X-Files Discussion - I want to believe...that it didn't happen!
 

I know we all love the X-Files- that's why we have this board [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img] but we all have episodes we didn't like, storylines and plots we wished didn't happen, and characters we wish weren't killed off... or wish had been sooner.

This thread is here to 'discuss' and 'debate' our opinions on what was wrong with the show and what you would have changed. Please remember that there is no right or wrong answer with an opinion- that's what makes an opinion.
Again, even though this thread may get negative- we all still love the show [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I'll start with 'Sein Und Zeit' and 'Closure'- two huge mistakes IMHO. The whole show was about Mulder's drive to find what happened to his sister through working on the X-Files. Once it was explained in these two episodes- it was over. There was no point anymore. I remember Scully and Mulder in an elevator once and she said to him- you know what happened to your sister and the Syndicate is dead... so what now? ... and I thought "ditto"??? That story arc should have been the final episodes to the series for conclusion and resolution for Mulder. The series was never the same for me after this. Then they killed off the Lone Gunmen, Krycek, CSM... all that helped make the show great, instead of inventing new plots for them.

I also hate, wait- hate what they did with Scully in the final 2 years. Scully had always been strong. She was the antithesis of Mulder. He was driven by emotion- Scully was driven by logic. After Mulder left, she was crying in a lot of the episodes and seemed stripped of her emotional strength. She always seemed to be a victim. Even when she had cancer she emoted more self dignity and courage. What had once been a great role model for women, became just another sad stereotype. I blame the writing on this- not Gillian, and I will always remember Gillian best for her earlier years before season 6.
Just my opinion.

So, what's everyone else's thoughts? Any episodes that you didn't like or plots you wished were different?

[ 12-06-2003: Message edited Kelly_mvpics ]

I definitely agree with you about the character assassination that was Scully in the last two seasons. As you said Scully had always been strong and took no for an answer she never broke down crying and gave up.

I have a lot of issues with the last two seasons:
I still don't see any point in killing off the Lone Gunman, Why? That episode was an insult to all their fans.

Giving William up for adoption, why did they bother with this storyline in the first place if they were going to choose the easy way out and just get rid of the baby.

When Mulder/David returned to the show in late season eight, they gave him little air time and never really explained what had happened to him during his disappearance or explained the so called brain disease he was supposedly suffering from before he was abducted and what was with the whole who's the father? crap. Everyone knew it was Mulders baby; they should have just come out and said it, not waited for the final scene in the finale, which made all the episodes before it a joke.


There is a lot more but I will shut up now [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[img]smilies/lol.gif[/img] No, please don't- that's the point of this thread. Talking about it will create discussion and maybe a better understanding of things we had problems with.

I too thought the baby adoption was lame. Was this the same woman that was ready to leave the FBI for Emily?? She would have left and went into hiding just like Mulder did. I would have prefered to have seen the baby vanish and then instead of the way the series had been about finding the truth about Samantha, the series would have been about finding the truth about their son and where he was. It would have given Scully more reason to still continue the X-Files.

The thing I didn't like the most is how they made Scully out to be in the last two seasons, making her give up William, making her think he'd be safe. He could have been safe with her. And it also disalloud Mulder to see his son.

Another thing is the killing of Alex Kryeck. I know many will agree, he was important, and it was wrong to kill him. Even though they brought him back as a ghost, oh well. [img]smilies/lol.gif[/img]

i'll go more into the episodes, when i get more time [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

I think the plots already mentioned are the main flukes of the show. Especially the Samantha & Syndicate one.

I always thought these were the plotlines that kept the show going, kept it on track so to speak. I was so stumped after having watched the Sein und Zeit two parter for the first time. Like I've mentioned before, I didn't even understand that walk-in stuff...what had really happened to Samantha and why.

And the Syndicate..you can't just kill them off. Or at least I thought so. They were always supposed to be there, appearing from time to time to tell us more about their work and being cryptic. [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] I always turned up the tv when they were on, to try and figure out more about the big conspiracy.

I completely agree that Samantha should have been brought back in the finale where we would finally find out what had really happened to her and where she had been the years in between her abduction and now. And even if they didn't bring her back, the truth about her should have been revealed.

I felt as though the whole basis of the show died in that two-parter. I can't understand why they'd do that.

And after that CC seemed to be on a kiling-spree, continuing to kill off major building blocks like Alex, CSM and the lone gunmen. Why?? How could you kill off CSM? (even though he somehow didn't die (not an explanation to that one either) he vanished until the last episode) Without the main enemy there's no real X-Files left. You need the dark force to keep things interesting, to keep the big mystery, the last trace of the conspiracy. [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

And Alex, I'm not gonna delve too deep into that one, it just makes me sad since he was my fave character. I was always waiting for th episode that would focus on him and explain how he got on the track he was, what his options were, who his family, what he believed in, what he wanted etc etc, but it never came. I was constantly waiting for his character to deepen and not just be about getting in Mulder and Scully's way, the "monster of the week". He was more than that dammit. I feel it was surreal to bring a character back again and again but never really telling anything about him. Like CC didn't want people to symphatize with this guy.

Oh, I forgot to mention the disappearance of Mulder in the beginning. This is a major pet peeve of mine. Right up there next to the Samantha fluke. That was the reason I decided not to watch seasnos 8 and 9. I felt no good could come out of it since practically all my favorite characters were gone. [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img] I never thought it would go that far, to "kill off" THE main character of the show. I was shocked. I wish they could have had the big finale in season 7 instead. I kept wondering, how the hell were they expecting to keep calling the show the X-Files without Mulder in it?! [img]smilies/confused.gif[/img]

After having watched about 2½ eps of season 8 and about 1½ of season 9 I knew I wouldn't be missing much. Not just Scully but Skinner had changed as well. (I don't like his new glasses. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]) The ep I saw glimpses of was (in season 9 I think) about a man who changed the reality or something. I saw a scene where Scully and some others were sitting on a couch and some chairs in what appeared to be nothingness.
And then I saw Skinner. The guy had made him able to fly/float and he did a sort of a somersault in teh air and giggled all ridiculously. I couldn't recognize any SKinner-features in him.

I can't comment much about the Scully-change since I've seen so little of her in those seasons but the few eps I saw, well, she did seem to have lost something. She just looked sad.

That reflected the audiences reaction as well [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

I agree 110% about Krycek!! There was so much to tell about him that was lost. They could have done an entire episode devoted to his character.... [img]smilies/frown.gif[/img]

Snicker I would love to trade places with you, I wish I had not watched the last two seasons, but I did, I think I was in denile as to how bad it was because at that time I was rediscovering the X-Files, I had always watched the show but I had never been fanatical about it, around the time when season seven ended I was starting to buy old X-Files videos and watching old episodes from the early seasons that I hadn't seen since they first aired and remembered nothing about. So I was up for anything X-Files, I kept tuning in each week, but it never got better. Seriously, you should thank your lucky stars that you never sat through the episode "Badlaa" aka 'Butt Munch' I want those 43 minutes back.

[img]smilies/lol.gif[/img] What was that episode about?
I saw most of season 8 but not all of it. I think I missed the last 5 or 6 episodes of season 8. And because I hated what they had done to the show by that point, I didn't see any of season 9 either. I did watch the final episode... and wished I hadn't. The same people behind the final episode could not have been behind any episode made from season one. Impossible. It was like they gave up caring.

David wanted to leave at the end of season 7 and make a movie a year like the Star Trek franchise but nooooooo- Chris Carter had to milk it into the ground without him.

... no, I'm not bitter [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img]

[img]smilies/lol.gif[/img] Glad to hear it.

Badlaa? Do I wanna know what that one was about?

My sister keeps bugging me about when I'm gonna get the season 8 box but I won't. I wanna remember teh show as I loved it. Besides she loves Krycek as well and I've scared her with what happens in the finale, so she's backed off. [img]smilies/biggrin.gif[/img]

He did? That would have been a great idea. And it would have given the writers time to really think through the script and make it good, instead of popping out one show per week. They seemed to need that.

You really don't want to know that, but if you must here is a description of the ep:

A mystic smuggles himself out of India and plagues two families in suburban Washington DC. (What did he smuggle himself in and how did he get out?)

And a quote:

Scully: "Well, considering what I found here today I'd say I have to agree. Tissue damage. Massive trauma to the lower intestine and the rectal wall."
Doggett: "Is that from something going in or coming out?"
Scully: "Well, something has to account for the weight gain, Agent Doggett. What if, whatever it is that killed these men entered and exited them of its own free will? I mean, something... small... with small hands... living... inside the victims as a... as a stowaway of sorts."
If you want to know more [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] you should head over to Televison without pity, it's hilarious.

[/ I couldn't agree with you more there, all that episode showed was that Chris Carter has never known what the "Truth" was, he's just been making it up as he went along.

But I confess, I have watched it more than once, only for certain Mulder and Scully scenes, was there budget so small for the finale that they couldn't afford decent lighting [img]smilies/smile.gif[/img]

Me neither [img]smilies/rolleyes.gif[/img]

I really hated the way they treated Scully's pregnancy. They changed the timeline so much and made it totally unbelievable. I also hated the "Who's your Daddy?" aspect of it. There was no need for that. I wish we could have seen more of Scully missing Mulder and dealing with the pregnancy. I mean, this should have been a big deal in her life and it just didn't seem to be. "Within" and "Without" were superb, but after that it was eh.

I liked parts of "The Truth," but as a whole, the more I rewatch it, it was just a clip show and really did nothing to advance the plot, especially with all of the glaring errors -- I mean, why was Mulder being tried by the FBI anyway? He resigned at the end of season 8!

After Mulder found his sister (which I thought was a really lame copout that didn't make much sense), there was no need for him to go on. So from there on out, I wasn't really a fan of any of the episodes.

I haven't seen all of the last two seasons. Actually, I haven't even seen S9 yet. I've only seen about half of S8 so I don't have as many complaints as everyone else yet. The only thing that I've seen that has been bothering me is how much they made Scully cry. She cries in, pretty much, every other episode. Scully always appeared to me to be a strong person who tried not to show any signs of weakness, such as crying. Take for example in Irresistible from S2, after Scully was rescued and Mulder was untying her, she was telling Mulder she was fine and fighting back her tears. She did cry in that episode, but she was trying so hard not to. From what I've seen in S8, she just lets it out.

[ 12-10-2003: Message edited j-pop G&Jo ]

I mentioned this already on the "Season 8 and 9 Discussion" thread, but thought that I might bring my opinion over here as well. I just finished watching Alone and I don't like Agent Harrison. She seems like a very pointless character. She comes across as a character that was created to somehow add something new to the show to liven it up. I didn't like anything about this character. I think the attempt in making her was simply to squeeze a few laughs out of the viewers. I have to say that it did get a little chuckle out of me, but it wasn't because of how awkward she acted or her sheer joy of working with the X-Files. It was simply her dialogue, her lines, that tickled me. I thought it was a little funny how she would reference the older cases. But that was all she had: words. These words could have been spoken by anyone else and they would have resulted in the same reaction. It seemed completely unnecessary to add this whole other person simply to deliver a few lines.

Someone with better Phile knowledge will be able to explain this better but I think the Agent Harrison character was a tribute to a fanfic writer named Leyla Harrison who died. And her obsession with Mulder and Scully and past cases was was meant to be a representation of us fans. I'm with you, I just found her character annoying and I felt in a way that the writers were being patronising toward us.

The real Leyla was an established fanfic writer almost from the beginning who died of brain cancer after a long battle with it. The XF team heard of her passing and wanted to do a tribute to her and to all of us who have stood by the show. I think you had to go into the show, wanting to like her in order to do so. I've heard comments on both sides of the spectrum, from those who knew Leyla best to those who didn't know her at all. Her episodic knowledge was a tribute to those of us who seem to know more about the show than the writers. The last scene was a sort of dream come true for a fanfic writer -- for Leyla to ask Mulder and Scully a question that has been asked in fanfic since the movie premiere. I thought it was a loving tribute and one of the better episodes of season 8.

[ 12-23-2003: Message edited DevotedFanOfMatt ]