Quick X-Files Guide Please (1 Viewer)

[jez]

Coming towards the end of season 6 now and havae enjoyed it especially as i read how a lot of people said it was crap.

 

[TravisR]

What were your favorite episodes from S6?

 

[jez]

Errm

Drive
Triangle
Dreamland 1&2
Monday
Arcadia

 

[Mike Graham]

Drive, Triangle and Monday were some of the best episodes of that series. I believe Season 6 was criticized heavily due to the fact that there were a fair amount of comedy episodes, and the mythology arc really wasn't getting as much explanation as people wanted...

The guest actress caught in the time loop in "Monday" did a great job, I can still remember her preformance after all these years.

 

[GuruAskew]

That was Carrie Hamilton, daughter of Carol Burnett, and she unfortunately died of cancer in 2002.

 

[jez]

Oh that is a shame :frowning:

 

[AlexCosmo]

6 was a great season. There was never a season of mainstream network TV that broadly ambitious and there probably never will be again.

 

[jez]

Coming to the end of Season 6, i found field trip a really difficult watch for some reason, i liked it just strange!

Season 7 then opinons please guys

Stand uot episodes/any comdey ones etc?

Cheers

 

[TravisR]

The good episodes are few and far between but Hungry, Sein Und Zeit, all things, Je Souhaite are all pretty good. Hungry is a story told from a monster's POV. Sein Und Zeit seems alot like an episode of Millennium to me. all things (written and directed by Gillian Anderson) takes Scully in a 'non-Scully' direction and that bothered some people but I was pretty pleased by the episode overall. Je Souhaite is another XF comedy that is funny and sorta sweet at the same time.

The GREAT episodes of Season Seven are Closure, X-Cops, Hollywood A.D., and Requiem. X-Cops is a really funny parody of the TV show Cops as they follow Mulder and Scully on a case. Hollywood A.D. is arguably one of the funniest X-Files ever (and it's written and directed by David Duchovny). Requiem pretty much salvages the mythology and takes it in a new direction which, once again, some pople didn't really like but I thought was great

The most 'controversial' episode of the year (and maybe the series) is Closure. I don't want to spoil the episode for you but I will say that you get an answer to a major question. I think alot of people didn't like the answer (and that led to some negaitivity towards the episode) but the episode taken on its own merits is touching and wonderful.

 

[TravisR]

Oh and the comedy (or at least more fanciful) episodes are:

The Goldberg Variation
The Amazing Maleeni
X-Cops
Hollywood A.D.
Fight Club (WARNING: This is 45 minutes of your life that you won't get back)
Je Souhaite

Another non-comedy S7 episode that's pretty good is En Ami. The episode focuses on the Cigarette Smoking Man and Scully. It was written by William B. Davis and Rob Bowman came back to direct this one.

It seems like Season Seven was the year when everyone who acted or was a prodcuer on the show got to write and direct an episode.

 

[Sue_New]

Season Seven is arguably the worst season of the X-Files. Despite that, though, there are some gems.

"X-Cops" - a hilarious comedy - is my personal fave of S7, followed closely by "En Ami". I thought what William B. Davis (Cigarrette Smoking Man) penned was brilliant.

Big warning to you about "Hollywood A.D." - it is not Mulder you see in that episode, it is David Duchovny. Same goes with "All Things" about Dana Scully (it is essentially Gillian). I found this wrong and disenheartening. I do not want the personal lives of the actors in my X-Files episodes, but here they are. So much of the characters are out-of-character that I hate these episodes.

This is the season where they thought the show was ending at the end of season 7. They tried to do too many things to "close the loop" so to speak. Though there are great moments, on the whole the season suffered.

David Duchovny also, in my opinion, was not up to par in most all the episodes here. (This started in season 6, actually). I will steal an excerpt of a review of the season from elsewhere (not my words):

"1) Excepting the excellent mythology scripts, Duchovny is emotionally detached in his portrayal of Agent Mulder. While in prior seasons his occasional onscreen fatigue could plausibly be tied to plots featuring a disillusioned Mulder, it is too much of a stretch to extend such a notion to Season 7, which is severely damaged as a result.

2) In terms of new ideas, the writers on the show seemed to have been genuinely stumped throughout much of Season 7, particularly with regard to "stand alone" episodes. The numerous uninspired "stand alone" scripts could hardly have been expected to provide the necessary stimulus for a weary Duchovny, struggling through the grind of a notoriously demanding production schedule. The perfunctory interaction between Mulder and Scully in many "stand alone" scripts proves especially damaging to a show that thrives on dynamic interplay between its two main characters."

There are behind-the-scenes reasons for all this, but in a nutshell, I feel David became a spoiled brat.

The WORST episode of all time is definitely "Fight Club" and believe me, you are not missing out if you skip this one. It has nothing to do with any mytharc or anything else for that matter. I agree with TravisR on this one.

"Closure" was a disappointment. "Millenium" was a disappointment and is NOTHING like "Millenium" the series. I actually hesitated to watch Millenium the series based on this episode. Boy, am I glad I gave it a chance, because the series is amazing. This episode sucked for the most part.

"Theef", "Brand X", and "Hungry" are very good MOW episodes.

This season left a bitter taste in many mouths. Some stopped watching it altogether. Some didn't want to continue the cliffhanger plot (I wish it hadn't been uttered). Some didn't want to watch a show without David Duchovny (these people are not true X-Files fans). So whatever. However, I strongly urge you to watch Season Eight. It is a fabulous season. Season Nine, I could give or take, but please give Season Eight a chance.

 

[jez]

Thanks guys for that info all very interesting.

I shall watch with great interest, I will watch 'fight club' with great interest as i have heard before how bad it is. I never really think any x files episode is bad bad i will always enjoy so will see.

Thanks again, any trivia about this season?

 

[GuruAskew]

"Fight Club" is one of the worst episodes but I'd rather watch it than something purely unremarkable, tedious and mediocre like "Alpha". At least "Fight Club" is somewhat memorable.

 

[DavidBC]

"Fight Club" is a horrible episode, although I do enjoy when Scully introduces herself to Burt as "Special Agent Dana Scully" and he screams "What's so special about you?"

I also thought the opening scene in the office was charming, but everything else is awful, especially the end of the episode where we're supposed to laugh at the impication that Mulder and Scully beat the hell out of each other, when we later find out that Scully would have been pregnant at the time! Really not funny!


As for the rest of the season, I loved the Last Temptation of Christ - inspired "Sixth Extinction", and as a hard-core shipper, I had to like "Millenium." I liked all three of the cast-written episodes, and "Requiem" was elegant. The big problem with season seven, in my opinion, was the amount of average episodes. "Fight Club" and "First Person Shooter" are bad, but fun to talk about. "The Amazing Maleeni", "Brand X", "Theef" and "The Goldberg Variation" are just dull and uninspired (at least "Chimera" has a not-too-pleased Scully on stakeout).

 

[Simon Massey]

Fight Club may be bad, but wasnt there a season 5 episode about murderous trees ? I remember that being the nadir of the series for me

 

[Greg Z]

Have you all forgotten "Ghost in the Machine"? THAT was the worst ep. I have ever seen, followed closely by "Fight Club".

 

[TravisR]

What about 'Space'? In my mind, Space and Fight Club share the distinction of the worst

In all fairness if you make 202 episodes, you're gonna have some less than stellar episodes in there sometimes.

Simon, that episode was called "Schizogeny' (and it's painful).

 

[Patrick H.]

'Space' might've been a somewhat passable episode if it had been done later in the series when they had an actual budget. Unfortunately, as an earlier first-season episode, it's a horrible piece of crap. You know you're in trouble when mission control at NASA looks a whole lot like the food court of a Vancouver mall...

Haven't seen 'Fight Club,' though, so now I'm curious.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Shipper- there's a term I haven't heard or thought about in a while! Of course I guess I was one too.

And Jez, just to follow on with some of the behind the scenes stuff of the time (if you care) I *think* Season Seven is around when Duchovny sued Chris Carter and Fox over money issues so things were very tense on the set.

Duchovny was obviously on auto-pilot by that point (and really since the end of Season Five) and it was pretty clear he was only there for the paycheck.

He was also supposedly the key motivator behind the move to LA at the end of Season Five. He was tired of spending so much of the year in Vancouver, especially when separated from his wife, Tea Leoni, who had to stay in LA for her own career. Its widely believed that the move to LA was a concession to keep him on the show.

Also, Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz became less and less involved with the show those final seasons as they tried to unsuccessfully launch Harsh Realm and The Lone Gunmen.

FWIW, I found Closure to be very powerful even if it wasn't what I was expecting.

And the seventh season finale, Requiem, is a real treat, especially if you enjoyed the Pilot Episode.

 

[Kevin Grey]

Oh yeah, and another huge creative obstacle for Season Six and beyond was how to handle the relationship between Mulder and Scully. The writers had been walking that line very carefully since the beginning with proponents on both sides of the aisle but the creators were very mindful of the lesson learned by Moonlighting a decade earlier. However the creators pretty clearly started pushing toward relationship territory in Season Four and beyond but they never wanted to fully commit either way and instead maintain that tease. This "tease" becomes downright ludicrous with some of the later plot events in season six and beyond and they walked that careful line from earlier right into absurdity.