanding The X-Files love and kind of understanding how the show sort of went under the radar when discussing best shows of all time.  I think this is one of those cases where having originally watched it when it first aired - I was less than one-year-old - would have made me realize its impact more.  As it stands, it's an impressive character study with some very good episodes and some serious potential for me to look towards the next few seasons.

Season Grade - B+

Categories: Classic Dramas

When I started this blog, I had eight categories of shows to help myself keep track of all the shows I was watching or wanted to watch.  About a month ago, I noticed that the categories were loosely connected and adding newer shows to the list was difficult.  So I revamped the categories and ended up adding five more.  Well, only three of the old categories really look anything close to their former selves so it's more like 10 new categories.

Anyway, this is one of the new categories.  I'm pretty sure I added that weren't on my original list when I thought of classic dramas.  This is self-explanatory, although I'll explain it anyway.  These are dramas that in some way or another, changed television.  They have been off the air for quite a while and most of them were made before the year 2000.  I have seen basically none of these shows except about 10 episodes of one of the shows.  So what follows are the shows that I felt qualified for classic dramas.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents: (1955-1962)

I know this show is an anthology series.  I know this show was the brainchild of the great Alfred Hitchcock.  I know this series has an IMDB rating of 8.8.  That's all I know.  But it's enough to land on this list.  There's 268 episodes, but apparently they are only 25 minutes long and suddenly that feat seems immensely more manageable.  I also know IMDB ratings are inconsistent at best and this could just be rating so highly due to the name.  (Dexter having a 9.0 honestly means I should never, ever use this as a credible source and yet it's right about 80 percent of the time.)

ETA for watching: TBA - TBA will be listed for shows that seem so far away, it's silly to even guess when I will be watching.  I think this show is on Netflix so it has that going for it over other shows.

Hill Street Blues (1981-1987)

I've never seen this show so it's hard to say how exactly I know this, but I think this was one of the forerunners of the greatest shows of all-time.  This is one of those shows that lays the groundwork for what other shows were able to do.  Beyond that, I couldn't tell you if it stands the test of time.  Also, a big problem I will run into for this specific category is that unfortunately networks dominated and networks mandated that shows run for over 20 episodes a season.  That is insane.  Do you know how hard it is to make 144 episodes that are an hourlong each?  Naturally, I'm going to run into some clunkers.  I really don't think it's a coincidence that shows that are considered the greatest of all-time run for 13 episodes a season.

ETA for watching: TBA - Tough to say since I don't know of any free, online way of watching this so I'm going to probably have to buy this to watch it, and seeing as I am pretty devoid of money at the moment, it's going to be a while.

Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-1999)

Here's another show that was a forerunner to fantastic television.  And it may even be fantastic itself.  The cool thing about this show is that Andre Braugher is in it, and I happen to know for a fact that Andre Braugher is awesome.  This is one of the shows I'm more confident I will like purely due to that.  This show is based off a book by David Simon, who created The Wire.  Simon doesn't appear to have been much of an influence beyond the book, but that's a pretty good sign this show is worth watching.

ETA: TBA - This would be very high on my list if I could watch any of these shows at will.  Alas, it also isn't free anywhere to my knowledge.

St. Elsewhere (1982-1988)

Obviously this claim is from memory, but I think St. Elsewhere is a show that was more ambitious than most, at least in certain episodes.  That is they took some risks in some episodes making plain weird television.  That's not the only reason this show made this list.  This has one of the more strange, yet awesome casts.  Ed Begley Jr. is in this and he's pretty good from what I've seen.  Apparently Denzel Washington is in all 137 episodes of this and...  wait DENZEL WASHINGTON IS IN THIS SHOW!  (This is like when I found out Morgan Freeman was in the Electric Company - if you didn't know that - seriously look it up)  Also, Howie Mandel is in this show and... wait Howie Mandel used to be in good things maybe?  I have so many questions that I have to watch this show.

ETA - TBA - I swear not all of these will be TBA, but again this show is not available for free online. (Or at least not on any of the things I'm paying for already) Although I am going to be getting Amazon Prime at a discount because I am a student so hopefully some of these shows are on there.

Six Feet Under (2001-2005)

This is probably the show that I have the most doubt as to whether it's good.  I've seen varying opinions on this and not all of them are positive.  Thanks to my excessive reading of Breaking Bad finale analysis, I'm pretty sure the final episode was perfect. (I did avoid spoilers somehow though)  However, this show is newer so that means it only has 63 episodes which is fantastic.  And its cast is pretty great with Michael C. Hall, Peter Krause, and Frances Conroy.  So I'm kind of worried, but not all that worried.  I'm only really worried that it looks grossly out of place in this category more than my enjoyment of it.

ETA - TBA - Same excuse as the previous shows.  Also, this would be near the bottom if I could watch these shows whenever I wanted.

Twilight Zone (1959-1964)

What list such as this is complete without The Twilight Zone, otherwise known as the show that has inspired every creator ever.  Or so it seems at least.  I am going into The Twilight Zone completely blind.  I'm not so much worried about its quality, I'm worried about the acting.  Star Trek has given me a good idea of what to expect from 1960s - or a bad idea I guess - and if Twilight Zone is similar, it'll be a struggle.

ETA - Late 2014 - This is on Netflix and I am most likely starting this when I finish Star Trek - I've made an unofficial rule of only watching one pre-1970 show at a time for my own sake.

Twin Peaks (1990-1991)

The only thing I'm expecting about this show is for it to do unexpected things.  I'm not expecting it to be good or bad, I'm expecting it to be interesting and different.  David Lynch being involved is definitely interesting, although I honestly am not much of a Lynch fan so it's not like this is a huge positive. (I've seen one Lynch movie, Mullohand Drive, which I disliked so to be clear, I'm not anything on Lynch)

ETA - Late 2014/Early 2015 - Expect this sooner rather than later.

The West Wing (1999-2006)

This is the only show on this list that I have seen.  And umm, well I kind of can't gain any momentum to watch a bunch of episodes.  I've watched like 10-11 episodes over a period of a year.  It's a show that is reasonably good enough, but doesn't really do anything for me.  It's not even that I don't like it, it's just really difficult for me to actively choose to watch it.  I'm just never in the mood.  It's kind of like that show on television that you watch when it's conveniently on, but you aren't saying "Oh I want to watch The West Wing."  At least, it's that show for me.  Not being a huge fan of Aaron Sorkin speed-talk dialogue doesn't really help matters.

ETA - Well, I'm not going to be writing about this show because I have nothing to say about it.  I feel like I'm being unfair to this show, but it just does nothing for me whatsoever.  Anyway, I'll continue fighting through the first season at least and hopefully it inspires something in me.  I'm not expecting it to.

The X-Files (1993-2002)

Despite the fact that I basically know nothing about this show, I'm extremely confident that I will really love it.  Besides the Shows that Changed Television, there isn't another show that I'm going into with as little worry as The X-Files.  Even then, I usually have an actor or two who I really like when I look forward to watching a series.  I saw Gillian Anderson in Hannibal and she's in far too little of that for her to make a huge impression on me.  But besides that, I've seen neither actor in anything (anything memorable at least) so it's very strange for me.  (For instance, Oz has J.K. Simmons and Dean Winters as two actors who I love)

ETA - 2014 - In fact, the next available date I have to review a season will probably be The X-Files.  The spring show

That is the extent of the classic dramas that I have chosen to watch.  Feel free to suggest shows that belong on this list, but remember two things: 1. It could be on another list.  First check Shows that Changed Television before recommending say The Wire to me.  2. It doesn't qualify as a classic drama because it still airs so don't recommend a show such as Game of Thrones.  3. I don't know if you know how many shows I want to watch, but at this point, it's unlikely a show will be added unless it's newer.  I'm pretty satisfied with this list.