the x-cast | the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 17 (“Pusher”)

Posted on September 28, 2018 by Darren

I’m back on The X-Cast this week, to cover a very special episode. Pusher is host Tony Black’s favourite episode, and we recorded this close to his birthday. So no pressure, then.

Pusher has long been a favourite of mine as well, a crackerjack suspense-filled episode from the powerhouse team of writer Vince Gilligan and director Rob Bowman. It’s an episode that works very well both within the confines of The X-Files itself and beyond. Even more than Soft Light, it is an episode that informs a lot of Gilligan’s core themes and ideas going forward. There is a surprising amount of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul to be found in the episode, for example.

The truth is in here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: masculinity, pusher, Rob Bowman, robert patrick modell, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black, vince gilligan, x-cast | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 16 (“Apocrypha”)

Posted on September 21, 2018 by Darren

I’m back on The X-Cast this week, to cover the second-part of the late third-season mythology two-parter Apocrypha.

Picking up where Piper Maru left off, this conclusion finds Mulder and Scully continuing their separate investigations. Mulder is chasing down the missing tape from Anasazi, The Blessing Way and Paper Clip while Scully is dealing with the fallout from the assassination attempt on Assistant Director Walter Skinner that brings her face-to-face with the man who killed her sister. Justice, legacy and guilt are all major preoccupations, tying into the broader themes of the season as a whole.

Once again, a pleasure to substitute in for Tony Black as host of The X-Cast for an episode, and absolutely thrilled to be joined by the great Christopher Irish from The X-Files Lexicon.

The truth is in here. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: apocrypha, christopher irish, conspiracy, Guilt, justic, legacy, mythology, the x-cast, the x-files, the x-files lexicon | Leave a comment »

Listen In To The X-Cast Live! All Day Saturday!

Posted on August 31, 2018 by Darren

That mad man Tony Black over at The X-Cast has done something completely crazy.

He is doing a twenty-four hour live X-Files podcast. However, it’s okay. He’s doing it for charity, to raise money and awareness for Alzheimer’s Society. You can still donate to the cause, which is very worthy of your support.

I’m thrilled to be joining Tony at a couple of points during the day. The full schedule is below, and Tony’s put together a fantastic line-up for a great cause. In the meantime, you can listen to the podcast at Mixlr. It will be kicking off at 9am BST and running straight through for twenty-four hours.

https://mixlr.com/the-x-cast/embedThe X-Cast is on Mixlr

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: charity, live, the x-cast, the x-files | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Stefan Petrucha on The X-Files Topps Comics (Season 2 & 3)

Posted on July 17, 2018 by Darren

This was fun.

I occasionally guest on The X-Cast with Tony Black, discussing The X-Files. I’ve been very proud to be part of the show’s discussion of individual episodes and also to participate in its ambitious beginning-to-end podwatch. However, this episode is particularly exciting for me, because it’s an interview that I managed to organise with Stefan Petrucha.

Petrucha was the first writer to work on the X-Files tie-in comic books published by Topps, and he wrote the book through the second half of the second season and through most of the third, before departing the book. Working with artist Charles Adlard, Petrucha crafted some of the most ambitious and most exciting tie-in comics ever. Highlights include A Dismembrance of Things Past, Silent Cities of the Mind, Feelings of Unreality, Falling and Home of the Brave.

These were stories that were very much in the mould of what was being published by writers like Grant Morrison and Neil Gaiman over at the Vertigo imprint at DC comics around the same time, bold and ambitious narratives tackling big existential ideas within a genre framework. In some ways, the comic seemed to signal where the series would go in its fourth year; trepanning, militias, existential questions about overlapping realities.

I’m very happy with the interview, and very thankful for Stefan’s generosity with his time. You can check it out here, click the link below, or just play it from this post.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: comic books, Comics, gnosticism, Stefan Petrucha, the x-cast, Topps, vertigo | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 3, Episode 1 (“The Blessing Way”)

Posted on June 1, 2018 by Darren

I was thrilled to join Tony Black to launch the third season of The X-Cast, a podcast taking a tour through Chris Carter’s The X-Files.

I’ve been lucky enough to guest on a number of episodes, including the one covering the second season finale, Anasazi. After finishing up the second season, Tony took a bit of a break to rush through a podwatch of the entire series; I was thrilled to be invited to take part in that, commenting on episodes from Aubrey to Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man to Never Again to The Post-Modern Prometheus to The Unnatural and beyond. It was a real pleasure to be a part of that. And to contribute to Tony’s coverage of the eleventh season, including the final two episodes, maybe forever, Nothing Lasts Forever and My Struggle IV.

However, with Tony having covered all of that, we jumped right back into the regularly scheduled coverage. It was an absolute pleasure to talk about The Blessing Way, which is the third season premiere. I’ve gone on record in the past as both being a tremendous fan of the third season as a whole, which I think is one of the best twenty-odd episode seasons of television ever produced. I’ve also been a bit skeptical of The Blessing Way at the same time. I hope I’m fair to it here, where I confess why it’s both one of my least favourite episodes of the season and something that I’m very glad exists in this form.

As even, Tony was a fantastic host, and we had a fun and wide-ranging discussion about everything from abstract concepts of “truth” to why we love the Well-Manicured Man so much to the recurring theme of mirroring and doubling that plays through this three-parter in particular and the X-Files in general. Check it out the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: mythology, the blessing way, the unopened file, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast Season 11 #40 – Chris Carter and Season 11 (“My Struggle IV”)

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Darren

In what is likely my final appearance of The X-Cast‘s coverage of the eleventh (and possibly final) season of The X-Files, I sit down with Tony Black to discuss the legacy and role of series creator and showrunner Chris Carter. I hope it’s an interesting discussion of what has been a controversial season overseen by a controversial showrunner.

It has been an absolute pleasure to discuss these episodes with Tony and Carl, and I’m thrilled to have been part of the coverage of the revival. With a bit of luck, I should be back when The X-Cast jumps back in to its regular coverage; the rewatch of the series will be hitting the third season shortly.

Click here, or check it out below.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, season 11, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black | 2 Comments »

New Podcast! The X-Cast Season 11 #38 – Mulder and Scully X (“My Struggle IV”)

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Darren

Guesting on The X-Cast to cover the season (and possibly series) finale of The X-Files with Tony Black.

With Gillian Anderson adamant that this is the end of the line for her involvement in the show, there is every possibility that My Struggle IV might be the last ever episode of The X-Files. And what an episode it is, with a lot to unpack. We broke our wide-ranging discussion of this episode written and directed by Chris Carter down into three parts covering various aspects of the episode, so they’ll be released over the next few days.

The first of the three episodes covers the episode in general and its focus on the Mulder and Scully dynamic (or perhaps even lack-thereof), along with some general thoughts on the tone and content of the episode. Click here, or check it out below. The next part will be landing tomorrow.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, mulder and scully, my struggle iv, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast Season 11 #34 – Mulder and Scully IX (“Nothing Lasts Forever”)

Posted on March 17, 2018 by Darren

Thrilled to be popping by The X-Cast to discuss the new season of The X-Files with the wonderful Carl Sweeney.

We discussed the penultimate episode of what could be the final season, the twenty-first century vampire story Nothing Lasts Forever. We broke our wide-ranging discussion down into three parts covering various aspects of the episode, so they’ll be released over the next few days.

The first of the three episodes covers the episode in general and its focus on the Mulder and Scully dynamic (including what Carl terms “the Conversation on the Pew”), along with some general thoughts about the eleventh season as a whole. Click here, or check it out below. The next part will be landing tomorrow.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: mulder, nothing lasts forever, relationship, scully, shipping, the x-cast, the x-files | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast X-Files Podwatch – Episode #102 (Sunshine Days/The Truth)

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Darren

I’m thrilled to be a part of The X-Cast X-Files Podwatch, a daily snippet podcast rewatching the entirety of The X-Files between now and the launch of the new season. It is something of a spin-off of The X-Cast, a great X-Files podcast run by the charming Tony Black. Tony has assembled a fantastic array of guests and hosts to go through The X-Files episode-by-episodes. With the new season announced to be starting in early January, Tony’s doing two episodes of the podcast per day, so buckle up. And we’re at the end of the final season of the original series.

This is my last appearance on the podwatch, although hopefully I’ll be back before long on another X-Cast activity. It’s a pleasure to be joining Tony to discuss the last two episodes of the final season of the original run, Sunshine Days and The Truth. The X-Cast will be continuing beyond this to look at The X-Files: I Want to Believe and the revival, but this is the end of the line for me, at least for the moment.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: finale, podwatch, sunshine days, the truth, the x-cast, The X-Cast X-Files Podwatch, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast X-Files Podwatch – Episode #98 (Providence/Audrey Pauley)

Posted on December 26, 2017 by Darren

And now it’s time to bid farewell to the dynamic duo of myself and the great Clara Cook, with the two of us discussing Providence and Audrey Pauley.