The X-Files | the m0vie blog

The X-Files – Season 10 (Review)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Darren

This June, we’re going to be taking a look at the current run of The X-Files, beginning with the IDW comic book revival and perhaps taking some detours along the way. Check back daily for the latest review.

The six episode revival miniseries is a strange beast.

It is hard to think of it as the tenth season of the show. In fact, the marketing of the DVD and blu ray sets describes it as “the event series”, perhaps a tact acknowledgement of that fact. There are a number reasons why it is difficult to think of these six episodes comprising a tenth season. Most obviously, the season is only six episodes. Even in the current context of truncated episode orders and split season, that is a short season. By modern standards, it would be a short half-season. Referring to it as the tenth season of The X-Files feels like false advertising.

xfiles-homeagain56a

However, there are other reasons that it is difficult to think of these six episodes as constituting a season. Quite frankly, the six episodes are wildly variable in tone and quality, to the point that it is difficult to distill a singular unifying theme or meaning from. They are six random episodes of television, some good and some less good, with one masterpiece and one boldly ambitious mess. It is almost easier to talk about the episodes individually than it is to discuss them as a single season television.

Then again, that’s what makes them feel so much like The X-Files.

xfiles-mulderandscullymeettheweremonster49

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, James Wong, the x-files, x-files | 4 Comments »

The X-Files Deviations (IDW) #1 – Being and Time (Review)

Posted on July 13, 2016 by Darren

Being and Time is not a good comic book.

There are a number of reasons why the comic doesn’t work, but the simple fact of the matter is that it has an interesting premise but does little of interest with that premise. Nevertheless, there is something quite intriguing the set-up, an “out-of-continuity” tale that offers a glimpse of a parallel universe where Fox Mulder was abducted in the place of his sister Samantha. More to the point, it seems entirely telling that the only supplemental X-Files comic to be published by IDW during the entirety of The X-Files: Season 11 was one entirely outside continuity.

What might have been.

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Filed under: Comics, The X-Files | Tagged: abduction, being and time, Comics, deviations, Fox Mulder, idw, Samantha Mulder, scully, x-files | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – My Struggle II (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Darren

“This is the end,” the opening credits tease.

This is not the end.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, my struggle ii, the x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files: Season 11 (IDW) #6-8 – Endgames (Review)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Darren

With Endgames, it all comes to an end.

The grand epic story that writer Joe Harris had built across thirty-five issues of The X-Files: Season 10 and The X-Files: Season 11 comes to a close with this three-part story. Given that the default length of a mythology-heavy story in Season 10 was five issues, Endgames cannot help but feel somewhat truncated. However, there has always been a sense that Season 11 is winding down rather than ratcheting up.

Alien nation.

In some ways, Endgames suffers from being overly ambitious. Harris reintroduced the faceless rebels into his mythology with My Name is Gibson and The X-Files Christmas Special 2015, but they feel like they crowd out what is otherwise a straightforward confrontation with Mulder and Scully squaring off against Gibson Praise. It is in some ways disappointing that all of Gibson’s plans build to a handful of trucks in the desert.

And, yet, in spite of that, there is something oddly charming about Endgames. The three-parter might be a compromised twist on the ending that Joe Harris originally envisaged for his massive epic, but it is still an ending.

Full circle.

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Filed under: Comics, The X-Files | Tagged: aliens, continuity, endgames, faceless rebels, Gibson praise, idw, joe harris, mulder, scully | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Babylon (Review)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Darren

There are two schools of thought on Babylon.

The first school of thought is that the episode is quintessentially X-Files. It is Chris Carter taking advantage of the flexibility of the show’s form to produce an episode of television that looks utterly unlike anything else on television. This is the series at its most creative and its most gonzo, the free-spirited free association that powered early Carter episodes like Syzygy, The Post-Modern Prometheus, Triangle, Fight Club, First Person Shooter and Improbable. It is crazy and “out there”, but… well, so is the truth.

Party on, Mulder.

The second school of thought is that the episode is spectacularly and recklessly ill-judged. Although undoubtedly well-intentioned, Chris Carter produces a script that is deeply problematic and even potentially inflammatory. Given that so much of the script hinges on the idea that thoughts have “mass” and that ideas can be dangerous, the resulting episode is definitely clumsy and borderline reckless in its exploration of a sensitive issue. This is just as problematic as “classic” episodes like Teso Dos Bichos, Teliko or Badlaa.

Both of these things can be true.

“… I just don’t think it’ll understand…”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: babylon, chris carter, the x-files, x-files | 11 Comments »

The X-Files – Home Again (Review)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Darren

If Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster demonstrates the strengths of this six-episode miniseries format, then Home Again makes a case for the weaknesses.

Home Again is not a bad episode of itself. However, it does suffer from two glaring weaknesses of the revival format. The most obvious is that the revival is only six episodes long, which means that everything is truncated and reduced. This was quite clear in My Struggle I, which was essentially a mythology two- or three-parter with all the non-exposition bits cut out. However, it is also clear with Home Again, which feels like two great episodes that have been combined to form one good episode.

“This one has a monster in it.”

Glen Morgan is also the weakest director of the four directors working on the revival miniseries. Morgan is a phenomenal writer, but he lacks the stylistic flourish of Chris Carter or the dynamism of James Wong. He does not tailor the script for Home Again to suit his directorial sensibilities in the way that Darin Morgan does with his scripts for Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” or Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me. Morgan is a good director, but one of the most under-appreciated ingredients of The X-Files was its murderer’s row of great television directors.

As a result, Home Again is an episode that is much stronger on paper than it is on camera.

“Mulder and Scully, FBI.”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Glen Morgan, home again, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (Review)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Darren

We’ve been given another case, Mulder.

It has a monster in it.

Total eclipse of the heart.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Darin Morgan, mulder and scully meet the were-monster, the x-files | 14 Comments »

The X-Files – Founder’s Mutation (Review)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Darren

In technical and aesthetic terms, Founder’s Mutation is the most modern of the six episodes to air as part of the revival miniseries.

To be fair, the other episodes in the miniseries do embrace the twenty-first century in their own unique ways. My Struggle I and My Struggle II update the mythology for the new millennium. Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster deals with themes that resonate particularly strongly now that Mulder and Scully are in their middle age. Babylon is a sincere (if misguided) attempt to engage with the current political climate. However, those episodes are decidedly old-fashioned in how they choose to tell their stories.

Title drop.

There are little nods towards contemporary technology in the other five episodes. Mulder’s inability to work his phone is something of a running joke, whether in his failure to snap a picture of Guy Mann in Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster or his inability to turn off his “find my phone” app in My Struggle II. Carter is justifiably proud of how My Struggle II incorporates cutting edge pseudo-science. However, none of those stories integrate new technology and new ideas as smoothly as Founder’s Mutation.

However, it isn’t just the use of technology that marks Founder’s Mutation out as the most modern of the six episodes. The episode’s storytelling and style are noticeably more contemporary than the episodes around it. Founder’s Mutation tells its story in a way that feels very much in step with the television landscape around it. More than the other five episodes in the miniseries, Founder’s Mutation feels like an episode of twenty-first century television.

Can you hear me at all?

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: case of the week, founder's mutation, James Wong, mytharc, Television, the x-files, twenty-first century, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – My Struggle I (Review)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Darren

This is journey that began for me – I’m sorry if I get emotional – twenty-three years ago. Things just don’t last in culture, these days. They… culture gobbles them up and they go away. It’s… it’s rare when something sticks around. Thanks for being part of the journey. The idea is that this is not the end. This is maybe a new beginning. And maybe we’ll do more of these if we do a really good job.

– Chris Carter’s opening remarks at the first production meeting on My Struggle I

The truth is still out there…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, conspiracy, my struggle, my struggle i, mythology, the x-files | 12 Comments »

The X-Files (IDW) Christmas Special 2015 (Review)

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Darren

Nothing gives a better sense of how compressed The X-Files: Season 11 is than the decision to incorporate The X-Files Christmas Special 2015 into the larger arc of the season, as a bridge between Mulder’s capture at the end of Home Again, his detention in My Name is Gibson, and his adventuring with Scully in Endgames. Although it might be possible for readers to smoothly jump from the climax of My Name is Gibson into the high-stakes action of Endgames, the events of The X-Files Christmas Special 2015 smooth the transition.

Arriving late in the run of The X-Files: Season 10, The X-Files Christmas Special 2014 felt almost like an “out of continuity” adventure that found the cast sharing the holiday season together in the apartment of Walter Skinner. The festive levity provided a nice contrast to the trauma regularly inflicted upon these characters, providing a much lighter story in the spirit of the season. In contrast, The X-Files Christmas Special 2015 struggles to balance the lighter tone expected of a Christmas special with the demands of the larger arc.