The X-Files 1.03-04
Apr. 11th, 2016 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jedi_of_urthI may be posting several of these for a bit as I've gotten quite a bit ahead, but we'll see how I do with that.
1x03: Squeeze
(Previous status: watched a few different times, but not for a long time)
So, it’s the first straight up case of the week story, and one considered pretty classic. To put it out there, I’m far more interested in the alien stories than I am terrestrial ones; though there are and certainly will be a lot of worse ways to go with it than this one, but that’s the main reason why case of the week episodes usually have a bigger hurdle for me than the bigger alien ones. I want to believe in aliens and sometimes other very sci-fi concepts, I don’t care about believing in this kind of thing when it comes to horror ideas.
Plus, for the Tooms story specifically, it’s never made sense to me. What’s the motivation to come out, kill a few people every 30 years, then hibernate again? Is he a mastermind trying to survive to some far point in the future for some purpose? If so I think he should be putting a little more thought into how to manage living across ages. Is it some primal instinct that makes him act that way? That would have worked better if he’d been done a bit more animalistic I feel. Tooms is an effective, visceral bad guy, but I’ve never thought he was a very good story because I don’t latch on to what he’s supposed to be.
As for the actual characters. Colton is an ass, one that as I recall used to show up as an ineffectual rival for Mulder in various fanfics, more representing an idea of paths what Scully could have chosen if she hadn’t ended up tied to Mulder; and I would say elements of that are there in this episode (which I think is his only appearance, I could be wrong, especially when we get to Tooms), although I see it less from Mulder than I do Scully herself; Mulder’s not crazy about her hanging out with surface-dwellers, and he doesn’t like Colton professionally, but it doesn’t feel like a personal battle from Mulder. Partly because he’s not so wrapped up in Scully yet (getting there but not all the way yet) but probably more because he sees the truth being on his side and clearly Scully’s chill with that. From Colton it feels personal, he’s being quite territorial of both the case and Scully, and losing face on one front he feels like it’s attacking him on the other, that kind of thing. And most importantly to Scully, he’s representative of the world outside the X-files that she’s fast leaving behind; the temptation of being able to approach the world as rationally as she prefers to and treated fairly for choosing to be rational; confronted with the way the world already sees Mulder and is starting to see her. But also that while she’s not ready to start agreeing with Mulder’s extreme attitudes towards dismissing convention, she doesn’t really fit in with the extremely conventionally motivated crowd; likely never did but didn’t necessarily see it until she was a step back. Yes it’s a bit standard to have a character proudly side with doing what’s right over what’s good for themselves, but it was done in a well-constructed story around it here.
That said, Scully really wasn’t doing her job as team skeptic here. Yes Mulder did come at her with actual evidence (more so than he has before) but like my objections to Tooms himself I felt there was still too much unexplained for her not to be asking more questions of what would be going on. I’m going to say it was more lazy writing of the ‘if Scully asks questions about Tooms we’d have to write answers’ variety as opposed to bad characterization since her characterization in the personal plot was good.
It’s also a decent episode for Mulder, as he seems less and less unbalanced all the time. You can still see how he’d annoy outsiders, but he doesn’t seem to be flying off quite so randomly as he did a couple episode back. This is more the Mulder I remember than the guy who barely seemed sane in the pilot. Maybe I’d chock that up to Scully-framing, since as already said she’s much more in the box with Mulder than she was then, but I don’t think that’s all of it. I also think it’s partly that in character he’s able to approach cases like this with more rational thought than he has when it’s aliens and conspiracies, he’s always willing to consider what others deem impossible, but less starting from barely founded assumptions. And mostly I think the writers were still sorting out the character and the whole team was settling in to how to portray him so that he’d be a character worth watching for seasons on end.
So yeah, a lot of character analysis in an episode where I find the plot pretty uneven, sounds valid for a non-myth-arc ep, that’s often how these things go as I recall. That said, I did like this one a lot more as a teenager when I still had somewhat better appreciation for the plot (always had issues if I stopped to think about it, but was better at just enjoying it in the old days).
1x04: Conduit
(Previous status: must have seen once, but only clearly remembered the last scene, pretty sure never saw again)
I liked that episode, and I have a hunch that’s not a common opinion (in so far as I was ever in TXF fandom it was mostly for the shipping debates and the bitching about the mess the later seasons became not so much re-discussing early eps). I could well be wrong but that’s my suspicion.
I actually think this would have worked better as a second episode than Deep Throat did. It’s about as connected to the ongoing themes and story but doesn’t step quite as far with certain elements as DT did. I also think it does more to earn the Mulder-Scully dynamic than most of the other eps so far; it shows that trust and respect are still in the growing stages, but works on establishing why they will become so emotionally codependent. Scully’s skepticism is fully on display, because most of what she sees can easily have a rational explanation; and really most of what Mulder sees certainly could as well if he wasn’t so ready to believe it’s more.
Actually something occurred to me near the end. With all the fantastic stuff that seems to be true in this world, isn’t ‘a wizard did it’ just as likely as aliens? At this stage not all of that has been shown to exist in this verse, but I’m just saying. That’s the problem with making it about more than one or two fantastic elements (aliens, mutations possibly caused by aliens or human causes where Scully could work it out, maybe some psychic powers); if all of it is true (magic, zombies, demons, bigfoot, the devil, etc.) then *anything* could be responsible in cases where we’re given little in the way of answers. Which is part of why running so long was always going to be kind of a problem for this show, eventually there would be too many elements in play; at this point with what we know of the show’s logic, it’s probably aliens, but long term could include more.
One interesting observation is that the conspiracy didn’t seem to be at work in this probably-alien plot. The NSA got involved for plot reasons, but there wasn’t a lot of hush hush behavior going around. This is small potatoes for the likes of Cancerman and his ilk, they don’t even feel the need to keep Mulder away from it.
On my Mulder’s-apparent-sanity check in, this one’s...mixed. He seems emotionally compromised and not very good at dealing with people when it comes to the subjects at hand, but he doesn’t seem crazed...overall; but with momentary lapses when the emotionally compromised factors come into high play. It’s a decent balance of predictable unpredictability, and it fits early-Mulder, who is trying to seem like he has it together enough that Scully won’t turn him in, but also doesn’t have her to lean on and share the burden of his demons.
That said, Mulder goes to church at the end, and that’s just weird. Maybe he was there to meet someone.
Scully didn’t have much to do this episode except to try and rein Mulder in, anything in her own arc not really getting attention.
I mostly think this was just a well told episode, a good balance of story and character, a plot that contributes to the arc only a little but is connected to it so I care. It’s slow paced, but I found it moody, and I just liked it. Whether or not that’s common attitude I still don’t know.
1x03: Squeeze
(Previous status: watched a few different times, but not for a long time)
So, it’s the first straight up case of the week story, and one considered pretty classic. To put it out there, I’m far more interested in the alien stories than I am terrestrial ones; though there are and certainly will be a lot of worse ways to go with it than this one, but that’s the main reason why case of the week episodes usually have a bigger hurdle for me than the bigger alien ones. I want to believe in aliens and sometimes other very sci-fi concepts, I don’t care about believing in this kind of thing when it comes to horror ideas.
Plus, for the Tooms story specifically, it’s never made sense to me. What’s the motivation to come out, kill a few people every 30 years, then hibernate again? Is he a mastermind trying to survive to some far point in the future for some purpose? If so I think he should be putting a little more thought into how to manage living across ages. Is it some primal instinct that makes him act that way? That would have worked better if he’d been done a bit more animalistic I feel. Tooms is an effective, visceral bad guy, but I’ve never thought he was a very good story because I don’t latch on to what he’s supposed to be.
As for the actual characters. Colton is an ass, one that as I recall used to show up as an ineffectual rival for Mulder in various fanfics, more representing an idea of paths what Scully could have chosen if she hadn’t ended up tied to Mulder; and I would say elements of that are there in this episode (which I think is his only appearance, I could be wrong, especially when we get to Tooms), although I see it less from Mulder than I do Scully herself; Mulder’s not crazy about her hanging out with surface-dwellers, and he doesn’t like Colton professionally, but it doesn’t feel like a personal battle from Mulder. Partly because he’s not so wrapped up in Scully yet (getting there but not all the way yet) but probably more because he sees the truth being on his side and clearly Scully’s chill with that. From Colton it feels personal, he’s being quite territorial of both the case and Scully, and losing face on one front he feels like it’s attacking him on the other, that kind of thing. And most importantly to Scully, he’s representative of the world outside the X-files that she’s fast leaving behind; the temptation of being able to approach the world as rationally as she prefers to and treated fairly for choosing to be rational; confronted with the way the world already sees Mulder and is starting to see her. But also that while she’s not ready to start agreeing with Mulder’s extreme attitudes towards dismissing convention, she doesn’t really fit in with the extremely conventionally motivated crowd; likely never did but didn’t necessarily see it until she was a step back. Yes it’s a bit standard to have a character proudly side with doing what’s right over what’s good for themselves, but it was done in a well-constructed story around it here.
That said, Scully really wasn’t doing her job as team skeptic here. Yes Mulder did come at her with actual evidence (more so than he has before) but like my objections to Tooms himself I felt there was still too much unexplained for her not to be asking more questions of what would be going on. I’m going to say it was more lazy writing of the ‘if Scully asks questions about Tooms we’d have to write answers’ variety as opposed to bad characterization since her characterization in the personal plot was good.
It’s also a decent episode for Mulder, as he seems less and less unbalanced all the time. You can still see how he’d annoy outsiders, but he doesn’t seem to be flying off quite so randomly as he did a couple episode back. This is more the Mulder I remember than the guy who barely seemed sane in the pilot. Maybe I’d chock that up to Scully-framing, since as already said she’s much more in the box with Mulder than she was then, but I don’t think that’s all of it. I also think it’s partly that in character he’s able to approach cases like this with more rational thought than he has when it’s aliens and conspiracies, he’s always willing to consider what others deem impossible, but less starting from barely founded assumptions. And mostly I think the writers were still sorting out the character and the whole team was settling in to how to portray him so that he’d be a character worth watching for seasons on end.
So yeah, a lot of character analysis in an episode where I find the plot pretty uneven, sounds valid for a non-myth-arc ep, that’s often how these things go as I recall. That said, I did like this one a lot more as a teenager when I still had somewhat better appreciation for the plot (always had issues if I stopped to think about it, but was better at just enjoying it in the old days).
1x04: Conduit
(Previous status: must have seen once, but only clearly remembered the last scene, pretty sure never saw again)
I liked that episode, and I have a hunch that’s not a common opinion (in so far as I was ever in TXF fandom it was mostly for the shipping debates and the bitching about the mess the later seasons became not so much re-discussing early eps). I could well be wrong but that’s my suspicion.
I actually think this would have worked better as a second episode than Deep Throat did. It’s about as connected to the ongoing themes and story but doesn’t step quite as far with certain elements as DT did. I also think it does more to earn the Mulder-Scully dynamic than most of the other eps so far; it shows that trust and respect are still in the growing stages, but works on establishing why they will become so emotionally codependent. Scully’s skepticism is fully on display, because most of what she sees can easily have a rational explanation; and really most of what Mulder sees certainly could as well if he wasn’t so ready to believe it’s more.
Actually something occurred to me near the end. With all the fantastic stuff that seems to be true in this world, isn’t ‘a wizard did it’ just as likely as aliens? At this stage not all of that has been shown to exist in this verse, but I’m just saying. That’s the problem with making it about more than one or two fantastic elements (aliens, mutations possibly caused by aliens or human causes where Scully could work it out, maybe some psychic powers); if all of it is true (magic, zombies, demons, bigfoot, the devil, etc.) then *anything* could be responsible in cases where we’re given little in the way of answers. Which is part of why running so long was always going to be kind of a problem for this show, eventually there would be too many elements in play; at this point with what we know of the show’s logic, it’s probably aliens, but long term could include more.
One interesting observation is that the conspiracy didn’t seem to be at work in this probably-alien plot. The NSA got involved for plot reasons, but there wasn’t a lot of hush hush behavior going around. This is small potatoes for the likes of Cancerman and his ilk, they don’t even feel the need to keep Mulder away from it.
On my Mulder’s-apparent-sanity check in, this one’s...mixed. He seems emotionally compromised and not very good at dealing with people when it comes to the subjects at hand, but he doesn’t seem crazed...overall; but with momentary lapses when the emotionally compromised factors come into high play. It’s a decent balance of predictable unpredictability, and it fits early-Mulder, who is trying to seem like he has it together enough that Scully won’t turn him in, but also doesn’t have her to lean on and share the burden of his demons.
That said, Mulder goes to church at the end, and that’s just weird. Maybe he was there to meet someone.
Scully didn’t have much to do this episode except to try and rein Mulder in, anything in her own arc not really getting attention.
I mostly think this was just a well told episode, a good balance of story and character, a plot that contributes to the arc only a little but is connected to it so I care. It’s slow paced, but I found it moody, and I just liked it. Whether or not that’s common attitude I still don’t know.
