Submitted by CTFX84 t3_11e9t4e in television
This is one of those shows that you can always revisit time and time again. I love the individual storyline, and also the government conspiracy arcs. The future star-studded casting is always cool to see whether it is Ryan Reynolds, Jack Black, Seth Green, Tobin Bell, Bryan Cranston, a very young Shia LaBeouf, Lucy Liu...etc! It was and always will be one of my favorite shows of all time!
Main story aside, the monster of the week episodes are incredible.
The chemistry between Mulder & Scully is off the charts.
The thing that truly makes the show age so well is the way they light it & shoot it. A cable sci fi TV show in the 90s should look janky,but the amazing lighting & tricks they used on set makes every episode like a mini movie, & that's how I've always felt. Every week we got a movie.
This show hit at EXACTLY the right time. Two years earlier or later and it wouldn’t have been timely. But fall 1993, when I was 13, it was absolutely perfect for the burgeoning Internet, conspiracy theories, fan discussion, etc.
Some stuff is dated for sure, but it still has some of the best single episodes of television even decades later, like Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose or Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.
I’ve been rewatching episodes for the last few days and this show is still absolutely fantastic. So many creepy monsters, I love it
The banned episode 'Home' still disturbs me 🤣
>or Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.
No other object is misidentified as a flying saucer more often than the planet Venus.
I love the first two seasons especially. Very moody lighting. Cell phones were a thing but not quite mainstream. The UFO conspiracies are top-notch.
“Alex Trebek?! The game show host?!”
Man, that lighting. It was SUCH a good looking show. It felt expensive, in a way that's so rare now.
Back in '96, during our Senior trip to D.C., I missed a visit to the White House with the rest of my class because me and my other X-Files fan buddies decided to visit the J. Edgar Hoover building instead. Waited in line for 3 hours until it was too late and we had to rejoin the rest of the class lol
Of course, AFAIK, you can't visit either building nowadays
I rewatched the remastered season one on BluRay after getting an OLED TV in December. Holy crap it looks so good.
Would love for a 4K scan of the series to come out with HDR cause I bet it’d look amazing. Maybe with this year being the 30th anniversary they’ll announce something? Doubtful, but one could always hope.
One of my favorite episodes. I watched it when it aired and loved that they were willing to take a risk with making a gritty, grim, brutal episode. There was really nothing like it at the time. Even rewatching the show now it’s kind of a shocker cause the rest of the episodes are pretty tame in comparison. If it came out today it’d be tame compared to shows like Hannibal.
Plus, you got Scully quoting the sheep from Babe which always cracks me up.
Yep, exactly what Chris Carter intended. Despite him not knowing how to finish the myth arc, he made the right call regarding how the show should look and feel.
Those first 5 seasons are so great to me, too, cause I’m from the PNW and having a show set/filmed in that area just gives it that extra mood. Anytime I drive through Tillmook forest I think of some of the X-Files episodes that take place out in the middle of nowhere. It’s even better at night: no streetlights, dark forest on both sides of a windy road. Always makes me think just for a moment I’m gonna turn a corner and come across some cryptid or alien encounter.
The reboot had some pretty fun monster of the week episodes, The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat and the one with the lizard werewolf are a couple of my favorites.
> the best single episodes of television even decades later, like Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose or Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.
It's insane that Darin Morgan wrote only like 4 or 5 episodes out of 200, but they're the one that people remember the most. And they are indeed the best tv ever
>Darin Morgan
Good point. The two I mentioned, "Humbug" (circus performers), and "War of the Coprophages," one of the funniest episodes of the whole series.
And, hell, he wrote the one revival episode that had Kumail Nanjiani and Rhys Darby, probably the only really good episode of that run.
The Michael Emerson Brady Bunch episode and Burt Reynolds is God episode in season 9 weren't too bad. I liked the William episode too.
I actually thought season 8 had some solid mythology episodes (that season 9 kinda retroactively made worse by muddying up the alien replicant plot into supersoldier bullshit). Plus, Vienen was a very solid black oil story that was basically the only time the show teamed up Mulder and Doggett.
The penultimate episode of 9 was pretty good
I enjoyed that killer technology episode too
>A cable sci fi TV show in the 90s should look janky
X-Files was a network show, aired and funded by Fox. Far from a budget-limited affair.
Mulder didn't say it WAS Alex Trebek, just that he looked an awful lot like him
> "I'm not going anywhere until I talk to my lawyer."
> "Okay, who's your lawyer?"
> "I represent myself."
That whole scene lives in my head rent-free
Fox was a brand new network with no history of quality shows.
> Those first 5 seasons are so great to me, too, cause I’m from the PNW and having a show set/filmed in that area just gives it that extra mood
Thiiiiis. I always love when they're out in the woods somewhere cause it's like "that looks like where I walked my dog yesterday"
By the time the X Files aired they had the Simpsons was about to start its 5th season.. Not that the network was massive as the other 3 major networks but it wasn't tiny tiny as it was in the late 80s
I'm currently doing a re-watch . I'm on season two
It felt more like an episode of Black Mirror, but I did love how it had almost no dialogue. Really cool concept.
The one about the Mandela Effect perfectly encapsulates why Fox Mulder's quest doesn't work in the post-Trump era. It's also really funny.
The FBI is supposed to move out of that building in the near future. Hopefully they remember to tell Mulder in the basement before they turn the lights off.
It was on the nose but yes it was very unique. It reminded me of when the x files was one of the best shows on tv
Every time I see Giovanni Ribisi I picture him as that kid that could control electricity and switch the stop lights to crash cars.
Fuck yeah brother! That show is the who's who of really prominent actors
Haha, I appreciate the enthusiasm of that response.
Another cool honorable mention would be Tony Shaloub in that shadow episode!
rbarton812 t1_jad1jie wrote
I can comfortably say this is probably a Top 5 show for me as well, even accounting for the rushed way they wrapped up the finale.
I can still go back and watch episodes from the first 6 seasons or so (with a few stand outs from 7, less-so from 8, and practically none from 9), whether they're Mythology, or stand-alone.
(We don't talk about the reboot episodes)