Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Last time I watched The X-Files I was a kid. It was definitely my favorite show on television. Anyhoo, my girlfriend got me a couple seasons for Christmas and we've been watching them... Amazing show. Only thing, it definitely has it's tacky moments. hehe. A lot different looking from what I remember as a kid. I remember being terrified to where I couldn't sleep.

Anyone else watching these by chance? What are your thoughts? Does it get less tacky as the seasons progress?

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Which season are you on now?

If it's Season 1, the show definitely gets better after that up until the first movie comes out, then it starts to slide in quality sometime during the season after that.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I think THE X-FILES really started to get interesting around the time Gillian Anderson had to take maternity leave and they had to write a kidnapping plot so she could miss a few shows. From there until when they moved the show from Vancouver to LA (bad move), it was top-notch.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I actually just watched through Season 5 for the first time - I finished a few weeks ago. I'm going to watch the rest of the seasons sometime later this year, but I decided to take a break.

My favorite episodes of the show:
1. Home
2. Bad Blood
3. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose
4. Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'
5. Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man
6. Humbug
7. Beyond the Sea
8. Paper Hearts
9. Small Potatoes
10. War of the Coprophages

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

About 3 and 1/3 years ago I watched these all for the first time. While the 1st 5 seasons were really good - seasons 6-9 went bad really quickly. Some of these episodes were downright unbearable.

There's a smattering of some quality eps in there, but the good ones are few and far between.

Seasons 2 and 3 were probably my favorite.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

All 9 seasons had their share of awful episodes.
Seasons 3-6 are probably my favorite, allthough I like them all. The noticeable drop in quality happened in season 7.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Seasons 1 through 5 had an excellent mix of mythology episodes and stand-alone episodes.

Seasons 6 through 9 had pretty much HORRIBLE myth-arc episodes but still had some excellent stand-alone ones.

It would've been ideal had they stopped after season 5 and just made films every few years.

ah well. It's still a damn good show...warts and all.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Agreed, still a damn good show regardless of the bad seeds...

I'm on Season 1, disc 3 (about episode 9)... Loving every bit of it even though some of the scenes are cheesy. For instance, the episode SPACE in season 1. It is a great concept but the way the episode plays out is silly at times. Is that what Nasa (Houston) control really looks like!? haha. Things like that. Obviously they had a tight budget in the first season but still...

Oh well, this is one of my favorite shows of all time. I'm loving it.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

For me this is one of those shows I wish I had never seen before just so I could watch them all again without knowing what happened.

Sure there were some bad episodes, and I honestly never cared to much for the mythology episodes, and preferred the more "stranger" ones.

When the Ultimate Collection drops to a decent price, I'll hopefully pick it up to enjoy all over again.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

It was my favorite show when it premiered, and watched regularly up until the movie. I wish it had stayed on friday nights instead of moving to Sundays. My favorite memories were watching it on friday night. I just lost interest after the movie came out. I hope Supernatural doesn't suffer the same fate, it should end this season or next, and go out on a high note.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Didn't Anderson and Duchoveny (sp?) leave the show after season 6 or something??? Is that when the show started to tank?

Also, did they ever release lone threesome dudes on DVD. remember mulders paranoid buddies. They did a separate series on them but it took a nose dive before the season even ended.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Raw & Vital:

Duchovny basically left after the seventh season, that's when Robert Patrick(Doggett) was brought in. Duchovny was in a handful of episodes in season 8 but totally absent for season 9 except for the finale, IIRC.

Gillian Anderson was a regular up until the end, although she played a smaller role in season 9 leaving the leads to Doggett and Reyes.

The Lone Gunmen is on DVD.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Gillian Anderson stayed through the entire run. Duchovny left after season 7, but made sporadic guest spots in season 8-9, but more in the later part of season 9.

Robert Patrick was hired as a full-time series regular for season 8, essentially as Duchovny's replacement. Annabeth Gish later joined the show as a series regular. I believe Gish was brought on to give Anderson a break from the show every now and then.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Sorry Michael I posted moments after you.

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I didn't really care for Monica Reyes, but I thought Doggett was a solid replacement for Mulder.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Agreed. Doggett was an excellent character, it was the scripts that were lacking. It's also a testament to Robert Patrick that he was able to come in and fit right in. Reyes was an all around terrible character, it didn't matter if she was in one of those rare gems from the final two seasons, she was automatically the low point.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Yeah, season seven is where they really lost the game:

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Yeah, Doggett was a good character, and Patrick played him well. The problem was that he was always overshadowed by Mulder, and the show never really went anywhere in seasons 8 and 9. They should have closed out the Mulder/Scully story completely by the seventh season or the end of the eighth season at the very latest, and then given Doggett and Reyes their own conspiracy to deal with. That particular alien abduction/syndicate/Cancer Man thing was Mulder's crusade.

But instead, they

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Big fan here :wave: I videotaped and rewatched the episodes during broadcast, bought the three-VHS collections, have all the season DVD sets, and saw both movies in theaters (and rewatched the second one). And I watch Fringe. :)

If they'd had podcasts and such back in the day, I would have done those too.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

The Lone Gunmen. Came out on DVD years ago. Looks like 3/29/2005.

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I don't mind the last 4 seasons, but that series finale just sucks.

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Was Chris Carter the showrunner for the entire 9 year run?

I seem to recall that he left temporarily to be the showrunner for season 1 of Millenium and then came back.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Having said that, I don't think I own either movie. :hscratch:

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I sort of lost interest in the final couple of seasons. I think this show did a huge favor to Lost by being a cautionary tale of how to NOT to end a series. They got too caught up in extending and expanding on the mythology and made it so complicated with the bees, the black oil and the super-soldiers that I just stopped caring after a while.
I think the folks on Lost saw how X-Files spun out of control with no end in sight and that really helped them sharpen up and refocus their story-telling.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

The series being 'tacky' is one of its charms. The series starts to go down hill in quality I would starting by Season 5.

But there are still quality gems littered the last few seasons, but I am a completist, so the wife and I are watching every episode, good and bad from the start of the 1st season. We just started Season 5.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Hmm, interesting....

On a side note, I think the overall ideas on a lot of the tacky/bad episodes are great story ideas. I just think they are poorly executed. I remember being obsessed with this show when I was a kid. I'm talking I used to buy the trading cards. I still have the ticket stub framed from when I saw the first movie in theaters. hehe.

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i never liked that they gave Reyes a superpower. She could smell evil or something.

D

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I am in the minority, I loved the show from beginning to end. Were there some duds...yes, find me a show that doesn't have any.

My only complaint is how the show ended, otherwise I enjoyed the final seasons and loved Robert Patrick and almost all of the stand alone episodes.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I've got the collectors editions of seasons 1-6. I still need to get 7-9 but I can only find the new versions. I think the new versions just lack the extra disc which is not a big deal but I'm a completest.

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I enjoyed this show when it was on tv, but I recently tried watching the entire series again. Doing so, in quick succession, I got annoyed with Scully always doubting what Mulder thought was going on. I realize this is the point of their association, but seeing it happen over and over and over again was too much. At some point, you think she would start being open to the possibility that Mulder was going to be right.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Yes, sometime around season four I would have had to smack Scully upside the head if I was Mulder.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I've been watching the X-Files on Netflix streaming and I'm now to Season 8. I would ranks seasons 1-4 as excellent. However, I really feel that season 5 was hit or miss because of it being shot concurrently with Fight the Future. There were several episodes where either Mulder or Scully was featured, and the other agent would appear in cameo form. And it felt like they were doing that just to have both agents in the episode. Many times it would really take me out of the story.

Seasons 6-7 were very hit or miss, but with enough good shows that I made it through them.

I've watched the first 6 or 7 episodes of season 8, and so far I'm really enjoying them. I really like Doggett. I feel that season 8 is a step up (so far) from seasons 6 and 7.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

There are certain episodes of this series I really need to revisit, Humbug being one of them...

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Funny, watching any season of Lost felt like watching a season 8 episode of The X-Files to me.

I rewatched seasons 1-6 a few years back. I still think that on the whole, The X-Files holds up. I doubt I'll be watching seasons 7-9 again, though.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

I started to rewatch some episodes a few years ago and felt the show had aged not too well so i gave it up

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Yeah, I feel like it hasn't aged that well either. Still, there are some gems that I like to revisit now and then so I'm glad the show is up on Netflix.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Used to watch The X-Files as a child too. The one episode that really creeped me out when I was little was the season five episode Chinga, written by Stephen King. Great episode.

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Ha, if only I felt like this now that Lost has ended.

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Sweet irony!

Re: Revisiting THE X-FILES
 

Every series ever made had, has, or will have bad episodes and good episodes. My wife & I are watching Stargate SG-1/Atlantis again and even as much as we both love this/these series, there are episodes we skipped. Same with Babylon 5, Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural, and X-Files isn't any different either. Even though we both really like the X-Files, there are episodes we weren't really fond of. But the series as a whole (IMHO) remains as one of the best ever made. You can gripe about how S6, 7, 8, & 9 wasn't as good as S1, 2, 3, 4, & 5 (or any combination thereof), but the X-Files is one of those rare gems that captured and built a sizable following, of which I'm proud to be a part of. My only complaint was that they were never allowed to tie together and finish the alien invasion storyline. There are many people who are pushing for a XF3 movie or miniseries that will allow just that. I was pissed that they didn't do that with XF2...:sad:


There will always be a place in my collection for the X-Files. -kd5-