Amph [The X-Files] The (Continuing) Event Series!

There were a few highlights this season, more so than Season 10 and I'm satisfied with the ending. I'm happy if they call it a day now but if they renew it, I'll continue watching also.

 

I still have the last 2 episodes to watch, but so far I'm with you on the ratings you've put there. Overall I've enjoyed this season more than the last.

 

The guy who played William is in the movie Blockers and I kept thinking "Don't trust that kid! He'll, like, explode you with his mind!"

 

The whole concept seems very redundant to me as:

-Mulder and Scully were already the misfit B-Team of the entire FBI. And frankly nothing ever seemed too ridiculous for Mulder to take an interest in really.
-We already had the Lone Gunmen series. Never saw it and heard mixed things, but wasn't it essentially this?

Also, if Darin Morgan's not involved heavily, it's even more of wash far as I'm concerned.

 

This is one of the worst ideas I've ever heard.

 

Bento Box being involved is the only good thing about this, imo.

 

What is everyone's favourite episode from each season?

I'll get the alien chip implanted...

01. Darkness Falls
02. F. Emasculata
03. Quagmire
04. Home
05. Kill Switch
06. Tithonus
07. Rush
08. Patience
09. 4-D
10. Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster
11. Rm9sbG93ZXJz
00. Fight the Future

 

The hardest part is picking one episode!

1. Eve
2. The Calusari (first episode I ever saw)/ Anasazi
3. Jose Chung's From Outer Space
4. Zero Sum
5. Patient X/Red and the Black (but Bad Blood a close 2nd)
6. The Rain King
7. Millennium/ Hollywood AD
8. Three Words
9. Improbable

Edit- forgot about revival series

10- Mulder & Scully Meet the Ware-Monster
11- The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat (Despite me forgetting to list these seasons this Ep is among the top 10 ever imo. Funny and poignant at the same time while revealing truths about ourselves and life. The conversation with Dr. They is too true- now it doesn't matter what the public knows because we won't know whether to believe it or not.

 

Yeah, this is tough just doing one from each season, but I took a shot at it.

1. Beyond the Sea
2. One Breath
3. Jose Chung's From Outer Space
4. Memento Mori
5. Redux
6. The Unnatural
7. Millennium
8. Vienen
9. The Truth (because that last scene is the only good thing in the entire season)
10. Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster

And I still haven't watched season 11.

 

And since this is the kind of guy I am, let's comment on everyone else's list! I just do love talking about this show.

Kind of goes to show you just how broad the range of the show was; it's still one of the only shows in television history to be so broad that you could literally have no idea whatsoever the episode was going to be when the cold open started. I miss that sense of infinite possibility. When that first image faded in, you simply didn't know if you'd be ******** yourself with terror or laughing hysterically or just quietly weeping. What a show.

 

IMO Jose Chung is among the best episodes of the series because it does all three at once.

I like the Mythology episodes the best, my wife prefers MotWs. I tried to leave them off my favorite list because they would be the only answers. That being said I can't look at episode titles for Seasons 8 and 9 and know instantly which one that is like I can with 1-7. S8 is ok, got back to the darker roots of the series but S9...I don't think I've seen every episode yet. (Audrey Pauley being one of the few eps I like in that season) Just got the Blu-ray's so will eventually.

Honestly Lost Art of Forehead Sweat is the only thing "unmissable" in S11. You don't even need to see the others proceeding it. Darin Morgan at his most Darin Morgan.

Edit:
Srsly @Rogue1-and-a-half you need to just skip to that ep, you will love it. Well at least I hope you will. I wouldn't lead an X-Phile astray

 

Let's do this!

All this discussion makes me want to do a re-watch!

 

BTW, I highly recommend checking out X-Files: The Official Archive. It's effective a 'casebook' of all the different episodes and such. It's only volume 1, and concentrates on the 'monsters of the week' episodes, but I'm hoping they'll be more in the future. Very well done!

 

"That's a bleeping dead alien if I've ever bleeping saw one!"


@blackmyron
Thanks for the link that looks awesome!

@TX-20

Spoiler

Well when the episode was made the Reggie name dropped in Unusual Suspects was supposed to be Mulder's old superior/mentor Reggie Purdue. I still want to believe in Reggie Something though.

 

You know, you're not wrong. Clyde Bruckman is similar in that regard.

And, yeah, that ******* amazing monologue that Kritschgau has in that one walk-and-talk scene in Redux is just . . . amazing. I think it was the director that episode who mentions in the commentary on the episode or one of the other bonus features that when John Finn finished that monologue the first time, that the entire crew just broke into applause.

And I really liked the Mulder-Doggett dynamic. They're so good together in Vienen that I really do kind of wish we'd gotten more episodes of the two of them together. But I'm a Doggett defender in general. I think Robert Patrick is actually really good; like Via Negativa is an episode that he's brilliant in. And the character is not bad. Now, Reyes I don't like. I don't think the writers ever quite got a handle on her and Gish's performance just doesn't really mesh well with the others in my opinion.

 

Agreed about Reyes, @Rogue1-and-a-half.

It feels like she was added in case Gillian left at the end of the Eighth season. And that they would have focused more on her character in Nine, and beyond had the OG version of the show continued, but Anderson stayed and Reyes was the third wheel.

 

*Super nerd time*

Have any of you read the X-Files comics? There's a few different series: -

-the first printed by Topps (as in cards) from 1995-1998 total of 41 issues. They are really good and I recommend them to any comic fan. Honestly it's shocking a card company that decided to get in on the comic hype made such a quality book. The first 12 issues make one long story and a few won comic awards...of some type back then. (IDW has collected all of these in hardcover trades)

-Wildstorm made 6 issues around the time of I Want To Believe and a 6 issue crossover with 30 Days of Night.

-In 2013 IDW started a new series Season 10 and the first 4 issues were co-written by Chris Carter! I was so thrilled by this I even bought alternate covers because some were just too awesome to pass up

Spoiler: Pic

It lasted 24 issues then got rebranded Season 11. Plus there are one shots (X-Mas Special) and one of my favs X-Files Year Zero. It's a frame story with Mulder & Scully on a case that has a link to the first ever X-file (which was mentioned in S1) and it goes from there. The flashbacks are to a team Ellis and Ohio who investigated in the '45. And yes they name drop Arthur Dales!

Unfortunately the story of Comic Season 10/11 is a lot better than TV Show Season 10/11. Dogget is around and Rheyes is still a good agent. Oh and turns out the Lone Gunman's death was faked and they have spent the past years living in a bunker hacking for the government.They made a computer virus that took down Iran's nuclear processing plants. And the villain was

Spoiler

A grown up Gibson Praise in full control of his powers! He can mind control, use telepathy ect.

When paperwork was signed and the real S10 started production the writer had to rush and S11 is only 8 issues. After the new seasons aired the comic came back for a year or so and was supposed to be in continuity with it but then was abruptly cancelled

There was an awesome / nutty crossover in 2014 but I'll post about that later, this one is already too long

I have them all except one digest from '97 and 2 issues of the 30 Days of Night crossover.

 

Just so you know, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson did audio dramatizations of some of those comics, called Cold Cases!

 

To save on space and spread out the cost I've been buying the Blu-rays as I watch them. Now, I can watch a few Xfiles everyday but my wife isn't much of a fan so after about 4 years I'm on Season 8. I've seen every episode at least twice (airing and dvd watch through) but can never remember them just by the title like S 1-7. Like all previous seasons the Blu-ray transfer looks amazing. They don't light shows like this these days.

Patience was a fantastic episode. Really established the relationship between Scully and Dogget and how it's different from hers with Mulder. Its not funny but I lol-ed when Dogget described Scully as "an expert on the paranormal" which she denies though she totally is. Back when first aired this ep made me start to like Dogget.

Dogget- The guys upstairs are talking' a lot about this case.
Scully- Get used to it

Roadrunners. One of the few episodes that grossed me out so much I will not rewatch. Now matter how good the picture looks.

 

Yeah, I still have the first 12 issues of the Topps series. It's actually quite a good story - the pursuit by Mulder of a secret society witihin the "Organization". (At least one of the stories - involving the Tungska blast - covered the same material as a later X-Files episode, although with a different spin).

 

The Tunguska / Terma episodes are favorites of mine because of Krychek.

 

The old Playstation X-Files game actually continues the story (and, weirdly, wraps up a number of loose ends in the series itself).

Both the X-Files games are pretty fun, and both feature the cast from the show.

 

I've read a fair amount of the comics. Some of them are really good. I never got into the Seasons 10 & 11 comics. Most of the stuff I've read is the Topps stuff. I did read Year Zero which was just weird I thought.

I've read a few of the novels too. I think Whirlwind is my favorite of the ones I've read.

And, yeah, the blu-ray transfer is amazing. The aspect ratio got changed a bit because Chris Carter was actually filming those early seasons in widescreen and then cropping them down to the standard TV format. They do cut a bit off the top and bottom in order to make the full wide-screen work, but the quality is better and the shaving on the top and bottom rarely matters. I think the one shot where it's noticeable is the introduction of Krycek in Sleepless which is the rare shot that really used the square format in a very specific way.



So, you can see the difference there. The wider image is zoomed in a bit, cutting some on the top and bottom.

I'm usually one of those guys that's like, "Give me the original artwork as it was originally released," but in this instance I do prefer the wide-screened blu-ray versions just because the quality is so much better and it does look more cinematic. Like in that example above, like the composition in the wide shot is actually better; like the image works better when you can see the blinds as well as the shadows of the blinds. It's just more balanced, moves Scully more toward the center of the frame and it feels more like she's trapped on both sides; the shadows are obviously a riff on noir imagery and meant to make her feel trapped by evoking prison bars or whatever. So I works better with those lines on both sides of the screen.

And then the picture is just sharper and better. So, while I know some purists are still hanging on to the DVDs as the "real" version of The X-Files, I'm a blu-ray guy.

 

Wow had no idea about the aspect ratio change! Thanks for the comparison pic.

Back in the day I got all the books but the Topps comics I didn't get into because they couldn't do anything to impact the show. For some reason that didn't bother me with the books. Didn't start collecting until some time around '08 when I moved and finally had easy access to comic stores with tons of back issues.

Now though I like the one-off and Monster-Of-The-Week nature of them. Frankly I want more stories of the X-Files team encountering different creatures/phenomena that can't be pulled off on tv. There's three short story collections that fill some of the void but they...are short.