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“The X-Files”: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Okay. So. This guide, officially, has been available in eBook form (along with others!) for a little while. But now was the time, with the revival coming towards us like a freight train, and with friends making an effort to rewatch hung up on misadvised installments, to release it to the people. Because now is the time, for the people to know that they maybe should not watch (or rewatch) all 201 episodes of “The X-Files” that have already aired. That maybe, just maybe, this seminal show, this series of delights, had some rough patches over its nine-season run.
Also, allow me to preface this guide with the following disclaimer: This guide is subjective. This guide is heavily influenced by my personal history with this show. This guide has a crush on Mulder and little patience for Reyes. This guide is at least 70 percent focused on identifying all the super-flirty episodes, and 30 percent focused on avoiding the really stupid stuff. This guide will be ignoring the existence of The X-Files: I Want to Believe.
This guide is here to help.
UPDATE: At long last, in celebration of the show’s official 30th anniversary (Sept. 10th, 2023), I have finally added Seasons 10 and 11 to this list. Spoiler alert — expect a lot more skipping than watching.
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Space: Above and Beyond”
Dear Frank,
Every once in a while, there’s the occasional question of how much longer the LTFWHI project can be sustained — we’re coming up on three years now, Frank, and well over 150 entries. (Not to mention two books!) That’s an awful lot of telling, right there.
But before this blog ever turns in its gun and badge, there are certain frontiers we have yet to explore. Certain things I have promised to tell you about that you should never be denied. Space: Above and Beyond is one of them.
Frank, as we’ve long since established, if you were a science fiction show made in the 1990s, I at least watched one or two episodes of you. And if you aired on Fox, I probably watched the full damn season you were allowed to air before getting canceled.
Pile on top of all that the fact that Space: Above and Beyond was created by X-Files producers Glen Morgan and James Wong, and I was SIGNED UP. Attractive young space marines dogfighting aliens in space? SOUNDS GOOD TO ME. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank Stuff She Forgot About Mulder and Scully and “The X-Files”
Dear Frank,
As you know because we are friends, there was nothing more formative for me as a lass than The X-Files. It indulged and deepened my love of science fiction, taught me the difference between procedural and serialized storytelling, and (most importantly) created a teenage ideal for future relationships that still lingers, ever so slightly (I have a thing for trenchcoats).
But I had forgotten until recently, Frank, how COMPLETELY EFFED UP The X-Files was as a comprehensive narrative. Especially (SO VERY ESPECIALLY) when it came to the core relationship between Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
No one would deny that the partnership, friendship and eventual romance between Mulder and Scully was the closest thing The X-Files had to an emotional center, especially myself. But when you look at the sequence of events that occurred over the show’s later seasons, it made NO SENSE, on a storytelling level or a human level.
Here is why I mention it. A few weeks ago, a friend of mine IMed me with a simple question that she had a valid professional reason for needing an answer to: “When do Mulder and Scully first kiss?” (Frank, it should not surprise you that I was the person she thought to ask that question.) Because Aimee signed off before I could respond, I was forced to send her the following email:
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 