I thought season 8 was actually better than season 6 or 7. Because by those 2 years..DD didnt even try anymore.

8 had some really good standalone episodes.

Season 9 was a mess though.

I thought season 8 was a definite step up from season 7. Season 9 was definitely a step down from season 8. Once I got over and accepted Mulder being gone it was a pretty decent season. Doggett was quite good. I do believe he didn't get a fair shake by many at first due to people being pissed off about Mulder being absent for most of the season.

superdeluxe, comments like this really don't help the situation any. If you have a problem with another poster, please report them instead of responding to them.

Agreed. Doggett and Reyes should have been adequate replacements. Why people were "pissed off" about Mulder would be misdirected anger since it was the ACTOR who bailed and not the production staff axing him. Once it was clear that he was out of the picture, there were several decent stand-alone episodes with the new duo.

Sorry

Too bad the show could never explain it all quite so clearly...

Exactly. After the initial backlash I think most warmed to Doggett. I thought he was an excellent character and added a new dimension/direction to the show. Unfortunately for me, the character of Reyes was a complete miss. The character was bad and the acting equally bad.

His character was best during the MOTW episodes. It was when he was forced into the 7 year old myth-arc that he began to falter. Not to mention the new myth-arc "super-soldier" storyline was rubbish. That's why season 8's strongest episodes are the stand alone ones.

X-Files definitely takes the prize in coolest episode titles. They were always unique.

Anything post season 4 gets a thumbs down from me.

The problem with the final seasons is that "The X-Files" was set up to be about Mulder and Scully, so when the actors left it fucked up the dynamic of the show. Where, for seven years, the series had been about Mulder and Scully's quest for the "truth," they just replace them with two new people for the next couple of years.

They tried to integrate Mulder into the plots even if DD was unavailble, but it just didn't work and when they had some extra pretending to be Mulder running through a corn field, it just brought attention to the fact that he'd been replaced.

It's like the later seasons of "Happy Days" after Ron Howard had left and there are all of the these new people like Ted McGinley on there, and it just feels like they have the whole thing on life support like Terri Schiavo.

I personally enjoyed Season 8. It wasn't perfect but I thought the search for Mulder really brought new energy to the show. And count me as one who liked Doggett from the beginning. Even though Mulder wasn't there for half the episodes, it still felt like he was a part of the show (unlike season 9). I do think they kind of fumbled his return towards the end of the season though. I felt like Mulder turning up dead, then being buried, then being dug up again was a little too much. We all knew (didn't we?) that he wasn't really dead and the whole funeral thing just seemed kind of silly.

I honestly believe that if Carter and co. had gone into Season 8 knowing that it would be the last season, they could have really ended on a strong note. The first half of the season would've been essentially the same with Scully and Doggett searching for Mulder. Scully and Mulder, during their separation, realize how important their realtionship is to each other. Then Mulder returns having experienced what he believed his sister had experienced and because of this knowledge is able finally put all the pieces of the conspiracy together. The last third of season is spent blowing off the whole mythology storyline and maybe Mulder sacrifices himself, or maybe he and Scully and the baby ride off into the sunset together with Doggett and Reyes left to carry on the legacy. As it stands, Season 8 kind of works for me on this level, but it's ultimately pointless in that Mulder's abduction didn't really lead to anything in terms of the overall story. Yah, some stuff happened at the end of Season 8, but they were obviously in a holding pattern not knowing what the future of the show was going to be. Season 8 still makes a passable end of the show for me, but it could of been so much better. At least it would have been better than what was eventually brought to the table in Season 9.

Nice thread.

I loved seasons 1-4, but fell behind and have been waiting for a rainy month to watch all nine seasons.

I don't expect to love all 9 seasons equally, but I do look forward to watching it all thru the end.

I have all the peripheal series also. Any of them a "must watch in proper order"? I think the Lone Gunmen series maybe, and maybe 1 or 2 Milennium episodes?

Nah. Like I said, I watched all four Ten Thirteen shows over the past year in strict airdate order but there are only a handful of crossover episodes where you would have to watch one show's episode before the other:

you would want to watch "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" on "X-Files" before you watch "Jose Chung's 'Doomsday Defense'" on "Millennium" (but even that's not necessary, it would just help to be familiar with the episode)

you wouldn't want to watch the "X-Files" episode "Millennium" before you watched the entire "Millennium" series. It's a pretty crappy resolution story-wise but character-wise it does provide closure for Frank & Jordan Black so you would still want to hold off.

You wouldn't want to watch the "X-Files" episode "Jump the Shark" until after you watched the "Lone Gunmen" episode "All About Yves". There's also a gag in "Nothing Important Happened Today" (the 9th season premiere) that refers to something that happened in the same TLG episode but even when watching in airdate order it doesn't really work out.

The season-by-season debate could be settled if Fox were to release a complete set a la Buffy. Any rumors of that?

If you are just starting to watch the XFiles, you may want to hold off on listening to the episode commentaries. I didn't watch the show until the DVD release and there is a commentary on either season 3 or 4 that had a spoiler for the XFiles movie and another episode for a future season. They weren't major spoilers, but I would have rather not heard it.