Rediscovering the X Files
Mon, Mar. 30th, 2015 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
scarlettinaWith the news that The X Files is returning to TV for a limited 6-episode run (squeee! and also ummm...), I find myself rewatching the series, starting with Season 1. I'm four episodes in and I'm struck by a number of things that I've either forgotten over the years or occur to me now as a watcher with more advanced technology than we had when the show was first aired.
1. The Cigarette Smoking Man appeared in the pilot. In the freaking pilot. He was there from the start. Which implies that the Syndicate is right there from the start and long before as well. Whether or not Chris Carter knew that's what he was doing, it sure makes it look like he did. We know, from interviews, that Carter wasn't sure where he was headed, so this all makes him look like a genius.
2. Deep Throat, another key character, shows up in the eponymous second episode. I always forget that it's the title of the ep because it is, in some ways, the first mythology episode and it is otherwise so not about Deep Throat. We learn about Mulder's history, why the supernatural and the unexplained are so fascinating to him.
3. Yes, as is true of so many other movies and TV shows, at the beginning of the series, smart phones and the internet would have made such a difference. In the very pilot, Scully could have photographed all of her evidence and it wouldn't have been lost in the fire (which makes me wonder how her backups would have been destroyed later). In the fourth episode, "Conduit", either she or Mulder would certainly have photographed the mosaic image of Ruby. Mulder would have photographed the tell-tale treeline and the top of the camper. (Speaking of the camper, why didn't he take some of the ash as evidence for his file? Sloppy work there, Agent Mulder.)
4. In "Conduit", Mulder subtly tries to call out the local sheriff for not paying attention to Ruby's case because she's a Bad Girl, as if her reputation was reason enough not to care that she's missing. I kept watching Scully, trying to figure out what her reaction was to the sheriff being such an a**hole. Maybe I'm reading into Gillian Anderson's performance, but I felt like Scully was on a leash, unable to step in. In the next scene, she tells Mulder not to antagonize local law enforcement (which I think was what her behavior int he previous scene was about), and I found myself wondering: if the script had been written by a woman, how differently would that previous scene have been written?
5. How much more DNA testing would Mulder and Scully have been able to do if the series happened in a more recent era? (I guess we'll find out.)
6. The third episode, "Squeeze" (an ep that onfe friend calls something like "Creepy Liver Boy"), set up the paradigm for the Monster of the Week episodes, those stand-alone eps that anyone could watch without having to be familiar with the mythology meta-arc. Also? It was creepier than hell.
7. In the pilot, Scully is dressed in big, boxy jackets and wide-legged slacks, all of which hide her shape and almost look too big for her. With the second episode, her jackets are more nipped-in at the waist and generally more tailored overall.
8. There's a scene in the pilot where Scully discovers marks on her back similar to those that Mulder discovers on the backs of the victims. She asks him to make sure they're not actually what she thinks they are and kind of collapses into his arms when he affirms that they're not. I had a moment of "Oh, no--really?" And then I remembered that the series--from the very next scene--makes a point for a very long time that there's nothing between the two of them, that they're professionals and don't have a romantic attraction. Her reaction is a sign of just how freaked out she is; Mulder even observes that she's shaking. And it was refreshing to rediscover that dynamic. For so many years after the series concluded, there was so much emphasis on Mulder/Scully in my head that I'd kind of forgotten that for a long time, these were simply two coworkers working in extraordinary circumstances and it only became personal in an almost deeper way than romantic much, much later.
After watching these four episodes now, it's obvious why the series hit it out of the park the moment it aired. These first episodes are so good, so creepy; they set up back story effectively and with real emotional depth; and the characters are well defined immediately. It's already established that there's more going on than meets the eye, a cover-up or conspiracy of some kind. The justification that one character makes in the second episode--our work is equal to the protection we give it--sets up the dichotomy immediately: the FBI protects the public, but how far should that protection go if it threatens greater protections in place? And who's to say what the public should and shouldn't know? I'm falling in love with the series all over again.
1. The Cigarette Smoking Man appeared in the pilot. In the freaking pilot. He was there from the start. Which implies that the Syndicate is right there from the start and long before as well. Whether or not Chris Carter knew that's what he was doing, it sure makes it look like he did. We know, from interviews, that Carter wasn't sure where he was headed, so this all makes him look like a genius.
2. Deep Throat, another key character, shows up in the eponymous second episode. I always forget that it's the title of the ep because it is, in some ways, the first mythology episode and it is otherwise so not about Deep Throat. We learn about Mulder's history, why the supernatural and the unexplained are so fascinating to him.
3. Yes, as is true of so many other movies and TV shows, at the beginning of the series, smart phones and the internet would have made such a difference. In the very pilot, Scully could have photographed all of her evidence and it wouldn't have been lost in the fire (which makes me wonder how her backups would have been destroyed later). In the fourth episode, "Conduit", either she or Mulder would certainly have photographed the mosaic image of Ruby. Mulder would have photographed the tell-tale treeline and the top of the camper. (Speaking of the camper, why didn't he take some of the ash as evidence for his file? Sloppy work there, Agent Mulder.)
4. In "Conduit", Mulder subtly tries to call out the local sheriff for not paying attention to Ruby's case because she's a Bad Girl, as if her reputation was reason enough not to care that she's missing. I kept watching Scully, trying to figure out what her reaction was to the sheriff being such an a**hole. Maybe I'm reading into Gillian Anderson's performance, but I felt like Scully was on a leash, unable to step in. In the next scene, she tells Mulder not to antagonize local law enforcement (which I think was what her behavior int he previous scene was about), and I found myself wondering: if the script had been written by a woman, how differently would that previous scene have been written?
5. How much more DNA testing would Mulder and Scully have been able to do if the series happened in a more recent era? (I guess we'll find out.)
6. The third episode, "Squeeze" (an ep that onfe friend calls something like "Creepy Liver Boy"), set up the paradigm for the Monster of the Week episodes, those stand-alone eps that anyone could watch without having to be familiar with the mythology meta-arc. Also? It was creepier than hell.
7. In the pilot, Scully is dressed in big, boxy jackets and wide-legged slacks, all of which hide her shape and almost look too big for her. With the second episode, her jackets are more nipped-in at the waist and generally more tailored overall.
8. There's a scene in the pilot where Scully discovers marks on her back similar to those that Mulder discovers on the backs of the victims. She asks him to make sure they're not actually what she thinks they are and kind of collapses into his arms when he affirms that they're not. I had a moment of "Oh, no--really?" And then I remembered that the series--from the very next scene--makes a point for a very long time that there's nothing between the two of them, that they're professionals and don't have a romantic attraction. Her reaction is a sign of just how freaked out she is; Mulder even observes that she's shaking. And it was refreshing to rediscover that dynamic. For so many years after the series concluded, there was so much emphasis on Mulder/Scully in my head that I'd kind of forgotten that for a long time, these were simply two coworkers working in extraordinary circumstances and it only became personal in an almost deeper way than romantic much, much later.
After watching these four episodes now, it's obvious why the series hit it out of the park the moment it aired. These first episodes are so good, so creepy; they set up back story effectively and with real emotional depth; and the characters are well defined immediately. It's already established that there's more going on than meets the eye, a cover-up or conspiracy of some kind. The justification that one character makes in the second episode--our work is equal to the protection we give it--sets up the dichotomy immediately: the FBI protects the public, but how far should that protection go if it threatens greater protections in place? And who's to say what the public should and shouldn't know? I'm falling in love with the series all over again.