Scribbles About Tv: Shannon Watches Old Tv Shows; The X Files Season 1part 2

Alrighty watching this show again... There are hits and misses and I'm kind of skipping and just going with whatever Kumail Nanjianni picks in The X Files Files and skipping others... But thee are a few I think I liked so I might slip some in here or I may go back and watch the bad ones and talk about them separately. Idk I think I'm going to at least watch one now and include it here... We'll see.

Beyond The Sea

This was one I really didn't like much as a kid... But it's amazing and probably underrated. This might be one of their best episodes ever and I feel like I never hear much about it! This episode I remember being creeped out by and to this day, the song Beyond the Sea still creeps me out because the actor that plays the villain of this episode is just soooo good. He's really creepy and scary and it just works really really well. He's probably the best villain in the monster of the week episodes ever... 

Also Gillian Anderson was incredible in this episode. She's such a talented actress and I really haven't seen her in anything since this show, but she is absolutely perfect. I'm going to do a whole Woman Crush Wednesday on Dana Scully because she's definitely one of the best female characters on any tv show ever and I don't think that many people can play that role. She does it sooo soo well. 

Genderbender 

This is one of the weirdest episodes and it's so vague and the end of it was kind of a cop out, that I was a little underwhelmed by this one after watching Beyond the Sea. It's a really interesting concept and this episode had a LOT going on... But at the end they just sort of showed a crop circle for no real reason and that was just the end of it... And it didn't really fit in or explain anything in the episode. It just raised another question. If this was the first episode of the X Files for someone, this would be a bad start. It's definitely the weirdest episode and I feel like if they revisited it now with modern technologies and a more accepting view of trans men and trans women, it would be a little different... It could have been good if they maybe did a little less and had a bit more of an end. 

Lazarus 

Kumail skipped this episode, but I thought I liked it so I watched it again. It isn't bad, but it's very skip-able. It has an ex boyfriend of Scully and they're involved in a bank robbery and there's a shooting and her ex boyfriend's body is alive but his personality is the personality of the bank robber, like the bank robbers soul is trapped inside of him. It's a little like the movie Face off, which is amazing and like a lifetime movie with David Duchovny in it where his wife and daughter are in a car accident and the wife is in a coma but her spirit is trapped in the daughter's body... And she tries to sleep with David Duchovny's character and it's weird. But yeah. The best body switch movies are Face/Off and Freaky Friday... So we should retire the concept. 

This I think aired before face/off but... Still. 

Young At Heart

I find this episode skippable. This was different than I thought it would be tho. I remember an episode where Mulder and Scully are old and I thought that was this... I think that is a real episode, but I think it's in season 2. This was just backstory for Mulder that they didn't really need in my opinion. It also showed Mulder as being kind of by the book... And he's not. This is sort of why he isn't by the book... But still that's not interesting enough for an origin story and... Idk I just didn't love the episode as a whole. Not my favorite. I think I liked Lazarus better. 

E.B.E

This one is probably my favorite. This is the introduction of the Lone Gunmen. Scully sort of realizes that Mulder is onto something with this UFO stuff. There's a little detail before Scully and Mulder realize they're being bugged where a woman asks Scully to borrow a pen and then the pen is bugged later on... Crazy. And the end you don't know what's real and what's fake or whether or not to believe Deep Throat... And honestly I trusted Deep Throat the first time I watched this... And I know how it all ends... But I totally don't trust him here. I keep thinking "no he's a bad guy" and because I was so in love with. Mulder when I was little I just believed him, and I know through most of the show you should believe him... But now that I'm older I'm a little on Scully's side. Lol. 

There was also a moment where Mulder kind of made Scully blush that I thought was really sweet. She was saying that the Lone Gunmen were too paranoid and nothing they said was even remotely plausible and then Mulder says "I think it's remotely plausible that someone thinks you're hot." Because of corse Frohike said "she's hot" right away. And Scully kind of laughs and looks a little giggly cause Mulder called her hot.  And it's very sweet. It's so innocent and how I am basically when i see a cute boy or something. It was really adorable and funny. 

Darkness Falls

I did not remember this one at all. I vaguely remember the Big Foot joke and the word Bioluminescence, but that's it really. This one was really really scary. Monster of the week, but it had the same tone as E.B.E which is a myth arc episode. You get the sense that there's some sort of shady government involvement in this pretty regular monster bug scenario. I thought the use of the Eco terrorists was really a scary element in this and it worked really well. I thought the other characters in this episode were great too. The acting was really good, I would even compare this to Ice in terms of it being a really creepy and brilliant monster of the week. Really dark and scary episode and the end of this kind of left me with the same feeling as EBE. Both were kind of "ohhh that isn't something I want to watch and then go to sleep." Because it's just really dark and bleak. 

And the Eco terrorists protesting the government kind of reminded me of why Mulder and Scully were where they were at that point too. It's interesting. I liked this episode and totally did not remember anything other than the big foot line, so this was like watching it firsthand. It was awesome. 

Tooms 
This is the follow up about Victor Tooms, the villain from Squeeze. As you know after watching squeeze, he does 5 killings every 30 years and he only got to do 4 killings... so someone has to go. On the podcast they mentioned that with the flies in Darkness Falls, they're innocent. They don't mean to kill people, its just in their nature... this is in his nature, but there is also a sinister aspect to Victor Tooms, so he's kind of someone that can't be trusted and you want them to get and kill him. He's a creepy guy in real life too, apparently he asked Gillian Anderson on set during her birthday to go to his hotel room to celebrate... Gillian had just gotten married in Season 1 so thats a little weird and creepy. He also married a 16 year old when he was 50... which is bad. Also he wanted to be naked during the scenes and in between takes he was still naked and he insisted on that... super creepy. But it worked to play this creepy character.

Roland 
This was a weird one. This episode would be much different if they did it today. The main character in this episode has a mental disability and is played by someone that doesn't have a mental disability... which  I find uncomfortable to watch. Especially now when there are so many disabled actors that are fantastic and would be able to play this and this just came off like he was overdoing it. It was a little much. They described it on the podcast saying he was "I am Sam" ing it... which yeah makes sense. It was that pretty much. He was wayyy overdoing it. And he was a good actor... but thats hard for someone to play when they have no experience with that. Its not PC for today lol. I thought overall the episode was good. It wasn't the best of the season, but there were a lot of twists and I actually remembered a lot of it... so that was a cool thing.  One of the most twists for a sub-par Monster of the week. I liked it.

The Erlinmeyer Flask 

Really great season finale... especially for season 1! This is the first Mythology episode where I was kind of on board when I was watching it originally. Now I think EBE and Darkness Falls are really great, but this one is even better. Its such a great finale. I remembered the image of Scully seeing the baby alien really well and I still think thats one of the iconic images of The X Files. It was really really good. I was happy to re-watch this now knowing where the myth episodes were going. Even though nothing is ever resolved in any of the 9 seasons overall... it is exciting to watch this and realize that its part of this greater thing.

So that is it! Hope you guys are liking these "look back" types of things I'm doing. I want to do more, I've been really liking rewatching this show and I want to share my thoughts with you guys!