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After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor

Chairman Capone posted:

I think this is a legacy of the conspiracy culture of the 1980s/90s that Chris Carter drew a lot from, like Behold a Pale Horse. It's the same sort of environment that led to things like Black Helicopters, FEMA Death Camps, Clinton sending his shock troopers across the country, even anti-vaxxer and chemtrail stuff. It's also funny that from 2001-08 a lot of this went away from conspiracy culture, and then returned again until 2016....

Mostly I meant that they were making up for lower budgets, really.

At this point, the Conspiracy angle is still very rooted in the Military-Industrial-Intelligence complex, mostly focused on the acquisition/protection of Alien/Weird poo poo Technology and keeping strict control of secret information, rather than manipulation or control of the US population. It's definitely post-Cold War skepticism, the "what are the defense and intelligence communities supposed to do without the threat of the USSR," which was only amplified as the memories of Desert Storm grew sour. (At least among the demographic who would watch X-Files). Hell, the "Defense Contractor Needs to Find New Clients" thing was a major plot point in "Shadows." And it's implied that the government knows very little about aliens at this point, despite loving around with their tech for fifty years.

It's important to remember that a lot of Cold War stuff was being declassified at this point - I remember reading about human experimentation in the newspaper right around the time the show first started. Hell, the show was wrapping up its fourth season when the government formally apologized for the Tuskegee Experiment. That hasn't really started to crop up in the show yet (aside from the damaging effects of flying alien tech-based aircraft in "Deep Throat") but I know it's just around the corner. The "they're comin' for us"-style Black Helicopter Conspiracy poo poo won't be far behind that, either.

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Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

After The War posted:

The problem with starting every rewatch from the beginning is you see the early episodes the most often (I can recite most of the pilot from memory), but it's been so long since the last attempt I felt obligated to.
The early seasons, I can see an episode's title and instantly go "Oh, that's the one with [WHATEVER]", even after all these years. Later on, I have no idea what an episode might be about based only on the title, with a few exceptions. Like I remember 'The Field Where I Died' as "the past-life one so astonishingly boring I have no desire ever to watch it again", or 'Arcadia' as "plastic flamingoes!" :haw:

My wife and I started a rewatch a long while back, and got to somewhere around season 3. Then we had a child, and welp, hours of free time of an evening became no longer a thing...

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?

Chairman Capone posted:

I think this is a legacy of the conspiracy culture of the 1980s/90s that Chris Carter drew a lot from, like Behold a Pale Horse. It's the same sort of environment that led to things like Black Helicopters, FEMA Death Camps, Clinton sending his shock troopers across the country, even anti-vaxxer and chemtrail stuff. It's also funny that from 2001-08 a lot of this went away from conspiracy culture, and then returned again until 2016....

Until 2016? Buddy this is the second golden age of extreme right wing conspiracy theorists. I don't think it'll ever go back to "normal".

Chairman Capone
Dec 17, 2008

I meant "in" instead of "until"... I don't know anyone on either side of the divide who thinks conspiracy thinking has gone down since then. If anything belief in conspiracies is one thing that brings us all together.

It is kind of funny that the revival series had Joel McHale playing Alex Jones, when Jones is now almost quaint and irrelevant compared to QAnon or the TTSA.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
Krycek, the dumb dickhead, shot scullys hot sister! wtf

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


Most memorable Krycek please add more

1. Getting his arm cut off poor bugger not really
2. Being a complete dick to Skinner with his nanoshit remote control
3. Getting jiggy with it only to find out Marita Corravubius used him

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Getting entombed in an ICBM silo to either dehydrate to death or be burned alive in the case of nuclear war.

Also ending up really ashamed to be working for a white supremacist militia after they busted into his ICBM silo to steal the nuke and also rescued him.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
It's hilarious that this all powerful syndicate defaults to Krycek, Hitman Apprentice, for all their murder needs

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012
My favorite Krycek moment is when he very dramatically drops the vial with the vaccine that could have saved Mulder, only for Scully to then use "an anti-viral" to save Mulder.

It just highlights the incoherence of it all.

There's an alien virus that incubates in seemingly dead people and transforms them into supersoldiers so indestructible that if even a single vertebrae is left they can instantly restore themselves to full health. There is a vaccine to said virus. But it doesn't matter, generic antiviral drugs just as well.

The indestructible super soldier comes from a virus that is easier to treat than the flu.

Wolfsheim
Dec 23, 2003

and god is on your side
dividing sparrows from the nightingales
this thread got me curious enough to watch the xfiles again and I know Scully's skepticism in the face of multiple incontrovertible alien/ghost encounters has always been kind of a joke but it's literally the second ever episode where she has to rescue Mulder from a secret military base at gunpoint, the sinister government agent says to them "we're hiding things from you for your protection!" and then in the very next scene says Mulder is crazy for thinking it's a conspiracy

DorianGravy
Sep 12, 2007

Wolfsheim posted:

this thread got me curious enough to watch the xfiles again and I know Scully's skepticism in the face of multiple incontrovertible alien/ghost encounters has always been kind of a joke but it's literally the second ever episode where she has to rescue Mulder from a secret military base at gunpoint, the sinister government agent says to them "we're hiding things from you for your protection!" and then in the very next scene says Mulder is crazy for thinking it's a conspiracy

Yeah, it's a little funny sometimes. I'm sure Scully realizes that there are strange things and dark conspiracies going on, but she's unwilling to believe in aliens and monsters without clear proof. And clear proof is something that she rarely (never?) gets.

I recently started rewatching the first movie, and even there, these are the only things Scully sees: dead bodies going through some strange sort of putrefaction, an unknown disease, a weird facility with bees, helicopters, and probably some half-remembered images of a strange facility in Antarctica. If I were her, I would conclude that there was some sort of cover-up about a strange disease. And while she clearly trusts Mulder in most matters, he actively wants to believe (see his poster) due to his sister's disappearance, so he's probably not the most impartial person on this subject.

Throughout the series, it's a little comical how Mulder sees the really weird stuff and Scully shows up a moment too late. Still, it's a wonderful dynamic. Mulder believes too easily, and Scully won't rely on belief at all (outside of her faith, of course).

I love both Mulder and Scully, but I definitely identify with Scully more.

DorianGravy fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Aug 5, 2020

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

Wolfsheim posted:

this thread got me curious enough to watch the xfiles again and I know Scully's skepticism in the face of multiple incontrovertible alien/ghost encounters has always been kind of a joke but it's literally the second ever episode where she has to rescue Mulder from a secret military base at gunpoint, the sinister government agent says to them "we're hiding things from you for your protection!" and then in the very next scene says Mulder is crazy for thinking it's a conspiracy

She usually just thinks it’s a conspiracy that doesn’t involve aliens but just regular secret weapons and human experimentation, which is kind of a fine line, I’ll admit. She just always wants incontrovertible proof of whatever it is in that particular situation. I swear she says stuff like “just because there was a ghost that other time, there’s no reason to assume it’s a ghost this time!” which is a really reasonable position to take.

I AM GRANDO
Aug 20, 2006

DorianGravy posted:

Yeah, it's a little funny sometimes. I'm sure Scully realizes that there are strange things and dark conspiracies going on, but she's unwilling to believe in aliens and monsters without clear proof. And clear proof is something that she rarely (never?) gets.

I recently started rewatching the first movie, and even there, these are the only things Scully sees: dead bodies going through some strange sort of putrefaction, an unknown disease, a weird facility with bees, helicopters, and probably some half-remembered images of a strange facility in Antarctica. If I were her, I would conclude that there was some sort of cover-up about a strange disease. And while she clearly trusts Mulder, he actively wants to believe (see his poster) due to his sister's disappearance.

Throughout the series, it's a little comical how Mulder sees the really weird stuff and Scully shows up a moment too late. Still, it's a wonderful dynamic. Mulder believes too easily, and Scully won't rely on belief at all (outside of her faith, of course).

I love both Mulder and Scully, but I definitely identify with Scully more.

Watching as an adult, it’s really clear to me that she’s constantly put in the boring adult role, telling Mulder that they have to be responsible and do their homework and that he can’t just go crawl through goo, when obviously the whole point of the show is them crawling through goo. It’s kind of like the show is an exquisite hell designed to frustrate her, as she’s a scientist MD Ph.D. or whatever who should be perfectly qualified to solve all this poo poo every week but she’s always being proven wrong by the wild guesses of this dumb rear end in a top hat that don’t even follow from the facts of the case. Like she just happens to have the one job in all of government service where the laws of physics don’t apply.

Shrimp or Shrimps
Feb 14, 2012


And on top of that Mulder actually spends a lot of time being a complete dick to her if not actively, at least by being inactive, and the show expects that to be fully tempered by some moments of tenderness / damsel-in-distress rescues.

But, like, if I were Scully, I'd sure spend a lot of time really pissed off at my partner. She is there for him literally every time he's having a crisis but the reverse is not true, to the point where he sometimes mocks her.

loving got her dog killed, too. Love you, Queequeg.

(Not really, pomeranians suck)

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
Finished Clyde, started List. This one seems pretty good and it's definitely creepy but the color temperature or whatever is blech. Like someone went full David Fincher

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
Ok, the List kinda fizzled in the last third. Maybe half. Not terrible but definitely weaker. The fat eater episode was fine throughout but nothing special. I'd rank it higher all around tbh.

Ginette Reno
Nov 18, 2006

How Doers get more done
Fun Shoe
Doesn't Scully say at one point that she actively tries to check Mulder's crazy theories even though he has good instincts just because she thinks that's the best way for them to work the cases?

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
There's too many coincidences for The Walk episode and Mind Quad from X files to be just coincidence. This one after it, is a good episode but jesus christ it's miserable.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
I meant mind quad from American Dad. That's almost certainly a reference to X files or at least some earlier work but I'd bet it's x files. Anyway, the 731 mytharc episode was a pretty good two parter

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
Pusher is so unbelievably good

Maelstache
Feb 25, 2013

gOTTA gO fAST

Milo and POTUS posted:

I think I remember a lot of people saying they hated Fire but I'll say this for it, it's not Space.

One thing Fire does do is demonstrate just what a good on-screen partnership Anderson and Duchovny were, because Duchovny and Amanda Pays have no chemistry whatsoever. It makes the conceit of them being ex-lovers (X-lovers?) seem incredibly far-fetched.

I remember some dubious unsourced rumours that Fox actually considered having the Phoebe character replace Scully as the show's female lead, but part of me says that can't possibly be true because that would've just been insanity.

poo poo, it was true - https://x-files.fandom.com/wiki/Phoebe_Green

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor
Hey, I've been meaning to post about "Fire" for the past few days! But mostly because I can't stop thinking about how stupid it is. The Phoebe Green stuff is whatever, but it really feels like they were dumbing poo poo down - there were three or four times where a clue would be shown and then explained off-camera like the audience was too dumb to get it. Hunting a pyrokinetic through forensic profiling should be X-Files 101, but it was totally unnecessary, it's like the guy was going out of his way to get caught. And instead of someone creepy but compelling like Tooms, he's just this cackling psychopath mugging it for the camera and saying everything he's up to out loud, like a cartoon supervilain. The whole thing really felt like one of those 80s-90s C-grade horror movies that you'd find at the back of the video store. (And believe me, I've seen more than a few.) Especially when he goes up in flames and screeches "you can't kill me, you can't fight fire... with fiiiiiire!" What the gently caress was that supposed to mean? It didn't have anything to do with anything, and was just wrong for X-Files, even this early on.

I did like the post-Silence of the Lambs "investigative specialist who is way too into his job" arson expert, though. He was one of those fun one-off characters the show was good at.

EDIT - Oh poo poo, that was Mark Sheppard? Well, drat. Still didn't fit the tone, though.

After The War fucked around with this message at 06:30 on Aug 11, 2020

Maelstache
Feb 25, 2013

gOTTA gO fAST
The depiction of a British Family in that is pretty hilarious as well. Fire is basically total schlock, but it is at least entertaining from that point of view, and as a kind of a weird early series oddity where the tone is all wrong and it feels like a totally different show

It's not suffocatingly boring unlike Space. which commits the cardinal sin of having all the spooky action take place around the shuttle, so Mulder and Scully are basically completely unable to influence anything that happens and are reduced to just standing around the control room waiting for things to happen. Nothing about their presence in the episode really makes sense - there's no sensible plot reason for them to stick around beyond the first act, what are the FBI even meant do in this sort of case?

The really stupid part is when the NASA lady drives all the way to Mulder & Scully's hotel to tell them they need to go back to the control room because something has happened - couldn't she just phone and leave a message?? It's doubly ridiculous because there's nothing they could possibly do to help anyway. In fact, I think the only reason that whole sequence is there is to have a way for NASA Lady to be driving through the fog at night and run into the Space Ghost which is just pootling around in the middle of nowhere for some reason. It's so, so silly.

Let's not forget the really poor taste Challenger reference as well.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
The hell money episode doesn't make a lot of sense. I don't mean in a "this is what chinese people actually think or do" sort of way, I mean once that crowd of gamblers found out they were being cheated (and murdered as a consequence!) I can't imagine there would be any force in the universe capable of stopping them from ripping the organizers limb from limb. Also BD Wong did NOT deserve the fate he got, seeing as he at least had a change of heart, however late.

BogDew
Jun 14, 2006

E:\FILES>quickfli clown.fli
I'm enjoying the dated tech references.


Teso Dos Bichos I think wins for the most infamously bad X-files episode. The crew even had shirts made of it to commemorate how bad the concept was. It was made even more inane by Gillian Anderson being allergic to cats so they had to create a mock cat with rabbit fur for her to wrestle with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VSvXfhGMGs

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
It's so god drat bad lmao. Just the whole room of cats banging against the door had me laughing. I've watched quite a few more but I don't like to monopolize the thread


vvvvvvvvv When was that? I vaguely remember it but I've watched so, so much x files lately that they're all blurred together

Milo and POTUS fucked around with this message at 09:27 on Aug 16, 2020

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
I forgot that Mulder threatens to shoot the NSA agent in the dick.

edit: :barf: the start of the Corckroaches episode.

edit 2: "My mind isn't the only thing you boys want to expand" is uhhh probably the risque-est line i've heard so far.

edit 3: Hate him, wouldn't wanna date him

algebra testes fucked around with this message at 10:47 on Aug 16, 2020

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

algebra testes posted:

I forgot that Mulder threatens to shoot the NSA agent in the dick.

edit: :barf: the start of the Corckroaches episode.

edit 2: "My mind isn't the only thing you boys want to expand" is uhhh probably the risque-est line i've heard so far.

edit 3: Hate him, wouldn't wanna date him

Syzygy is such a reminder of a pre-internet world for me. I didn't have internet at the time, and so the episode came out and I really liked one of the songs in it. All Over You by live. Of course, I had no way of finding out what the name was, so I would go to record stores and sing the refrain to see if anyone would know it. And then the next year I got the internet, so I searched for it and found it that way.

After The War
Apr 12, 2005

to all of my Architects
let me be traitor
Man, Live was such an alt-rock radio staple, buying an album would have seemed superfluous at the time.

joepinetree
Apr 5, 2012

After The War posted:

Man, Live was such an alt-rock radio staple, buying an album would have seemed superfluous at the time.

At the time, I was an exchange student in rural northwest Michigan. If they had an alt-rock radio station, I didn't know of it.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
In the Yoop?! God drat you probably witnessed your very own x file

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
I think it was already mentioned in this thread, but the "Mulder is actually a great profiler" episodes along with "bog standard serial killer" episodes are a lowkey fave of mine. Mainly because it involves our Protagonist having a skill and using it instead of being 'spooky'.

The twist that That it isn't a demon, but rather the Mindhunter Profiler that had become so obsessed with solving the murders that he becomes the killer actually really works because I think it is neat that he gets Mulder in because he knows that Mulder will solve the murders and catch him. Over all a really solid, non-essential X-Files episode.

Last Repose is still my favorite, but I really enjoy these otherwise un memberable "standard" x files episodes that don't make it onto watch lists that are really a beacon for how the show was back in the day, like we all remember the hilights, the myth arcs, but when you were tuning in back in the day sometimes you just got a standard serial killer episode and that had to do you for a week.

Now for Piper Maru which something tells me Means it is BLACK OIL TIME BAY BEE

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
I thought Grotesque sucked but I agree with your sentiment other than that.

Open Source Idiom
Jan 4, 2013

algebra testes posted:

I think it was already mentioned in this thread, but the "Mulder is actually a great profiler" episodes along with "bog standard serial killer" episodes are a lowkey fave of mine. Mainly because it involves our Protagonist having a skill and using it instead of being 'spooky'.

Aubrey is low-key my favourite episode of the show.

A Fancy Hat
Nov 18, 2016

Always remember that the former President was dumber than the dumbest person you've ever met by a wide margin

Milo and POTUS posted:

Pusher is so unbelievably good

This was a favorite one in my recent rewatch and I loved the reveal at the end that the Pusher could have had this brain tumor removed easily, but he'd rather die and have these powers for a while than go back to being a normal person.

Milo and POTUS
Sep 3, 2017

I will not shut up about the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. I talk about them all the time and work them into every conversation I have. I built a shrine in my room for the yellow one who died because sadly no one noticed because she died around 9/11. Wanna see it?
Oh hey, Tuco showed up

algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
Holly isn't under Pusher's control she just hates Skinner is my new head cannon.

Pusher owns, still. No surprise.

Basebf555
Feb 29, 2008

The greatest sensual pleasure there is is to know the desires of another!

Fun Shoe
Finishing up Season 4 on my rewatch and I feel like the biggest misstep the series made, at least before Duchovney left was the Season 4 finale and then the Season 5 premier. The whole hoax angle works better now that you can binge the whole series at once but at the time it just muddied the waters to the point that the mytharc became too confusing for someone who was somewhat casually watching the show.

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!
Had a real hankering to watch some X Files for some reason, so pulled out my DVDs to watch Nisei/731. Accidentally picked up season 2 by mistake, so watched Colony/End Game instead. Didn't regret the mistake - it's still such a great story. Clones, shapeshifters, squishy embryos, shoe-dissolving green slime, defenestration, Skinner and X beating the crap out of each other, Mulder family drama... Even if Mulder and Scully's phone tag is ridiculously contrived, it ramps things up from "oh, now they're taking the piss" to "holy poo poo!" with the cliffhanger.

And that conning tower set is still incredible. All the more amazing when the drat thing starts to move!

I'm now sorely tempted to get hold of the complete series Blu-Ray set. How does it compare visually to the DVDs?

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algebra testes
Mar 5, 2011


Lipstick Apathy
You can bet your blankity blank bleep I will.


Edit: aahhh former Minessota Governor Jesse "The Body" Ventura!!!

algebra testes fucked around with this message at 12:07 on Aug 20, 2020

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