X-Files

[frelling_tralk]

Umm yeah, so I would argue that they either needed to bring in new writers with fresh ideas and go all-in with MotW episodes, or they needed to accept that they only had 6 episodes and should have committed to making both episodes 5 and 6 mythology-based at the very least. The finale would have worked a lot better IMO if it had been a two-parter with more time to gradually build up to more and more people starting to get sick, instead it just didn't work to cram all of the mythology into the first and last episodes, while completely dropping the conspiracy in the middle in order to have the usual mixture of MotW episodes that they had in the 22 episode seasons. That...doesn't work when you only have 6 episodes to play around with. If we have another season then I would say that they either need to go about structuring the season very differently (commit to either MotW or the myth-arc, not try doing both at the same time), or they need to just negotiate getting at least 10-12 episodes so that they can tell all the stories that they want to tell without having to cram everything in

Overall the series started stronger for me definitely. I was one of the few (?) that actually enjoyed My Struggle, although admittedly that was party down to the excitement of seeing Mulder and Scully again, I can't yet say whether it will hold up on rewatch :P And Founder's Mutation and Home Again were both solid episodes, while I absolutely loved Mulder & Scully Meet The Were-Monster, so it's really only the final two CC scripts that flopped for me. Babylon could definitely have been sacrificed in order to spend the last two episodes pacing out the myth-arc more carefully for a start. Idk maybe Frank Spotnitz would have made the difference as well, I believe that he was the one mostly working alongside CC on the mythology in the original series?

Mostly I'm not in a very good frame of mind at the moment because Chris Carter has since said that, while he does expect the show to return at some point, they might not even start negotiations for months. I really think that it's unfair to end a mini-series like that when they don't even know if we will be getting more episodes next year. It's bad enough waiting for resolution for a cliffhanger in an on-going television series, let alone for a mini-series when no future deals have even been worked out yet

How would everyone rank the episodes?

Comments

[rachg82.livejournal.com]

I would rank the first episode as a 2 or 3 (0 being fucking terrible & 10 being fucking great -- the shippy moments & excitement of having XF back on my TV are the only reasons I didn't give it a zero. I am still outraged at how they ruined 9 years of established mythology, clearly not caring a whit whether it even made sense). Episode 2 gets a 7. Episode 3 gets an 8. Episode 4 gets a 7.5. Episode 5 gets a 1. And, finally, episode 6 gets a "fuck it, I can't even rank this shit. A negative 1?" The new mythology completely contradicts the original series, and it didn't have to be that way. If they wanted a contagion episode, the alien virus was right there in the canon, waiting to be brought back. And then they need William's stem cells for some reason? Why couldn't they just use Scully's? And then a cliff-hanger? Ugh. I'll just stop myself here, because this rant belongs in my own journal & not Debbie Downer-ing your comment threads.

[frelling-tralk.livejournal.com]

Oh it's okay really, I think that most of us are feeling pretty disgruntled at the moment. Honestly the premiere probably didn't bother me as much as it bothered you because I never really kept up with the mythology, or even the later seasons, so I wasn't really comparing it to the existing mythology which I never managed to keep straight anyway! :P It's all kind of a blur to me after seasons 5/6 tbh

And the finale was just so rushed that it was hard to feel any real sense of urgency, and there was certaintly no need for that cliffhanger. I'm onboard with them not wrapping absolutely everything up when they are obviously hoping to do more, but you don't end a mini-series on that kind of 'to be continued' moment when you're talking about negotiations for another season not happening for months, and having another project to do first :(