Regarding X-Files...
Jan. 18th, 2018 08:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
discordantwordsGeneral rambling and Season 11 saltiness under the cut.
So last night was the third episode of S11. I've watched them all so far, with wildly mixed reactions.
The premiere, "My Struggle III" was absolute garbage. And I don't say that lightly. It was so awful it hinged on unwatchable, and that was before we got to the horrifying and nauseating "twist" ending. I struggled (ha, I made a pun, even in this time of stress) to find my Mulder and Scully in an episode that concludes with Mulder finding Scully being attacked in her hospital room and, instead of subduing the attacker in a normal way, simply comes up behind him and slits his throat with a scalpel. Good luck interrogating that guy now, Mulder. Ugh.
Episode 2, "This" was a delight. It wasn't perfect-- the premise felt more Black Mirror than X-Files-- but God, this was all I wanted when they announced a revival series. Mulder and Scully worked together as a perfect team, unspoken communication intact, interspersed with moments of quiet domesticity. We got a glimpse, without it ever being said out loud, what life must have been like for them those years they spent on the run, as they slipped quite comfortably back into the roles of fugitives. An effort was made to tie it all into the Big Conspiracy (easily ignored if you pretend "My Struggle III" never happened), and aside from an unnecessary retconning of a girlfriend for Langly (and her immediate and unnecessary murder), I'm comfortable calling this the best X-Files episode of the new era.
Which brings us to last night's "Plus One." Um. I don't really know how to feel about it. On the surface, it's a bog standard XF episode, with a very good guest turn by Karin Konoval (better known as Mrs Peacock), playing four different characters. The tone was all over the place. It didn't seem to know if it was mean to to be comedic or serious.
There's a great moment where a lawyer we see pestering a waitress to come to his place to "see his sword collection" goes home, and we see that his house actually is filled with swords. There's a not-so-great moment where that same man, panicked and terrified for his life, goes to Mulder for Scully for help, and they call him paranoid and tell him to leave. When he's later killed, Scully wonders out loud why he didn't call Mulder for help. MAYBE BECAUSE YOU TREATED HIM SO BADLY THE FIRST TIME.
There's the hospital that doesn't seem to have shifts, as Scully visits a patient at all hours of the day and the same two smirking nurses are always the ones accompanying her.
And then we have the weirdest part of the episode-- which is the MSR.
What.
So last episode, Mulder and Scully are living together in their house. They are domestic. They are comfortable. They fall asleep snuggled up on the couch. Twice. In this (Carter-penned) episode, Scully looks askance at Mulder when there's only one room at the motel. It's not an issue, because there's separate bedrooms. I guess. I have no idea.
Scully can't sleep, she goes to Mulder and asks him to hold her. They spoon. It's sweet. She muses about getting older, and what they'll do when they don't have FBI jobs anymore (I DON'T KNOW SCULLY, MAYBE YOU CAN GO BACK TO BEING A PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEON, OR DID THE HOSPITAL FIGURE OUT YOU WEREN'T ACTUALLY THAT KIND OF DOCTOR?) Then the camera pans away and... they had sex? I guess?
They don't kiss, but Scully is on the other side of Mulder in the bed the next time we see them, and she's not wearing any clothes.
I can just see Chris Carter high-fiving himself over this.
There's a sweet exchange between Mulder and Scully at the end of the episode, which actually made me crack a smile.
This show is giving me whiplash. This is what happens when you don't have your writers actually talk to each other, and everyone goes off and does their own thing.
So last night was the third episode of S11. I've watched them all so far, with wildly mixed reactions.
The premiere, "My Struggle III" was absolute garbage. And I don't say that lightly. It was so awful it hinged on unwatchable, and that was before we got to the horrifying and nauseating "twist" ending. I struggled (ha, I made a pun, even in this time of stress) to find my Mulder and Scully in an episode that concludes with Mulder finding Scully being attacked in her hospital room and, instead of subduing the attacker in a normal way, simply comes up behind him and slits his throat with a scalpel. Good luck interrogating that guy now, Mulder. Ugh.
Episode 2, "This" was a delight. It wasn't perfect-- the premise felt more Black Mirror than X-Files-- but God, this was all I wanted when they announced a revival series. Mulder and Scully worked together as a perfect team, unspoken communication intact, interspersed with moments of quiet domesticity. We got a glimpse, without it ever being said out loud, what life must have been like for them those years they spent on the run, as they slipped quite comfortably back into the roles of fugitives. An effort was made to tie it all into the Big Conspiracy (easily ignored if you pretend "My Struggle III" never happened), and aside from an unnecessary retconning of a girlfriend for Langly (and her immediate and unnecessary murder), I'm comfortable calling this the best X-Files episode of the new era.
Which brings us to last night's "Plus One." Um. I don't really know how to feel about it. On the surface, it's a bog standard XF episode, with a very good guest turn by Karin Konoval (better known as Mrs Peacock), playing four different characters. The tone was all over the place. It didn't seem to know if it was mean to to be comedic or serious.
There's a great moment where a lawyer we see pestering a waitress to come to his place to "see his sword collection" goes home, and we see that his house actually is filled with swords. There's a not-so-great moment where that same man, panicked and terrified for his life, goes to Mulder for Scully for help, and they call him paranoid and tell him to leave. When he's later killed, Scully wonders out loud why he didn't call Mulder for help. MAYBE BECAUSE YOU TREATED HIM SO BADLY THE FIRST TIME.
There's the hospital that doesn't seem to have shifts, as Scully visits a patient at all hours of the day and the same two smirking nurses are always the ones accompanying her.
And then we have the weirdest part of the episode-- which is the MSR.
What.
So last episode, Mulder and Scully are living together in their house. They are domestic. They are comfortable. They fall asleep snuggled up on the couch. Twice. In this (Carter-penned) episode, Scully looks askance at Mulder when there's only one room at the motel. It's not an issue, because there's separate bedrooms. I guess. I have no idea.
Scully can't sleep, she goes to Mulder and asks him to hold her. They spoon. It's sweet. She muses about getting older, and what they'll do when they don't have FBI jobs anymore (I DON'T KNOW SCULLY, MAYBE YOU CAN GO BACK TO BEING A PEDIATRIC NEUROSURGEON, OR DID THE HOSPITAL FIGURE OUT YOU WEREN'T ACTUALLY THAT KIND OF DOCTOR?) Then the camera pans away and... they had sex? I guess?
They don't kiss, but Scully is on the other side of Mulder in the bed the next time we see them, and she's not wearing any clothes.
I can just see Chris Carter high-fiving himself over this.
There's a sweet exchange between Mulder and Scully at the end of the episode, which actually made me crack a smile.
This show is giving me whiplash. This is what happens when you don't have your writers actually talk to each other, and everyone goes off and does their own thing.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-18 04:17 pm (UTC)(It's hopeless, isn't it. Sympathies.)
no subject
Date: 2018-01-19 02:00 am (UTC)Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-18 11:42 pm (UTC)Ep 2, I do want to see based on your review. That sounds just like the XF I know and love. The third one sounds like another mess, albeit a more palatable one. CC just needs to stop.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-19 01:52 am (UTC)It's really sort of depressing when literally everyone working on this show except for its creator has a better handle on the characters. I just hate the way he writes Mulder and Scully. It's only because Duchovny and Anderson are so good together that they manage to salvage even half of those lines and make them believable.
BUT! I can give you ONE good reason to watch episode 3 (aside from the bed sharing, which is, frankly, adorable).
So, you know the scene in Scandal in Belgravia, when John tells Sherlock he'll be there if he needs him, and Sherlock says "why would I need you" and John leaves? Imagine getting to see a very similar scene play out between Mulder and Scully, only with a much happier ending. Best moment in the whole episode. :D
ETA: Of course, to get to that point you have to suffer through a conversation between M&S where he asks her if she ever wanted to have more kids (????) and she tells him that she didn't have anyone to have them with. (even more ??????????)
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 12:22 am (UTC)I got all happy/gleeful when you mentioned that ASiB scene-XF style and then you had to go and through in that ETA. WHAT THE FUCK. OMG I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT WAS ACTUAL DIALOGUE OMG
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 02:13 am (UTC)Alpha was Season 6, right? They were both SO PRETTY in S6. Scully is completely unreal in Tithonus.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-19 02:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 12:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 02:10 am (UTC)The rest of it... eh, not so much. I bought the DVD set, and still haven't taken it out of the plastic wrap. I just have no desire to revisit any of it.
no subject
Date: 2018-01-20 02:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-01-21 12:10 am (UTC)