I bought all the seasons on DVD on Ebay. and i am now on Season 3. I never caught the show when it aired but i liked mircales and i enjoy aliens and all that stuff. For a show this popular i am dispointed in it so far. Its not bad I like the alien episodes and there are some good ones. but I never have the urge with others shows that makes me wanting to keep watching. my grips so far with the show are

1.almost every episode starts the same and follows the same formula. (starts out some where in the US, then shows a person getting killed by something or in some wierd way..then the title sequence. Then Mulder and Scully showing up. etc.) The best episodes have been the Alien or UFO episodes and all the goverment conspiracies. season three started great with a few of these types of episodes.

2. Story arc seems to take the back seat to "monster of the week episodes" season three starts with Mulder getting a file with proof of Alien contact etc. His father gets killed, goverment after him. ( Show gets really good) then the next few episodes are stand alone monster of the week episodes. They deal with nothing that has happened. Mulder and Scully act like nothing has happened. Nor is no one after them. the story arc just stops. WTF?

3. SCULLY... she drives me nuts. Shes see so many things (aliens,creatures, wierd stuff) and every episode Mulder says its something from the x-files and she thinks he is wrong or nuts. Some one gets killed and mulder thinks its something not normal (which it always is) and scully has some ordinary cause. EVERY episode.

heres an example from season 3x08..

Agent Eubanks: "We're here to arrest Lucy Householder."
Mulder: "Why?"
Agent Eubanks: "I think you know why, Agent Mulder."
Mulder: "What's the hell is happening?"
Scully: "Mulder. The blood on Lucy's uniform was an exact DNA match. Lucy was covered in Amy Jacob's blood."
Mulder: "She didn't do it, Scully."
Scully: "Mulder, it's incontrovertible evidence."

then mulder tells scully what he thinks happened then scully replies....

Scully: "I hate to say this Mulder, but I think you just ran out of credibility."

then of course mulder is right. every time but every murder Scully thinks he is wrong that theres a explaniation for the murder



I Enjoy parts of this show but its a show thats overrated. so far i would have to give it a 6.5/10. When it deals with aliens etc. This show is very good

It has worked for Law & Order for sixteen years. Formulas are not always a bad thing.

^ Exactly, great show, formula or not. Although Ive always thought it was funny how many times someone dies, we go to commercial, and come back to a police crime scene. If thats not in The X-Files drinking game it needs to be.

You obviously missed Skinner's "pucker-up and kiss my ass!" tirade against the smoking man, which stopped the "government" from going after mulder and scully.

You're right about the formula, but you're missing the fact that the great chemistry between Mulder and Scully was a huge part of the show. (Yeah, I know, you've already thought "why don't they just go ahead and do it already!")

The final season, Season 9, sucked in large part because it was missing the Mulder & Scully chemistry (TPTB tried to replace them, but Doggett & Reyes had no chemistry whatsoever).

Great ready for lots of "BIG PLOT" episodes followed by weeks and weeks of silly shows that barely even mention the grand scheme of things. I love the X Files, but the one thing that drove me nuts was the big reset switch that was pressed after "Sweeps Week" episodes.

I don't think its overrated. I think you jumped in way after the fact.

Its just not your cup of tea, its okay.

4-6 myth arc episodes a year was good enough for me. I like the monster of the week stories, and for me..the chemistry between mulder/scully was enough to make it all work.

I kind of think it's too late to get into the X-Files. And also it's a show that didn't stay true to itself after a while, tarnishing its greatness. But still there is so much to love.

Exactly..the show started to fall apart after the 5th season

If you are in season 3..and its already pissing you off. Just stop watching it.

No offense to the original poster but buying ALL the seasons of a show you think you might like might not be the best move unless it was one hell of a deal.

Maybe I'm a bit hasty in my opinion since I'm just a huge fan of the show. If you dislike the good years of the show then you'll just be better off stopping now.

And try Netflix the next time you want to expand your horizons.

I give it until the Season 6 finale as the point when the show slipped a lot in quality overall, because there were still a number of standout episodes during that season (as well as some clunkers, but every season has some of those).

But the real "Shark Jump" was Season 9 - the season that should've never been made.

The X-Files was a decent, if somewhat overrated, sci-fi series. The earlier seasons were of course the best, since the writers had not overdone the alien conspiracy shit yet, the characters were new and not fully explored yet so they were still interesting, the concept was still fresh. It was so sad to see The X-Files slowly decay over the course of many years and then see it depart with a wimper, rather than a well deserved bang...

But I liked Dark Skies more.

Even season 7 was pretty good.

I'm not sure why so many people like to say the show started "slipping" after season 4 or 5. Maybe from being great, to bein only very good.

Season 8 was not good and season 9 was very bad.

They should have just tried a spin-off if they were determined for more XF, like and XF-SVU kind of thing with Doggett and Reyes. But keeping Gillian without David was horrible and the whole idea of the show going on when he was completely gone was sickening. They used to find the most painful and stupid ways to bring up his name, so the audience wouldn't forget him or something.

I wish they'd make that 2nd movie already, so we can get season 9's bad taste out of our mouths. And Gillian seems to have decided to give up the Hollywood life, so an XF movie might be the last time we see her in that kind of movie. I wonder if Scully will have an English accent.

it was a hell of a deal got all 9 seasons used for about 140 bucks. Season three has been pretty kick ass. Even most of the stand alone episodes are pretty good. and the black oil. Season 2 was pretty good. the only thing that still bugs me alittle is Scully.

But I am about half way through season 3 and I finally getting pretty hooked. btw did the movie come out during season 5 or 6? Cause even with out watching the show i always loved the movie and just wondered when that would start playing in with the show

9 seasons for a hundred bucks? Were they imports/bootlegs?

Not exactly the defense I would expect from a user named "Cancer Man".

it came out the summer between the two seasons....

Season 7 was good, but paled in comparison to earlier seasons. Season 8 was pretty weak until it picked up when Mulder reappeared in the last few episodes, and this season ended in a way that would've been a reasonably good way to end the whole TV series.

But FOX had to drive it into the ground and make Season 9, which had no real standout episodes, but did have a lot of bad episodes. And the finale of this season is, IMO, one of the worst episodes of the entire series. I personally think this weak season, the real "Shark Jump" of the show, pretty much killed off any interest in another X-Files movie.


(BTW, I think a lot of people want to point to the X-Files Movie and the relocation from Vancouver to L.A. as the "Shark Jump" moments, so they write the show off after Season 5. The problem with this view is Season 6 was just as good as Season 5.)

I would say after 5 seasons, people wanted a few more answers out of the movie...we just ended up with more questions..and people we're fed up.

I watched the first 5 seasons religiouslly..then the movie..then watched the first half of season 6..then I was done.

Although I would admit I watched more episodes in season 9..than I did of season 6....I guess it was because I found out it was the last season..and wanted to see how they wrapped things up (not very good imho)

got them on ebay. At first i thought they were just imports. Packaging was professional atleast the cover. but pretty sure they were bootlegs since some disc wouldnt work right.

I thought season 8 was actually an improvement over season 7.... Season 7 pissed me off a lot about half way through and I have never been able to forgive it really....... The 2 episodes "Sein und Zeit" and "Closure" was the "jump the shark" moment for me. In those 2 episodes the show contradicted itself in way that was just too big for me to accept. It really pissed me off.

Well, I also have one major complaint about Season 8:

but Season 9 for the most part was garbage......especially the series finale. What an insult to the fans who knew everything already.....we get nothing? Fuck you Chris Carter. I didn't need a two hour finale to connect all the dots for me like I'm 8 years old.

I agree that the ending of Season 8 would have been a perfect ending for the show.

I agree completely; they want to make the connection between the move AND, I think, at least partly, blame Duchovny because he was the one behind the move from Vancouver to LA.

I still think enough time has passed to forget about season 9 in particular and give us one final movie (I am one who thought the first film was absolutely terrific) to wash away the stench that came from the last season and the horrible, horrible finale.

I agree that they really pushed the fans too far without giving us answers. And I don't believe too many people were happy with how things ended with Samantha. Even the resolution was still kind of vague.

Season 8 should have been written to give us as many of them as possible and then end with Mulder, Scully, the baby, and the kiss. Had the story-arch for that season given us answers over the course of an entire season, not only would we have not had to suffer through a season 9 (I liked 2 episodes, maybe 3), but we wouldn't have had the finale mentioned where they embarrased the entire series by answering the questions in that ridiculous trial.

I loved this show so much I would have even forgiven season 9 for being so bad and unnecessary if the finale had been as good as I was hoping it would be.

I don't blame the move to LA. I think it actually injected something fresh into the series. It was a nice change that opened up the possibilities for some unique storylines.

The Samantha resolution, to put it bluntly, was a cop out. 7 years invested for that result?

I enjoyed most of season 8. It had some unique ones, super soldiers-aside. Mostly because of Patrick Stewart, he was a great addition. It was when Reyes became a regular in 9 that things went down hill. She was awful. Not to mention the storylines were bottom of the barrel. You could just tell that they were trying to go somewhere new with the show (which would have been nice) but always clung to the Duchovney thing at every turn as a safety net. The show was being pulled in two directions and the fans suffered for it. I personally wouldn't have minded something new, but being constantly reminded of Mulder & Scully ruined it for me.

Robert Patrick.

And the only episode from the last 2 years that even approached good was the one where Scully had the slug in her back. Weak ending aside that was an AWESOME episode.

Well, they could...

It was funny how that finale reminded me of the Seinfeld finale. Both featured the return of someone very important to the show who had left the show a year or two earlier (actor David Duchovny for X-Files, writer Larry David for Seinfeld); both featured main character(s) on trial with characters from previous seasons showing up to testify; and both were probably the worst ever episodes of each series.

Any show that uses a trial as a basis for its finale is a show that has run out of ideas.
(Lawyer-based shows excepted, of course)