Darren

The X-Files – Release (Review)

Posted on December 29, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Release is a breath of fresh air.

There are problems with the episode, serious problems. The plotting is incredibly loose, with Release relying upon a series of incredible contrivances even once you get past the supernaturally-gifted crime-solver who only joined the FBI so he could solve a murder that happens to connect back to Luke Doggett. At best, Release is clumsy and inelegant. At worst, it makes absolutely no sense. More than that, there is the question of whether or not the episode is actually necessary. Does The X-Files actually need to resolve the murder of Luke Doggett?

Picture perfect…

These are fairly sizable and fundamental problems. There is no getting around them. However, Release offsets those problems by being a spectacularly-produced piece of television. Everything works, from Robert Patrick’s performance to Mark Snow’s piano-heavy score to Kim Manner’s stylised direction. Release is a reminder of just how sleek and well-oiled The X-Files could be. That is quite a relief after the triple whammy of Scary Monsters, Jump the Shark and William. Release is a good episode on its own terms; in context, it is a masterpiece.

It also helps that Release feels like the first attempt to give the show actual material closure since Improbable. That closure is thematic rather than literal, with the mystery of Luke Doggett’s death serving as a vehicle through which the show might finally resolve some of its own lingering threads. In the case of Release, the show is tidying away the strands that have been woven into the fabric of The X-Files from the beginning; strands that paid homage to Silence of the Lambs and gave birth to Millennium. Release bids farewell to the forensic side of The X-Files.

The old man and the sea…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: brad follmer, closure, david amann, forensic, frank black, imagery, john doggett, luke doggett, Mark Snow, millennium, profiling, psychology, reality, release, Robert Patrick, rudolph hayes, Samantha Mulder, schizophrenia, symbolism, the x-files, x-files | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – William (Review)

Posted on December 28, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

William was supposed to make things simpler for The X-Files going forward.

Although the pregnancy narrative of the eighth season had provided a solid arc across the year, it seemed like the production team had no idea what to do with William once the child actually arrived. Despite the fact that Essence and Existence insisted that William was a miracle completely unrelated to the alien colonists, Nothing Important Happened Today I and Nothing Important Happened Today II tried to tie William back into the mythology. Trust No 1 suggested William was part of prophecy. Provenance and Providence had the baby kidnapped.

Mulder cameo.

One of the more frequent criticisms of the ninth season is that William served to handicap Scully as a character. Scully was suddenly relegated to the role of mother, with the scripts and the fans constantly wondering why Scully wasn’t spending more time with the baby. The mythology suggested that Scully was only relevant because of her connections to William and Mulder. Although William and Mulder were subject to a colonist prophecy, Scully was not mentioned. She was just a tether connecting the two, accessible because Gillian Anderson was still in the show.

The fact that the series was ending provided the perfect opportunity to clear William away. William is clearly designed to declutter the narrative of the show by disposing of a dangling loose end. Ironically, it only serves to create a whole lot more.

Taking his face… off.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, cigarette-smoking man, david duchovny, endgame, jeffrey spender, mythology, spender, the x-files, william | 15 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song (Review)

Posted on December 26, 2015 by Darren

Every Christmas is last Christmas.

The Husbands of River Song is an odd duck.

The first half is a fairly light romp, a rapid-fire farce that ties together the goofy science-fiction of Doctor Who with Moffat’s own fondness for banter and wordplay. The plot is fairly light, the dynamics fairly simple; the script leans rather heavily on its two lead characters and a slew of one-liners that aim for quantity over quality. It is in, in many respects, the Moffat era equivalent of a Davies era Christmas special; it is easy to follow bombast with an impressive scale, pitched at the perfect volume to help digest all those mince pies. Even the earlier timeslot seems appropriate.

doctorwho-thehusbandsofriversong2

The second half is something completely different. It is an emotional farewell to the character of River Song, effectively closing the time loop that began all those years (and Doctors) ago with Silence in the Library. Although The Name of the Doctor leaves open the possibility to future stories about River Song, The Husbands of River Song provides the last truly essential piece of the jigsaw puzzle. In doing so, it pays off a bit of continuity that has been hanging in the air for seven years. This seems an odd choice to combine with the lighter fare in the first half.

It is not that there is anything particularly wrong with either half. Certainly, Moffat is a writer who has done an excellent job changing track mid-story at certain points in the past; A Good Man Goes to War comes to mind. However, there are also points at which the switch has been less than elegant; Let’s Kill Hitler is probably the strongest example. The problem with The Husbands of River Song is that it leans far more towards the latter than the former.

doctorwho-thehusbandsofriversong

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: doctor who, the husbands of river song | 5 Comments »

The X-Files – Jump the Shark (Review)

Posted on December 25, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

As The X-Files trundles towards its finalé, there is a sense that the production team do not understand “closure.”

There is, of course, a cheap gag to be made here. Long-time fans of the show might joke that the show never understood the concept of “closure”, as demonstrated by the fact that the show’s mythology frequently resembled a precariously-balanced tower of Jenga bricks gently swaying in a light breeze. This is perhaps a bit unfair; episodes like Requiem and Existence had done a good job of bringing the television show to a point where it might end, only for the show to be picked up for another season.

Shot down in their prime… time slot.

The end of the ninth season differs from the ends of the seventh or eighth because the production team know that the show is going to end. There will be no last-minute reprieve, no green-light give mere days before the last episode is actually broadcast. This is, in many ways, the end of The X-Files. With that in mind, the final episodes of the ninth season begin tidying away dangling plot threads and narrative loose ends in the hopes of satisfying the audience. The show seems to be running through a checklist. Lone Gunmen now. William next. Luke Doggett after that.

The problem, of course, is that none of these concepts are really calling for definitive “closure.” There is no reason for the show to draw a line under these supporting characters or plot arcs. It is possible for fans to imagine life beyond a television show for many characters without engaging in ruthless pruning. The Lone Gunmen do not need an epic send-off. In fact, the idea of an epic send-off seems to represent a misunderstanding of the characters themselves.

“Chris Carter said we’re invited to the wrap party…”

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Filed under: The Lone Gunmen | Tagged: 9/11, anthrax, Byers, frank spotntiz, Frohike, heroism, john gillnitz, john shiban, Jump the Shark, Langly, terrorism, the lone gunmen, the x-files, vince gilligan, x-files | 9 Comments »

Scannain Podcast – 2015 End of Year Edition!

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Darren

Podcasting with the lads from Scannain, marking the end of 2015 with a bumper sized “year in film” edition. Niall Murphy, Philip Bagnell, Jason Coyle and I each count down our top ten films of the year and discuss the year that was. Check out the podcast or click the link below!

Podcasting via Podbean. Archives available here. Podcast features: Niall Murphy, Philip Bagnell, Jason Coyle and Darren Mooney.

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The X-Files – Scary Monsters (Review)

Posted on December 24, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Scary Monsters is the episode that was in production when The X-Files was cancelled.

Due to the fact that news broke to the public at roughly the same time that it broke to the production team and that the ninth season was fond of shuffling episodes up and down the broadcast order, Scary Monsters aired almost three months after the cancellation was announced to the public. However, the production team were informed while they were working on the episode. Given the low ratings and muted reaction to the ninth season, the cancellation seemed inevitable. Nevertheless, it was quite a blow.

Doggett’s burning down the house.

That is perhaps the most notable fact about Scary Monsters, which is a disappointingly bland episode of television. As with Underneath before it, this is not an embarrassing episode by any measure. It just lacks any real energy or verve. Watching Scary Monsters, there is a sense that the production team were going through the motions, that the reserve of energy that drove the show through its finest seasons had been depleted. The show was running on empty, the production team’s imaginations all but empty.

It feels like the show should have something smart or ironic to say about a kid who can conjure monsters from his own limited imagination. Sadly, it is just a rote monster of the week.

“Now I know how Mulder felt during the season eight credits…”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: doggett, fandom, imagination, it's a good life, kim manners, reyes, scary monsters, the x-files, tom schnauz | 7 Comments »

Scannain Podcast #66!

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Darren

da da da da da da! da da da da!

Podcasting with the lads from Scannain, discussing all your Christmas movie needs. There’s the top ten, movie news, what we watched, and even the release of a little indie film known as Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Check out the podcast or click the link below!

Podcasting via Podbean. Archives available here. Podcast features: Niall Murphy, Philip Bagnell, Jason Coyle and Darren Mooney.

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The X-Files – Improbable (Review)

Posted on December 23, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

So I am convinced, from many experiments, I could not study to any degree of perfection either mathematics, arithmetic or algebra without being a deist, if not an atheist.

– John Wesley, The Use of Money

“Dio ti ama.”

God loves you. A nice though. An ordering principle.

Three simple words.

There are worse Gods to believe in.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: burt reynolds, chris carter, god, improbable, the x-files, x-files | 8 Comments »

The X-Files – Underneath (Review)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Nothing like cancellation to get the vultures circling.

It is the nature of television that not every episode ends up exactly the way that the production team would like. Working on a tight deadline with a limited budget, compromises have to be made. Sometimes, there is not enough time to properly polish a script so that it makes sense. Other times, the special effects have to be rushed. Churning out twenty-odd episodes in a season demands a lot of the production team, and it seems impossible to maintain a perfect record across a full season.

Skull and bones…

The X-Files might have held itself to the highest production standards, but there are inevitable missteps along the way. Fearful Symmetry is about invisible zoo animals because there is no way that the show could be about visible zoo animals. Teso dos Bichos had difficulty wrangling its cats. The special effects work on Tunguska came so close to the wire that people in different parts of the country actually saw different cuts of the episode. Parts of Christmas Carol had to be reshot when the child actor proved unreliable in Emily.

These are the realities of television production. It is not always pretty, and the result is not always fantastic, but it gets done. Fans and commentators have a tendency to overlook these problems when they occur at the height of the show. They are less forgiving when they occur past the show’s prime.

Crosses to bare…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: discourse, extreme reactions, fan culture, internet, john shiban, outrage culture, the x-files, worst episode ever, x-files | 5 Comments »

The X-Files – Audrey Pauley (Review)

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

One of the surprising aspects of the ninth season is just how strong the episodes centring on Doggett and Reyes are.

True, there are not necessarily too many “all-time classic” episodes to be found across the length and breadth of the ninth season; that is arguably true of every season since the sixth. The strongest episodes of the ninth season tend to be those focusing on the two new lead characters actually doing their jobs and navigating the weird world around them. 4-D, John Doe, Hellbound and Audrey Pauley rank among the very best that the ninth season has to offer. The biggest problem with the ninth season is the difficulty that the show has maintaining that level of quality.

Into the void…

The ninth season never manages any real consistency. It never commits to one vision of the show or the other. While the stronger episodes suggest that The X-Files might be ready to move on past Mulder and Scully to embrace Doggett and Reyes, the show always returns to insisting that Mulder is still the most important character on the show despite David Duchnovny’s reluctance to return. Nothing Important Happened Today I featured David Duchovny’s stunt butt before Gillian Anderson, Robert Patrick or Annabeth Gish. That is the show’s priority.

This becomes particularly troublesome in the second half of the season. Steven Maeda seems to have a great deal of luck in his ninth season writing assignment, tackling episodes that wind up taking on a larger symbolic importance. 4-D was the first episode to be both produced and broadcast after the events of 9/11, due to scheduling choices that pushed Hellbound later into the season. Although Nothing Important Happened Today I was broadcast nearly two months after the attacks, the production team were actually working on Dæmonicus when news broke.

“Woops. Sorry. Wrong wall.”

Audrey Pauley winds up being the first episode to be produced and broadcast after the cancellation of The X-Files had been announced. The public had been informed of the cancellation between the broadcast of John Doe and Hellbound. The production team had found out while working on Scary Monsters. Due to scheduling choices, Scary Monsters had been pushed back later into the season and Audrey Pauley was aired first. Although it is quite likely Maeda was working on Audrey Pauley long before the cancellation, it still echoes through the work.

Audrey Pauley plays into some of Maeda’s core themes, suggesting alternate and pocket realities that navigate the void between life and death. As with 4-D, Audrey Pauley is very much a post-9/11 episode of The X-Files. However, it is also very much a post-cancellation episode of The X-Files.