baileythedog

Well, that's the thing. She's a character that is fully formed and is slowly revealing things, but not really all that much. And everything that is revealed is pretty much expected. She's a character that is certainly a strong female and bucks some expectations but she stays fairly static throughout. I don't know. I enjoyed the two seasons of "The Fall" but nothing at the end of the second season made me want to see more. Because nothing that was ever revealed about Stella really challenged the initial depiction we had of her in the first episode of S1.

Without getting too deep into "The Fall", I am curious about GA's comment in which she finds Stella a far more fascinating character than Scully or enjoys playing her more, etc. etc. Obviously having seen TXF and also both seasons of The Fall, I don't agree at all that Stella is a more fascinating character. Which isn't to say that I don't like her or the performance, I do, but Scully is, in my opinion, a far and away more dynamic character than Stella is. Some of this has to do with the sheer number of episodes, of course, and the fact that The Fall, despite being two seasons, seems like it takes place entirely over the course of one month or so. As an audience, we're thus not given the opportunity to really see Stella grow or change or experience any other scenario than the case right in front of her. I can totally understand why GA would appreciate Stella's no-fucks-given attitude, but I'm struggling to see why she would find it a more challenging role given the diverse and dynamic storylines given to Scully and the radical shifts in tones and narrative devices. I wonder if GA is just plain good and sick of Scully for the most part?

Same. I was studying abroad in the UK in 1993 and The X-Files wasn't airing there. Never mind the fact that I didn't have a television set, even if it were. When I came home, some friends had told me that I needed to watch TXF but I didn't join in until S2. I'm not sure when I finally got all of S1 watched, but it certainly wasn't immediately. As for Twin Peaks - I was in high school when it was on, so my tuning in was sporadic at best. In fact, I'm pretty sure I saw the movie "Fire Walk With Me" before I had seen the majority of TP episodes and I was confused as hell. But I've made several efforts, over the years, to rewatch; the last time I did this was circa 2000-2001 or so. As I recall, the show held up very well. I plan on re-watching the two seasons again prior to the revival. I'm thinking the TP revival might come off better, quality wise, than the TXF one did. It was announced earlier and production is certainly lasting longer whereas TXF was officially announced in, what, March with filming beginning in June? It seems like a wee bit more time could have gone into refining the scripts before production. Not that I'm complaining, but there are definitely some rough edges.

Joel McHale has a delightfully funny interview with EW to talk about the finale. I love that he's such a huge, goofy fan of the show and is totally exuberant when promoting it. http://www.ew.com/article/2016/02/19/x-files-joel-mchale-finale

The trumpets are supposedly meant to signal the End Times. Kind of frightening that Mulder hears this. Perhaps Scully doesn't hear it because her alien DNA gives her an immunity of the coming plague whereas Mulder isn't so lucky.

"Babylon" lets you know up front that the X-Files is going to throw some stereotypes straight in your face. Muslim extremist terrorists ready to die for Allah? Check. Redneck Texans suspicious of the brown "other?" Check. A terror response to artwork depicting Mohammad? Shouty talking heads on TV yelling past one another such that no meaningful dialogue can be had? Every single person in Texas wearing a cowboy hat at all times and in all places? Check, check, and check. Mulder's latest interest is the "ear witnesses" of people who claim to hear trumpet-like sounds, seemingly from out of thin air, that Mulder suggests may be interpreted as sounds from God, heralding the End Times. Scully challenges him on this statement, reminding him of his general atheism and aversion to organized religion. Miller and Einstein are contrasty doubles, not a backdoor pilot for spin-off characters. Einstein is Scully but not Scully. Our Scully wrote of the real Einstein's Twin Paradox but this Einstein is Scully's twin in concept only. She's an agent and a medical doctor and she calls her partner "Miller" but the similarities pretty much end there. She's rigid and inflexible and fairly intolerant of any idea other than her own. One might even call her an extremist. She deduced that the only reason Scully would still be in the basement working on "science fiction" was because she was in love with Mulder. While that may be partially true, she wasn't even remotely willing to consider that Scully was rigorously challenging herself scientifically by working on the X-Files; a job 23 years later she told Tad O'Malley was the most satisfying and rewarding of her life. That she worked at cross-purposes with Mulder is a given, but she also worked at cross purposes with her own partner, Miller. Mulder is avoiding Scully because he knows she's suffered recent trauma. Einstein is avoiding Miller because she doesn't trust his methods. Without determining why Miller and Scully were working together, Einstein immediately contacted Mulder as though to thwart or spite her partner's approach to the investigation. Mulder was right to tell her to sit down and shut up -- she is totally a mugwump. Unlike Scully who, although disagreeing, always heard Mulder out, Einstein pays little attention to Mulder's theory that thoughts and ideas have weight. For his part, Agent Miller was far more open to both extreme and scientifically sound approaches for the investigation. While his attempt to speak to the terrorist wasn't ultimately successful, he gets major kudos for holding fast to the idea that the guy could be reached at all and that there was valuable information to be retrieved. Both Mulder and Scully had independent, valuable methods to communicate with the terrorist. Both approaches served each other. Scully and Miller may have kept Shiraz alive long enough for Mulder's more hallucinogenic approach to bear fruit. Miller / Scully find a number of government officials who'd rather the suspect be left to die quickly (and likely think there's no information to be gleaned from him) while it takes Mulder's daytripper episode for him to recognize Shiraz's mother, from whom we learn that Shiraz didn't detonate his own vest and tried to pull out of the attack at the last minute. And what of Mulder's magical mystery tour? He's clearly influenced by his surroundings if Texas native Miranda Lambert is the first soundtrack of journey through the layers of his subconscious. Layers that include a too brief glimpse of Skinner and the Lone Gunmen, a whole lot of Bedonkedonk, and some achy-breakey heart before getting whipped by both a dominatrix Einstein and The Smoking Man. Finally, Mulder witnesses a Pieta type scene featuring the terrorist and his mother. While Tom Waits wails that "Misery is the River of the World", Mulder's subconscious finally meets the terrorist who whispers something in his ear. He wakes up in a hospital to Skinner yelling at him and Einstein telling him she gave him a placebo and his trip was entirely due to the power of suggestion, which is surprisingly strong. Mulder later takes this lesson to heart, believing that many heinous acts in the world, including acts of violence and terrorism, are completed due to the power of suggestion. And yes, that thoughts and ideas do indeed have weight in the world. Einstein and Miller finally get on the same page at the end as they watch newscasts of FBI heroism in breaking up a terrorist cell and thwarting another attack. They appear to be more of an extreme opposites pair than Mulder and Scully ever were, largely due to the extreme nature of Einstein's personality. It's hard to imagine that they will ever be the successful team that Mulder and Scully are. Mulder and Scully are still mirroring each other through the end of the episode. Mulder saw unconditional love - the mother / son; Scully saw unqualified hate that has no end - the DHS officials and the vigilante nurse that sounded like a bot from the worst excesses of talk radio. Scully wants Mulder to talk to her; Mulder wants Scully to walk with him. The talk-to-me/walk-with-me gives way to a conversation in which they posit different interpretations of God's violent scattering of people from the Tower of Babel. Mulder suggests the act itself from an angry God contributes to the violence of man and that violence can only be tempered by maternal love. Scully agrees with the maternal love part and that mothers don't have children to be martyrs, but that the dispora from the Tower of Babel alternately is God's challenge for humanity to come together to find common language and end hatred. And what of William? Was he born, contrary to Scully's wishes, to be a martyr? Significantly, it's Mulder alone that hears the trumpets at the end -- just in time for some Biblically bad shit to go down next week. Random Thoughts: Question: even if the power of suggestion were enough to make Mulder trip balls like that, what did he do to land himself in the hospital? Dance himself to exhaustion? Mulder has a sweet piece of property far away from the noisy city. But appears to have no car. What on earth is his commute to work like in the morning? One thing that became predominant in television after the X-Files went off the air was the rampant cross-marketing of music in television. Call if the "Grey's Anatomy" or "OC" effect, but there could be no other way to end an episode than a moody singer-songwriter or folk-rock band leading a montage of sentiment until end credits. Only a couple original X-Files episodes have used pop music at all, so the musical approach in Babylon was a stark departure, yet each musical cue shifted to tell us something about the characters. While I'm certainly totally Ho-Hey'd out by now, the Lumineers track worked very well to conclude this episode.

Coolio. FWIW, I'm looking forward to Lauren Ambrose. She's obviously worked since the conclusion of "Six Feet Under" but she isn't particularly high profile. She's a really great actress as far as I'm concerned. I was really just puzzled by the comment that some fans were really going to hate something about the second half of the episode. "Hate" being such a strong word, I'll assume it has something to do with the clunky religious commentary. Then again, some of these same critics were also losing their mind over "Home Again," saying it was the best episode ever and I'm not sure I agree with that assessment. Alas, I'm still enjoying the ride, so will wait to see for myself.

Ah. I've spent years working on digital entertainment platforms. Accidentally publishing content early -- that there is the stuff of nightmares. So without completely spoiling people, is the hallucination dumb b/c it doesn't jive with the overall story? Or because the things that happen within the hallucination are dumb? Or both?

I'm curious about the ominous warnings by some reviewers who have said that some fans would really hate the second half of "Babylon." I'm wondering if that just means the dream sequence? Or does something really unexpected happen like Scully hooking up with Miller / Mulder hooking up with Einstein? Any other theories as to what would make people so upset?

Yes, but GA should be the Scully from I Want to Believe. And DD's Mulder should be a progression from that as well--that's where we last left them. And they are. If the material is meant to be comedic in tone, both actors have adjusted to that as well. I don't really see how DD wanting to leave after 7 years working on one show somehow negates his effort now. Clearly he doesn't have to be here. He's here because he wants to be. So when I see the "lazy" comment, I usually just assume it's the reviewer being lazy and recycling commentary from the late 90s. Alas, what I've been seeing both DD and GA do as their characters and where they'd be as 50-somethings, both in relation to themselves and each other makes perfect sense. If nothing else, the actors are absolutely nailing it.

Consider that in this revival, this is the first time we've seen Mulder completely and utterly alone in the world. He doesn't have a job, he obviously doesn't have his sister, but doesn't have either of his parents, doesn't have the Lone Gunmen, doesn't have William and now doesn't even have Scully. Of course he's going to be a sad, dejected mess. I hate seeing reviewers interpret this as "boredom" on the part of Duchovny and not recognize it for what it is--a character whose passion has run aground and has no further resources buttressing him.

I assume for some reason or another he'll be "the key to everything" but I really hope that phrase isn't used. Like, at all.

Chekhov's gun states that if you're shown the gun in the first act of the play, it has to go off by the final act. Same for William. And I agree.

Great, now that the "mom" and "dad" thing has been mentioned, I'm going to start seeing it everywhere---finally came across some "fan" tagging GA and DD as her "parents." Vomit. https://twitter.com/fandomstuffgirl/status/697598438951755777

Oh, I don't know. While GA is certainly a wonderful actress, she has her moments of missing the mark. I cringe everything I hear her read of "There's no time!!!" in The X-Files Movie. It's pretty hilariously off.

I recall that being a particular complaint of DD's in an interview years ago. (I think it was a joint interview with GA, in fact.) The gist of his answer was "the take away is that Gillian is a wonderful actress and apparently I'm just like my fucking character." It's really not a fair assessment of his abilities at all--particular when you consider how inside out he plays Mulder in "Small Potatoes" or any of the Darin Morgan scripts, "Bad Blood," etc. Clearly there is a total character of Mulder that is just not DD at all. Next compare to that his take on Hank Moody in "Californication." I have no idea how much of DD is in Hank, or vice versa, but can definitely say there is zero of Mulder in Hank and zero of Hank in Mulder. So really, maybe, at the end of the day, the guy really is a decent actor that can create some very distinct characters--even if both of those characters are intelligent with a quick sense of humor. That is a trait of DD, no doubt. I agree that GA likely has more range than DD. At least from what I have seen. She may push herself a bit harder than DD does when it comes to selecting wide ranging roles.

"Back in the day" I didn't have near the problem with DD that I am guessing many here have. (From reading the comments.) Although I think his range is more limited than GA's, I've never felt him to be a poor actor and I think TV is definitely his wheelhouse. "Californication", by subject matter, wouldn't be my first choice for a comedy, but I went into it being a fan of DD's. And he rocks it, he really does. He makes this totally hedonistic fuck up of a guy someone you actually root for as he shows over and over again how he's his own worst enemy. And there is really nothing Mulder about it, nothing at all. It's raunchy, of course, but in retrospect, the pilot episode of "Cali" does an excellent job setting up the characters and the series. The first 4 seasons are the best and complete the main character arc, in my opinion. The show drags after that (cash cow!) and definitely goes at least one season too long, but I do think there's some really good work on display in the first four seasons. I may not be objective.

I think for me it was just that there was too much in the episode to really allow the "trash" metaphor to percolate, particularly as it pertains to William. But I do truly understand the sentiment. My oldest nephew Logan (15) was adopted as a baby from birth. He has always known he was adopted and I guess it is somewhat open although thankfully there is no contact with his birth mother. She was a mess. My younger nephew Truman was not adopted--he's 6 years younger and absolutely adores Logan. (As, obviously, we all do.) When he was finally told that Logan was adopted, (probably around age 4-5) he was shocked. His first statement was "Who would throw Logan away?" I think no matter what your intentions are with adoption---and undoubtedly it's usually done for the benefit of the child---that feeling of "disposal" creeps in whether that was the fact of the matter or not.

Well I agree with you on the Syzygy thoughts; I've always considered that one an overlooked gem. So many things to like about it including the high school named "Grover Cleveland Alexander", a school name which exists only to mock DD's failure on Celebrity Jeopardy. Although having said that---and here is something I never thought I'd say---but I'd take Fight Club over almost anything in S9. And I loathe Kathy Griffin with the white hot heat of a thousand burning suns.

Honestly? I trust DD with comedy, I really do. I think it will work out okay.

I wasn't frustrated with the William storyline until they turned him into the Christ-child and then adopted him out. It seemed like a nonsense end to a storyline that had been Scully's main focus for so long. But even if there were going to be further movies (or series) that dealt with colonization, I always assumed that William would necessarily have to be part of it, one way or the other. Am I the only one that interpreted the boy in the S9 opening credits as William? It looked like a 12 year old boy to me, who would match up with the 2012 colonization date. I understand why we're seeing this depiction of William now as we are. They need to figure out their relation to him, and what it can be, before any true colonization event happens. (Whether it's alien colonization or whatever Mulder believes now.)

I'm pretty conflicted on the idea of finding William. I feel like as characters they should have some peace of mind, but my 15 year old nephew is adopted and if his birth mother came looking for him at this point I'd be out of my mind with rage. And I suppose there's always the possibility that William's adoptive parents never told him that he was adopted at all....

Bill Scully, Jr. is in the Navy, right? Or maybe he isn't anymore? Because for the purpose of this episode he was in Germany although I don't think we have Naval bases in Germany? I could be wrong on that, but I thought we only had Army in Germany.

Don't underestimate what a mess S9 made of both off-screen Mulder and Scully's characterizations. Scully was just one big ole weepy mess. I despised S9. The getting back to work thing rang true to me. I think they tried to peg Scully's reaction as much as possible to her reaction and thoughts to her dad's death in Beyond the Sea. She was right back at work for that, too.

This one was a mixed bag to me. While William and other personal issues to Mulder and Scully were always going to be the main through line of the season, "Founder's Mutation" did a much better job of integrating the MOTW and the personal storyline. Beyond that, Founder's Mutation was unique in that it featured M&S together in every scene, driving the narrative forward. I felt like this one got way too bogged down in the various city commissioners being targeted. (Who, by the way, were pretty much world's worst actors. Their initial confrontation in the alley was painful.) The conclusion (?) of the MOTW wasn't compelling enough to warrant the "trash" metaphor as applied to William. As far as guest stars go, Tim Armstrong is no Rhys Darby, that's for sure. I had a hard time understand anything that he was saying. I felt sorry for Scully who couldn't understand why her mother was calling for her estranged brother, and not her, during her last moments. Like she was missing in "Beyond the Sea", she doesn't really need to know "last words" because she knew her dad. And she knew her mom. Although I guess I'm curious to know if the neckless quarter ends up meaning anything. Scully keeps saying "we" gave him away, in reference to William. Damn, Scully, talk about capitalizing the gain and socializing the pain. She spent most of the time saying "my baby" this, "my baby" that, but after Mulder had no choice in giving him up, Scully's all "we" made that choice. I would like to think that whatever guilt Scully is harboring now, she and Mulder at least had some knock down drag out fight in which they actually blamed each other at some point or another. I know this was technically a Scully-centric episode, but really I think Mulder was even stronger through this. Just by his silence and his being there and holding Scully together. Beyond that, GA and DD were really excellent in their scenes together. Scully calling Mulder a "dark wizard" was great as was Mulder admitted that he invented the practice of willing someone back to life. I definitely need to see this one again, although unlike the other three episodes this season, I'm not quite as anxious to.