Nice PC answer from Duchovny on the shitty job Carter and Co. did on the last one. Had they actually done a kick-ass supernatural movie, they could've kept it rolling with an every-other mythology flick or something, could have been cool but I suspect it's such a dead horse at this point that another mythology flick will probably put the franchise in the ground for good. As it should have been circa the millenium.

This seems as good a thread as any to say this: We've started watching the show from the beginning. Neither of us were viewers in its original run, though I occasionally saw scattered episodes (and both movies, which are hit and miss) and later caught reruns from time to time.

The decision to jump in now was partially borne out of a natural fascination with alien-abduction, Roswell and Area 51 goofiness, and partially from knowing that Vince Gilligan worked on the show. (It's tough waiting a week to see new Breaking Bad episodes.)

We just wrapped up the ninth episode of the first season, "Space," wherein our intrepid FBI heroes are checking out malfeasance connected to a shuttle launch, complete with eye-rolling references to the Challenger disaster and the infamous "face on Mars." Not one of X-Files' shining moments — it was a regular MST3K fest as this one unspooled. (The gin may have aided the snarkiness. )

But that and some of the less-successful "monster-of-the-week" installments aside, it's a pretty fun show.

At this point, slogging through all nine seasons seems unlikely — that's 202 episodes, or about 3 1/2 times the run of The Wire. And I understand most believe the show was, well, pretty shitty in its last couple of years. We have something of a general agreement to bail once we feel things have dragged on long enough.

oh man, i envy you. the two-part "duane barry" arc in the season 2, staring the incomparable steve railsback, is just incredible. and the black oil aliens... baldwin... the obvious "the thing" references in the alaska arc... there is some seriously amazing shit during the course of the show. yes, the last couple of seasons were not up to the same standard set by the rest of the series and that coupled with the bitterness of them going on without fox, trying to compensate by adding other agents didn't help.

you'll have fun.

The first two seasons are the best. Three and four are tolerable. No need to watch after that.

Oh, if you get into the conspiracy then there's plenty more fun beyond that--when did the movie come out, was that after season 5? I would definitely watch through that and then enjoy the movie, I thought they did a really nice job of making that into an entertainment that would really please longtime fans but also hang together for non-fans who just wanted to see a sci fi thriller. O-Dot, there are some lousy episodes from time to time but just off the top of my head I can think of 15 or 20, both stand-alones and conspiracy episodes, that are some of the best t.v. you'll ever see. And there are a few self-parody episodes--the ones where the writer (forget his name but I think he did 3), who expressed a massive jealousy of Duchovny's sex symbol status, not only parodies the genre with great verve but takes the faint but real thread throughout the series about Mulder's porn addiction and kicks it up to an autoerotic asphixiation problem...fucking hilarious. I think the first one is maybe in season 1 or 2 and features Peter Boyle.

After the movie and because of Duchovny's constant bitching about how hard his job was, the production moved to California from Vancouver and while there are some good episodes beyond that for sure, the show was never the same. Then when he started doing his half-assed quitting and they were throwing new characters in to cover for him and then he'd agree to show up for 6 episodes...the writer's already tenuous hold on what they were doing completely disappeared and the show became irrelevant. The show could've ended quite nicely with the movie, but of course there was money to be made. In any case, the original run, while starting as a wannabe Silence of the Lambs/Twin Peaks mashup, ended up being something quite special and fun, hope you enjoy it.

I know I bitched about it somewhere else, but since we're revisiting the thread I will restate the fact that the second X-Files movie is a steaming pile of boring. It's one of the poorest of stand-alone episodes, stretched out to feature length.

(Oh and I'll say yet again that those of you looking for a really fun extended mythology show that doesn't end perfectly but brings loads of smart entertainment value should really watch LOST!)

I generally hated the mythology episodes. I never felt the conspiracy went anywhere and the mythology wandered aimlessly without ever really connecting. If felt like they were just making it up as they went. The stand alone episodes in the first seasons were much better. The first movie killed the show for me, and I only half watched it after that. X-Files was at its best when they were investigating the strange happening of the week.

Well there are definitely two schools of thought on the show and you obviously fall into the stand-alones. The mythology started off fairly half-assed, got a big goose with Gillian's pregnancy and for a time gelled pretty nicely (so say us mythology fans). I won't say they stuck the landing by any means with what they did with it, but they came close around the movie and I somewhat believe (I WANT to believe! heh) Carter's assertion that they had to keep things somewhat vague so they couldn't be easily replaced by the studio. At the end of the day I think there were great stand-alones and mythology episodes for about 6 seasons, and they should have wrapped it up at that point. To go back to my LOST plug, at least those guys learned their lessons from X-Files, TP, what have you and set an end date to work towards instead of existing in a nebulous cash-grab state on a hit show that was hemmoraging ideas as the years wore on. There is an interesting evolution of mythology-based sci-fi t.v. to be observed between all of those shows, come to think of it.

i'd say for me 50% of the stand-alones were great, but most of the time i was pissed we didn't get more of the mythology episodes, which were what x-files was all about for me.

agree with a-head about the first movie, etc, and mostly about what happened to the show after that. but if you are into it by then, you'll continue watching. if not, you won't. pretty simple. but you won't get to see the baby until season 9.

The conspiracy is pretty well unfolded with the movie and the ensuing season or two (I remember one episode in particular wherein they basically spelled it all out), but after that the show just beat a dead horse with a rusty maggot-crusted strop and really should have been ashamed of itself. But it was also a bridge series as far as somewhat tight and focused ongoing storylines go, I cut it a little slack for feeling its way in continuing a complex mythology throughout multiple seasons. Still, I'll never watch the last two seasons and the series finale was a steaming pile of ass.

ROBERT PATRICK NAKED!!!!111!

Didn't we already get that in T2, albeit in liquid silver form?

as if on cue, here's a nice summary of the show: http://www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/100354

was going through some stuff today and came across this. oh the things i save...

on the red carpet at the 'great expectations' premier...

At this point, slogging through all nine seasons seems unlikely — that's 202 episodes, or about 3 1/2 times the run of The Wire. And I understand most believe the show was, well, pretty shitty in its last couple of years. We have something of a general agreement to bail once we feel things have dragged on long enough.

In case any of you were wondering, we seemed to hit our limit after the third season. The show hadn't gone completely awful, but... dang, it's just a hell of a lot of episodes to watch, and not all of them were worth the time.

More than anything, it looks like a show that would've benefited greatly from being produced today, in this era of cable dramas that cap their seasons at 12-13 episodes. (So would have Twin Peaks.)

I'm not opposed to restarting X-Files later on, but it won't be any day soon. I mean, we've had Boardwalk Empire Season 2 sitting by the TV for more than a month, still unwatched - and that's a show we're actually highly eager to get back into.

Doesn't surprise me that you'd say that. Again, a great bridge show to the serialized genre entertainments we now enjoy on t.v. but at however many seasons it dragged out to, way to long and lots of flab.

i think x-files was properly and thoroughly enjoyed with a week between episodes. cramming that much of something together isn't good. i'm sorry you bailed, but at least you got to see Duane Barry.

TC wrote:on the red carpet at the 'great expectations' premier...

gillian-anderson-cleavy-red-carpet-event-in-italy-08-675x900.jpg

How on earth did I miss this?
Gorgeous.

Weirdly enough, I would say my favorite X-files episode still is Chinga, the one written by Stephen King. A truly scary episode.