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Cool, looks like the slight wonkiness of LJ from the past few days has now been fixed! I think it was an issue that was just affecting people using the old LJ format? It was starting to bug me because the tracking feature was really messed-up for quite a few days, and I rely on that a lot of the time to keep on top of comments

And I've just finished my rewatch of X-Files season 1!

I love that the pilot starts off with Mulder and Scully's first meeting and gradually getting to know one another. They really did connect almost instantly, with super intimate body language from the beginning. Although hmm the characterisation of both Mulder and Scully seems subtly different in those first two episodes to me? Not sure how to explain it, but Scully gives off a sort of vibe of being kind of swept away by Mulder, so much so she can't help cracking up at how cute and endearing his enthusiasm is, which I guess would fit with her never knowing anyone like him before? She definitely doesn't come across as quite as amused with Mulder later on as she does in those early episodes :P (Maybe this is twisted fanwank, but I totally read Scully as secretly crushing on Mulder in season 1, while I would say that Mulder was so wrapped up in his work that Scully barely registered to him in that way at first). And Mulder's pilot characterisation doesn't come across as all *that* different, but he did seem slightly Idk ~wackier~ to me than he later is, i.e his whooping and unable to contain his excitement when he thinks that they've lost time *g*

Oh and they talk in the extras about Doug being kind of weird on set, and just knowning how creepy he turned out to be in real life makes Tooms even creepier now if that's possible! Apparently he insisted on doing the tunnel scene completely nude, and David wasn't very comfortable with that in such a confined space

Season 1 has a really strong beginning, but then goes through a terrible patch of MotW episodes all in the same run urgh, until things picks up again with Ice. I think on my next watch I will just skip straight from Conduit to Ice :P (I didn't love Conduit as much as the first three episodes either mind you, but it does have important characters moments for Mulder regarding Samantha and a very touching ending, while the next three episodes just feel like the worst kind of filler. I will give The Jersey Devil points for the cute subplot of Scully going on a date and attempting to have a life, but the main plot is just too painful to overlook)

Ice was just a terrific an episode as I remembered, but then even that gets followed up by Space! It seems like 90's shows like Buffy and X-Files got away with being a lot more uneven in their early seasons compared to what viewers expect from shows today, you get a brilliant episode like Eve one week, and then an outright dire one like Fire the next. Whereas you would never expect such a run of bad episodes in similar shows made today. When I watched the first season of Fringe a few years ago for example, I'd heard that the first season was a bit rough, but I found that nearly all of the episodes were at least competently done. Ditto the first season of Supernatural did get some criticism for its MotW format of the first season not being the most exciting, but aside from maybe two of them (Bugs and Route 66), you couldn't accuse them of being outright dire episodes of television, while some of the early Buffy and X-Files episodes just feel really cheesily done frankly and like the worst kind of B-movies

And interestingly a lot of the worst early episodes were actually written by Chris Carter (The Jersey Devil, Space, Fire). It's usually the reverse with viewers knowing that they're in for a special episode when the creator is writing, and the poorer MotW episodes coming from the freelance writers, but I can't say much for Chris Carter's early efforts. The portrayal of British people in Fire was painful, although it was fun to see a young Mark Shepherd as the main villain. But things just hit too cheesy a note for me when he's yelling 'you can't fight fire with fire' at the end when he's on fire *g* (Also the actress playing Mulder's ex-flame Phoebe was horrible, I just could not picture Mulder ever being an item with her. How was it supposed to be a cute joke to terrify him and Scully by pretending their car was rigged by a bomb??? The best part of Phoebe was Scully's indifference to her, I loved her chilly 'hello' lol).

The standout episodes were nearly all by Glen Morgan and James Wong IMO, my top five episodes from season 1 would be Squeeze, Ice, Eve, Beyond The Sea, and Tombs, and four of those episodes are by Glen Morgan and James Wong. To be fair Chris Carter did do a good job with the premise of course, and I liked his opening and closing episodes for the season, I just don't think that his MotW episodes from season 1 were very good at all, and that's somewhat surprising when he's the main creative force behind The X-Files... From what I remember he was always a bit uneven, he would either produce an episode that was fantastic, or it would be one of the worst of the season. Fingers crossed for his episodes from the new series I guess!

This is probably all going to sound a bit overtly negative, but I did really enjoy season 1 still for the nostalgia aspect and the early characterisation of Mulder and Scully, they were so young and adorable <3 Now I'm excited to get started on seasons 2 and 3, that's the time when I first started watching live and really fell in love with the show. Season 1 was the season that I mostly caught up with on DVD, although I did have a couple of those episodes (Squeeze and Tombs) on VHS, as well as novelizations of I think it was Shapes and Darkness Falls? I do vaguely remember watching *some* season 1 episodes on the BBC (Born Again really stands out in my mind there for some reason), but definitely the majority I'm not as familiar with as I only caught up with them when I first brought the DVDs

Current Mood: nostalgic

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x-files

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*clicks heels together* So glad it's been fixed! Finally!

It took them a bit too long to reach out to their customers, but at least it looks like things are back to normal now, I was not looking forward to possibly being forced to switch to the new LJ format

Edited Date: 2015-07-21 12:30 pm (UTC)

S1 is really uneven, possibly even worse that Buffy's first season I think.

When I rewatched the show a few years ago, my main thought was that the show really suffered from having to do a full 23-24 episodes per season because especially in the earlier seasons there were a lot of obvious filler episodes. Like, there were usually at least a couple of episodes with pretty the exact same plot, such as "Roland" and "Born Again".

And Morgan & Wong were clearly the strongest writers in the team - I don't think they wrote a single bad episode, unlike most of the other writers who all had at least one absolutely terrible one :)

Yeah I was surprised on rewatch because I didn't remember it as being particularly shaky (as I said though, this is only my second time watching a lot of those episodes), nor does the first year have that infamous rep that say Buffy has with people always using the first season to warn people that it gets better/stick with it, but really there were quite a few bottom of the barrel episodes that made me wonder what someone watching for the first time today would make of it. I'd definitely agree that the 24 episodes were an issue, there was a much stronger sense of where they were going at the beginning, and there were definitely a few standouts like Eve and Ice throughout the year, but then they had a LOT of timeslots to fill, it's no wonder that every season had its share of clunkers

I'm so glad that they've got Morgan & Wong back for the new series, it just seems wrong that they disappeared after season 4 when they had been so heavily involved in the format of The X-Files from the beginning. From what I remember they left to work on Millennium, and then there was bad blood at them being booted from that show after its second season?

I think most people ignore the badness of S1 simply so that they can say that S8-S9 are worse :D

From what I remember they left to work on Millennium, and then there was bad blood at them being booted from that show after its second season?

Yeah, I've understood that they left X-Files to work on Millennium, but CC didn't like what they did with it and retconned everything when he took over again in S3 (which I think is a shame since S2 of Millennium is one of my favourite TV seasons in any series).

I didn't know that they'd made up with CC, so I didn't even dare to hope that they'd be involved with the new series. But I'm so happy that they are because with them onboard, I'm far less worried how the series will turn out than I would be otherwise :D

Heh probably! Not just seasons 8 and 9 even, I've also seen a lot of cynicism for the LA seasons, but last time I watched I remember thinking that season 6 was a lot more solid than I remembered. It's definitely a more consistent season than season 1 at least, even if the lighter episodes aren't every views cup of tea

I have been wondering if I should do the Buffy/Angel thing, and watch an episode of Millennium after the X-Files when I get to season 4, but I guess that's not really necessary as they don't cross-over in the same way. Plus this rewatch is going to be time-consuming enough as it is lol

And yes, I was thrilled to see their names connected to the new series, plus Darin Morgan is writing episode 3 apparently! The only classic X-Files writer we're missing now is Vince Gilligan, otherwise I'm very happy with the line-up *g*

My LJ's on the old format, and the only thing I noticed was a spacing issue in my actual layout page. I wish they'd stop messing around with it.

I had that same issue on the homepage, also when I clicked to track comments from an entry, the layout was so jumped-up that you couldn't select anything.

It seems like LJ were doing updates for the new format, and didn't consider how it would affect people who are still using the old style?

Your comments are really interesting. I wonder if the plots seem different when you have advert breaks and that's why they jar. I know when the last two (?) series ended up on Sky because the BBC wouldn't pick them up I found the advert breaks really spoiled the show for me. One long 45 minute episode is so much more intense when it's a good story.

Thanks :) And I couldn't say for the X-Files as I've only ever watched it on the BBC, but I know that America has constant commercial breaks which definitely doesn't help the viewing experience. With one of my current shows (Hannibal) I've watched the live stream a few times, and it's really distracting when they're trying to build up an atmosphere, then there's a cut to an ad for detergent or something

Edited Date: 2015-07-21 10:45 pm (UTC)

I use the old LJ style and the Filter Friends list option is still broken. It's weird, it appears for a moment and then it goes.

Hmm that's interesting, I don't use the friends filter really, so I just assumed that everything had been fixed after I saw the homepage looking normal again

I am so glad the wonkiness is gone.

Gabrielle

I had SO many problems with LJ the past few days, glad they seem to be fixed now. It was getting really annoying.

Definitely, especially for them not to even give us a heads up of whether they were working on it or not!

And interestingly a lot of the worst early episodes were actually written by Chris Carter (The Jersey Devil, Space, Fire).

Yeah, it's kind of funny how Carter was always one of the more mediocre writers on his staff, particularly when compared to Morgan & Wong, Darin Morgan, and Vince Gilligan. I was soooo happy to hear that Morgan, Morgan, and Wong were all coming back for the new episodes.

That first season has a lot of pretty dire episodes, though when they were first airing I enjoyed many of them, mostly because I was just head over heels in love with the Mulder/Scully partnership and the whole concept of FBI agents investigating the paranormal. It was like a show that had been created in a lab just for me.

you get a brilliant episode like Eve one week, and then an outright dire one like Fire the next.

There was a list on Tumblr recently suggesting the must-see episodes for new viewers to watch before the new episodes start. Most of the suggestions were good, but the one thing that stood out to me was that Fire was recommended but not Eve! That's just...wrong.

Ditto on that :) And CC has written some good episodes as well to be fair, but he just seems really inconsistent. Really it's just odd to me that the creator is literally writing some of the very worst episodes of his show, in a way it's a shame that so much of the show's legacy rests on him. Like maybe we could have had a more successful movie revival with IWTB if it wasn't naturally going to be scripted by the creator of the show, and maybe the finale of the show would have been slightly less crap if it wasn't inevitably written by the creator of the show *g* I just hope that his first episode of the new series is decent, otherwise that could possibly turn some viewers off from seeing out the reminder of the season :(

And yeah I'd agree with that, even when an episode wasn't the best, the show still carries you along most of the time because it's just so fun to see Mulder and Scully investigating spooky stuff. And lol, was that a shipper list? Because I did like Fire for Scully's chilliness with Phoebe heh and her expression when she witnesses Mulder kissing Phoebe, but the plot itself is hardly an essential one? It sounds like that list was going for the episodes with the memorable M/S interaction maybe as Eve (being written by freelance writers) didn't have a whole lot going on characterisation-wise, while Fire has Mulder's dealing with an old girlfriend, as well as drama with him trying to overcome his fear of fire. Meh to the episode as a whole though, Eve was so much creepier!

I watched the X-Files really piecemeal, in reruns, so my remembrance of specifics is not the best, but I immediately recalled how much I hated Phoebe, lol! And how creepy Tooms was, OMG. It's interesting that you found it to be so shaky in quality, but then, I can think of shows recently that are like that, or even entire seasons that are mostly crap.

I couldn't see what had ever attracted Mulder to Phoebe quite honestly, her terrible English accent was really grating on me

And hmm fair enough, probably my views of shows today are biased as I don't watch the really terrible ones lol. I just get the feeling that viewers are a lot more particular today about a show had better at least start impressing me by the third or fourth episode or I'm gone, and it seems like 90's shows have more allowances made for say needing to get past a rough first couple of season

Morgan & Wong 4 EVA! When I saw their names in the writing credits for Season 1 of 'American Horror Story' I knew it was going to be good. Carter was an awful writer and SO BAD at tracking his own show ugh still so bitter about what a mess the whole alien plotline becomes. I preferred MotW stories on X-Files because they tended to be more coherent.

Fair warning, I never ever shipped Mulder/Scully. I thought they were BFFs but never wanted them to be a couple. Luckily, the show had crashed and burned before that became official.

I wish more shows were allowed to have uneven seasons now like X-Files and Buffy did, it gives them a chance to grow. Networks won't give shows a chance unless they think they can market them right away.

In retrospect I definitely prefer the MotW stories, but I do credit the mythology episodes for creating so much of the original atmosphere of The X-Files. The mythology all fell apart later of course, but I would argue that the show would have likely never been such a success if it was all standalone mysteries, part of the excitement of the show early on was believing that the hints of a Government conspiracy was all going to lead somewhere big in the end. But alas :(

And heh, fair enough! When I was first watching actually I did feel that the show would be ruined if they ever did end the will they/won't they and pair Mulder and Scully, but that's another thing that I look back on differently as I do wish that they had been paired off after their aborted kiss in the movie, especially when season 6 teased it so much. It felt a bit inorganic and stagnant at that point to me, like CC was afraid to do anything to change the status quo, yet still wanted to constantly emphasis how they were meant for one another

And that's true, I know that ratings were pretty bad for the first season, who knows how long The X-Files would have lasted if it had aired today.

Edited Date: 2015-07-22 10:00 am (UTC)

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