I am currently at S2 E13 titled Irresistible. I am avoiding all the Mulder and his alien abducted sister episodes. It makes for a much better series this way. Sort of like a modern version of the Twilight Zone.
shareWatching the standalone episodes by themselves and then watching the complete series with the mytharc ones truly are two different experiences but I wouldn't say one was better than the other.
I never really got the Twilight Zone vibe mostly because every episode was a standalone story with different actors in every episode.
I've often been interested in some sort of selective rewatch of The X-Files, whether that be watching the mythology or standalones or just watching a certain writer's oeuvre. Partly because rewatching The X-Files is such a massive undertaking the idea of winnowing the episodes down, even a little, is pretty appealing. One of the things I always liked though about The X-Files was the sense of it being a journey and also the sense that Mulder and Scully's job was often to them just a job, filled with the usual bureaucracy, filled with monotonous travel, with the attendant fatigue and disorientation, often to remote and far-flung regions of America, regularly in punishing weather.
I caught a bit of Darkness Falls the other night on TV and Mulder was showing Scully the usual slideshow; and then they were off; and then their transport broke down in the mud, or was disabled by eco-warriors; and then the were walking through the rain, the rough terrain, the mist. It encapsulated the drudgery of The X-Files perfectly, and as a viewer I don't think you quite experience the full-range of the show by omitting certain aspects of the show's journey.
As a viewer, when you watch all of the show, you experience the show a little like the characters experience their jobs: there are highs, there's lows, there's boredom, and sometimes even a recognition of the beauty of the boredom. In The Post-Modern Prometheus when the cars are moving mechanically at the end and Walking in Memphis begins to play, sprinkling a little magic over the by-now routine procedure of monster-hunting in these forgotten precincts of America, the everydayness of Mulder and Scully's lives becomes, for a brief moment, iconic.
I wonder when you're selectively rewatching the show if you might lose this sense of travelling in parallel planes to the characters and their lives and therefore it maybe not feeling quite as vicarious as when you watch it all and pay your dues and all the emotional highlights feel earned and realistic.
A show like The X-Files is one that needs to be seen in it's entirety at least once.
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I so agree. I think any series should be watched in the order it was first done.
shareAgreed, and I did precisely that. Took me over a year to get through the entire series, I took my time but it was awesome. My next rewatch will be purely mytharc.
share"The X Files" is like "The Twilight Zone" only you get two Serlings instead of one guiding you through strange crap week after week.
shareI agree! I´ve also binged all seasons, but skipped the alien mythology at first. But then I was hooked on Mulder and Scully once again, and had to watch the alien episodes just to spend a little more time with my old friends. But the stand alone are the best in my opinion.
shareI agree - My wife and I are into Season 7 of our stand alone winter binge watch.
Hmmm, I think I have a binge watch fever coming on.
People called me Scully all the time in high school. :D
We're at the end of Season 7 stand alone binge watch and it has been fun going back 20 years. Just love Mulder and Scully.
shareI dug them too. :) It's going to be nostalgic and I bet I will pick up on things I missed before.
shareits amazing how young Scully looked in the first few seasons.
shareLoved their crazy chemistry.. So caring of each other, so tender at times, and yet there was a great astringency too. I know they weren't so keen on each other in the real world, but I loved to be fooled into believing their on-screen affection for each other.
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