X-Files Episode Elimination Game

[Bastet]

Yep, there are another ten episodes I could easily sub in for six through ten:

 

Irresistible

DHDV

Darkness Falls

Memento Mori

Leonard Betts

Unruhe

Wetwired

Ice

Syzygy

Kill Switch

[Taryn74]

These are in order of how they appear in the series, because it was hard enough narrowing it down to Top Ten.  No way can I rank them, at least not right now.

 

Irresistible

Pusher

Memento Mori

Detour

Bad Blood

Tithonus

Monday

Biogenesis/Sixth Extinction/Amor Fati

Sein und Zeit/Closure

William

[queequeg]

These are my solid, sure top five:

1. Bad Blood

2. Triangle

3. Detour 

4. How the Ghosts Stole Christmas

5. The Pilot

 

From here down things change moment to moment... like I've rewritten these multiple times since I posted above, but I think I'm feeling pretty good about this (for now):

6. Memento Mori

7. Quagmire

8. Tempus Fugit

9. Max

10. Ice

 

Honorable Mentions in order of airing (meaning they made my 6-10 in one version or another):

Fallen Angel

Little Green Men

Ascension

Anasazi

Paper Clip

War of the Coprophages

Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space' 

X-Cops

[janestclair]

Oh wow, is this hard. 

 

Bad Blood is definitely number one.  After that, who knows.  How about one big tie for second, with no particular order other than this is the order I thought of them:

Small Potatoes

Ice

WotC

Field Trip

Beyond the Sea

Monday

Je Souihate

CBFR

Pusher

 

Except that leaves out DHDV, Paper Hearts, Leonard Betts, Squeeze, and Darkness Falls.  Crap.   And Tithonous.  I literally have no idea how to rank these. 

[queequeg]

I'm kinda in shock the elimination game is over... like what do I now do with myself?  

[joelene]

I know :(

Maybe there are other stuff to make elimination games of?

[mauve]

1. Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'

2. Redux II

3. Ice

4. Memento Mori

5. Pusher

6. Home

7. Paper Hearts

8. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose

9. Anasazi

10. Small Potatoes

 

Like many of you, numbers one to five are pretty much set. As for honorable mentions, in order of preference, more or less:

Detour

Pilot

Triangle

Dreamland II

Quagmire

Chinga

Tithonus

Monday

Wetwired

Sein Und Zeit

Darkness Falls

How the Ghosts stole Christmas

Irresistible

 

These cover my all time favorites. But there are many others I could add just for being so rewatchable!

This was really fun! I had a blast revisiting this series! Now I'm bummed it's already over. :(

[Taryn74]

Oh there's all sorts of stuff we can make Elimination games out of......favorite M/S scenes per season, favorite monster scenes, anything really.

[Bastet]

In the version of this game we played at TWoP, we did pluses and minuses: Each episode started with 15 points, and each round (every 24 hours), you could give two points (++) or take two points away (--) from three episodes.  At some stage of the game - when a certain number of episodes are left, but I can't remember what that magic number is - plus votes are limited to one (+) while negatives are still at two (--).  Or maybe it's the opposite; it has been a long time.  Anyway, the first episode to get down to zero points is the last-ranked episode of the season, and so on until there's just one standing. 

 

I wonder if the ability to counteract each others' votes would make a difference in the rankings.  With so few people playing, it's likely not worth it to find out, especially because even with a lot of people voting it's a protracted game - we'd be here until the New Year just getting season one nailed down - but it's something that popped in my head now that this is over.

[queequeg]

Oh there's all sorts of stuff we can make Elimination games out of......favorite M/S scenes per season, favorite monster scenes, anything really.

 

I'd be down for that, but how do we compile the lists or do we all just nominate a bunch and then start voting?

[Bastet]

Maybe for whatever category we'd be doing, each person could nominate three (three chosen based on the idea there are about 10 of us playing, so that could be adjusted) and then, eliminating duplicates, that could be the list on which we vote. 

[joelene]

Good suggestions! Monster of the week/guest villain, could maybe be something too? Maybe it would be too connected to the episode (like the game we just played), maybe not. Say, for example, Ice was voted season 1 favorite but the ice worm might not be.

Edited October 10, 2014 by joelene

[queequeg]

So people wanna throw out some ideas to choose from?  None of these we have to do, just ideas.  So far above we have:

 

Favorite Mulder/Scully scene

Favorite monster scene

Favorite monster or villain

 

I'll add:

Favorite stupid/immature Mulder moment

Favorite voiceover

Worst voiceover

Funniest scene

Saddest scene

Favorite hospital bedside scene (too much overlap with fav M/S scene?)

[smrou]

By Mulder/Scully scene do we mean something romantic or shippy, or just any scene with the two of them?  (Note: I'd definitely prefer the latter.)

 

Another category could be favorite line/quotation.  Or do separately favorite Mulder line, favorite Scully line, favorite other-person line.  

[queequeg]

We could make it either, but I'm OK with just any scene with Mulder and Scully.  Doesn't necessarily have to be shippy.

 

I vote divide favorite lines by person so Mulder, Scully, other-person.  There's so many good lines, milk it for a few rounds.  :)

[joelene]

I'm not a shipper, never have been and never will be. That's not to say I don't love the romantic scenes and Mulder and Scully as a couple (they are one of my favourite couples in TV history, after all, and probably the closest I've had to a 'ship') but romance overall is one of my least interesting subjects on TV, so personally I wouldn't be very interested in just those moments.

I'm also terrible with quotes from The X-Files for some reason (whereas I could quote other shows verbatim) so I'm not sure how much I could contribute to nominations, but I'd be happy to hand out my votes!

I have a tendency to think of the episodes as a whole rather than remember all the moments/great lines, I guess. Unless it's the gross parts :)

Edited October 10, 2014 by joelene

[queequeg]

I really wish I could have experienced X-Files through a non-shippy lens.  I wonder if I would have always shipped them?  By the time I came in at the movie, the good ship had already set sail and then immediately sunk in the hallway.  So even when I then went back and watched earlier seasons, I still saw it through shippy lenses because I knew what was to come.  I feel like that took some objectivity away that I otherwise might have had.  

[Bastet]

but romance overall is one of my least interesting subjects on TV,

 

Amen to that.  I think it's one of the least-interesting aspects of any person's life, so for it to be the primary focus of so many a fictional character's life is quite frustrating to me.  But with XF, the good thing about CC's fear of sex is Mulder and Scully's most intimate moments aren't at all traditionally romantic.  At any rate, I'd like to see the list of M/S moments be all sort of great moments between them - comedic, snippy, deeply at odds, etc. - rather than just moments of UST or romance.

 

I think my favorite idea so far is best quotes, divided up by character.  I also like the idea of voting on a favorite villain, because some of my favorites are simply creepy (e.g. Donnie Pfaster) while some are also sympathetic (e.g. Gerry Schnauz, Leonard Betts). 

[smrou]

At any rate, I'd like to see the list of M/S moments be all sort of great moments between them - comedic, snippy, deeply at odds, etc. - rather than just moments of UST or romance.

My feeling also. I think a lot of their greatest moments are when there's conflict, either serious or silly. Or when they're showing that they make a good team in a purely professional way. And anyway, it's not like there are really explicitly romantic scenes between them until pretty far along in the series thanks to CC, as you mentioned, and his fear of sex and commitment to the idea that any romance would ruin the show.

I also like the idea of voting on a favorite villain

Yes definitely.  Actually, this is my favorite suggestion so far. Edited October 10, 2014 by smrou

[Bastet]

We could even do villains by season, without needing to nominate characters to go on the list -- just list the villain for every MOTW episode (because I don't think having CSM, WMM, etc. in the mix is a good idea) from season one and play that game, move on to season two, etc.

[joelene]

But with XF, the good thing about CC's fear of sex is Mulder and Scully's most intimate moments aren't at all traditionally romantic.

I love his restraint too. I think we got the perfect amount. When I watched it during its first run I don't think I even thought of a romantic aspect. Even when they kissed in Millennium I think I was like, "Aw, that's sweet", and promptly forgot it happened. I missed all the big clues. I was always in it for the cases and their professional partnership and as friends. The romance was kind of just a bonus because it felt organic and there wasn't any other romantic bullshit going on.

I think my favorite idea so far is best quotes, divided up by character. I also like the idea of voting on a favorite villain, because some of my favorites are simply creepy (e.g. Donnie Pfaster) while some are also sympathetic (e.g. Gerry Schnauz, Leonard Betts).

And some villains are better than their episode. Like, I wouldn't call Fire terrific (tho I like it) but I think Cecil is. And it would be fun to see how monsters (like the insect thing from Folie a Deux) ranked versus humans, if we were to do that.

I think I vote quotes or villains/monsters too (and not just because the latter was my idea, promise!).

Edited October 10, 2014 by joelene

[Bastet]

I was definitely using villain as inclusive of both humans and monsters.

[Taryn74]

I would love to start out doing favorite villains/monsters!  I think that would be great.

 

We play Elimination on another board and for the ones like "favorite scene" or whatever, everybody just starts listing ones they think of until we have enough to start voting on.  We usually go season by season.

[Bastet]

In thinking on it, season one has some really lame villains -- the computer in Ghost in the Machine, whatever the hell was going on in Space, whoever was genderbending, the Shapes werewolf or whatever, the salamander hand guy, etc.  But it also gave us Tooms, Luther Lee Boggs, the Eves and Cecil L'Ively.  And the Ice worms and Darkness Falls bugs.

[joelene]

I'm already cheerleading Mrs. Paddock.

[janestclair]

I'm already cheerleading Mrs. Paddock.

 

LOVE Mrs. Paddock. 

[joelene]

Any preference for what game to play, janet? Or was that proclamation a vote for villains? :-)

[janestclair]

Any preference for what game to play, janet? Or was that proclamation a vote for villains? :-)

 

Voting for villains sounds like a good plan to me.  Should be interesting. 

[AntiBeeSpray]

Sorry for being late... dang rl :p.

 

Top 10

 

Bad Blood

Arcadia

Improbable

Ice

The Truth

Home

The Pilot

Small Potatoes

Momento Mori

Je Souhaite

[Bastet]

It sounds like a "most interesting villains" (thus encompassing those you sympathize with and those who creep you right out) elimination game is a go, so do we want to do one list all at once (based on nominations) or go season by season?  Even eliminating the mytharc episodes, not every episode has a concrete villain, so some seasons might yield a somewhat short list.  But there were a lot of MOTW villains over nine years, so doing a whole series game might either result in an unwieldy list or leave out some characters we'd have liked to vote on.

 

I kind of like the idea of going season by season, even if some games are shorter than others, to see where the lowly villains wind up ranking with respect to each other.  If we vote from among our nominations, we may find out how Leonard Betts ranks compared to Donnie Pfaster, which is certainly interesting to know.  But if we vote by season, we'll find out how the spirit of Howard Graves ranks compared to whomever was possessing that creepy kid in Born Again.  Heh.  Which, to me, is interesting for its randomness.   And it would also be interesting to note, as someone said previously, how an episode's villain ranks as an individual compared to how the episode as a whole ranked (e.g. Cecil ranking higher than Fire, the worms ranking lower than Ice).

 

And then we can do an all-stars at the end, just like with the episodes.

 

Or, if we'd rather not go through every season but do want to divide things up a bit, we could do humans and monsters separately, do creepy/scary and sympathetic separately, etc. 

[joelene]

Good post, Bastet. I think season by season and throwing every weird villain in there sounds great. I mean, where would Humongous Underground Fungus rank in season 6? This one would like to know! Or would we dismiss such a creature from the game? Maybe that one is too abstract. Still, including "monsters" like the Darkness Falls bugs and Ice worms would be fun.

And if we do it like that, season by season, you could separate the humans and monsters when the season is over and easily see how such separate lists looks like.

Edited October 12, 2014 by joelene

[Bastet]

Oh, I say if we're going to do season by season, we toss in the villain from each MOTW episode that had one -- even if that villain is a computer, a bug, a fungus, etc. rather than a person or monster.

[queequeg]

Another vote here for season by season, and I think we should just lump all villains/monsters together in one big mash up.  My only question is what to do with recurring villains (members of the Syndicate, CSM, Krycek, etc.)?

[Bastet]

I think they should be omitted, and we should stick with one-off villains (well, two-offs in the case of Pfaster and Tooms).

Edited October 12, 2014 by Bastet

[joelene]

Agreed.

Anyone feel like taking the reign? I could do it if no one wants to but I wouldn't mind passing on the torch :) Or we could always switch between seasons if no one feels like tallying and updating all the way through.

Edited October 12, 2014 by joelene

[Bastet]

I can do season one at least, but need help remembering who the villain is in some of the episodes.  Here is what I have:

 

Eugene Victor Tooms (Squeeze and Tooms)
The Jersey Devil (The Jersey Devil)
Howard Graves through Lauren Kyte (Shadows)
The Eurisko computer (Ghost in the Machine)
Worms (Ice)
The Eves (Eve)
Cecil L’Ively (Fire)
Luther Lee Boggs (Beyond the Sea)
Warren Dupre through Jack Willis (Lazarus)

John Barnett, the salamander hand guy (Young at Heart)

Bugs (Darkness Falls)

Charlie Morris through Michelle Bishop (Born Again)

Dr. Arthur Grable through Roland Fuller (Roland)

 

But I can't remember WTF is the villain in Space, Shapes (werewolf?), Genderbender (Brother Andrew? Or the Kindred as a whole?) or Miracle Man. 

 

If y'all can fill in those gaps, I'll post a complete list tomorrow morning (late morning, Pacific time) to open up voting.

 

(With the Pilot, Deep Throat, Conduit, Fallen Angel, EBE and Erlenmeyer Flask, the villains are aliens, the shadow government, etc. so I left those out.)

Edited October 12, 2014 by Bastet

[AntiBeeSpray]

I can do season one, but need help remembering who the villain is in some of the episodes.  Here is what I have:

 

Eugene Victor Tooms (Squeeze and Tooms)

The Jersey Devil (The Jersey Devil)

Howard Graves through Lauren Kyte (Shadows)

The Eurisko computer (Ghost in the Machine)

Worms (Ice)

The Eves (Eve)

Cecil L’Ively (Fire)

Luther Lee Boggs (Beyond the Sea)

Warren Dupre through Jack Willis (Lazarus)

John Barnett, the salamander hand guy (Young at Heart)

Bugs (Darkness Falls)

Charlie Morris through Michelle Bishop (Born Again)

 

But I can't remember WTF is the villain in Space, Shapes (werewolf?), Genderbender (Brother Andrew? Or the Kindred as a whole?) or Miracle Man.  I also can't remember who is controlling poor Roland.

 

If y'all can fill in those gaps, I'll post a complete list tomorrow morning (late morning, Pacific time) to open up voting.

 

(With the Pilot, Deep Throat, Conduit, Fallen Angel, EBE and Erlenmeyer Flask, the villains are aliens, the shadow government, etc. so I left those out.)

 

I thought the villian in the episode, Space, came from Mars somehow. And that it infected the astronaut who had been there.

[Bastet]

Face on Mars alien/ghost through Lt. Col. Belt?

Edited October 12, 2014 by Bastet

[joelene]

Space Ghost! (Why isn't there a movie with that title?) Or Mars Ghost, whichever you fancy. I think the villain in Miracle Man is the disfigured man. He's the one who caused the deaths, if I remember right? Perhaps Religion is the villain. With Shapes I think it's that deputy who's mainly responsible, sooo, Werewolf Deputy? Drawing a blank on Roland.

Genderbender... I guess Brother Andrew? Didn't the Kindred up and leave because of what he did? Or was that mainly because Mulder was on their trail?

ETA: Lyle Parker is the name of the deputy and the man in Miracle Man is called Leonard Vance, whom an imdb user said "was a truly creepy villain played by Dennis Lipscomb," so I guess one can't argue with that.

Edited October 12, 2014 by joelene

[queequeg]

That stupid Mars face.  That's what I've always called it.  lol.

[Bastet]

All these years, I never realized that was Dennis Lipscomb!  Of course, in all these years I have probably only watched it twice, but still.  (I don't know him by name, but by several '80s shows.)

 

Okay, it looks like all the gaps have been filled - thanks, all - so I'll put up the complete list tomorrow morning and we'll be on our way.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Bastet

[Taryn74]

I can't wait to get started!

 

And I say once we're finished doing the season-by-season MOTW villains, we do one for all the baddies associated with the mytharc!

[Bastet]

And here we go with our latest elimination game: Most Interesting Villain.  (We’re choosing from among the villains of the week and thus excluding CSM, Krycek and the like, but of those we are including humans, monsters, spirits, critters, computers, what have you.)   Whether they scare you, make you sympathize with their motivations, amuse you, disgust you … whatever it is that makes them interesting, which one of them does it best?  (While the episode in which they appeared is certainly a factor in our enjoyment, the focus is on evaluating the villains on their own.)

 

We’ll vote by season, then vote among the top three from each season to come up with an ultimate Villain of the Week.

 

The perps of season one:

 

Eugene Victor Tooms (Squeeze and Tooms)
The Jersey Devil (The Jersey Devil)
Howard Graves through Lauren Kyte (Shadows)
The Eurisko computer (Ghost in the Machine)
Parasitic glacial worms (Ice)
Mars Face ghost/alien/whatever-the-hell-it-is through Lt. Col. Belt (Space)
The Eves (Eve)
Cecil L’Ively (Fire)
Luther Lee Boggs (Beyond the Sea)
Brother Andrew (Genderbender)
Warren Dupre through Jack Willis (Lazarus)
John Barnett, AKA the salamander hand guy (Young at Heart)
Leonard Vance (Miracle Man)
Deputy Lyle "Werewolf" Parker (Shapes)
Phosphorescent bugs (Darkness Falls)
Charlie Morris through Michelle Bishop (Born Again)
Dr. Arthur Grable through Roland Fuller (Roland)

 

Vote for the two you want eliminated first, in the order you want them gone.

Edited October 13, 2014 by Bastet

[joelene]

This is actually really hard. For example, Space Ghost! (as I like to call it) is super lame but as an entity/image in itself it's kind of hilarious, so I don't want to vote for it yet.

I almost went right ahead and voted for Arthur Grable but is the point here to consider both components (Arthur and Roland)? I have no recollection of Dr. Grable at all (hence my impulse) but I'm not sure I want to chuck Roland in the bin just yet.

ETA: Because I couldn't even get the guy's name right.

Edited October 13, 2014 by joelene

[smrou]

The first batch that I vote for are going to be pretty arbitrarily decided.  This season just has so much in the way of ghost/spirit/whatever inhabiting another person, which is not particularly interesting to me but also that means they kind of blend together.  

 

So anyway, my votes:

Mars Face ghost/alien/whatever-the-hell-it-is through Lt. Col. Belt (Space)

Charlie Morris through Michelle Bishop (Born Again)

[Bastet]

There are a whole lot of things that may or may not exist acting through actual people constituting the perpetrators of XF cases, so this will be a recurring problem - how much to separate the two.  Where the person being used to carry out the villain's deeds is being completely controlled by that villain, I'm going to take them out of my equation (It's like those Modell uses to act, only here we just happen to have only one person being controlled by these particular villains). Where they're being influenced, but not totally without free will, I'm going to consider them alongside the villain.

 

I think I'll give the Mars Face thing a point for at least stirring up a WTF response and give my first votes to villains that don't register at all:

 

Leonard Vance (Miracle Man)
Deputy Lyle "Werewolf" Parker (Shapes)

Edited October 13, 2014 by Bastet

[joelene]

Yeah, it's a tough one. My personal feeling is that I'm gonna have to disregard Roland from the equation (he was a pawn, though I might be forgetting some things that implicate him more), and the most villainous villain of the episode I can't even remember the face of (or his motivation), so my first vote is for Dr. Arthur Gable through Roland (Roland)

The "possessed" ones are harder to separate because they're, well, possessed. But I can't remember that Warren Dupree was terribly interesting, even if I do like the X-File. So second vote is for Warren Dupree through Jack Willis (Lazarus).

Edited October 13, 2014 by joelene

[AntiBeeSpray]

Gonna be hard to choose.

 

My votes:

 

Mars Face ghost/alien/whatever-the-hell-it-is through Lt. Col. Belt (Space)
Phosphorescent bugs (Darkness Falls)

[smrou]

Yeah, it's a tough one. My personal feeling is that I'm gonna have to disregard Roland from the equation (he was a pawn, though I might be forgetting some things that implicate him more)

Whereas I think, even though Roland (for example) was being controlled, his character informs my opinion about that villain, at least as far as my interest in the story goes.  So I don't think I can ignore the "host" (if you will) completely.  

 

This is already really fun and interesting to think about.  Comparing human or human-like villains (Tooms/Pfaster/Betts), where their motivation and personality are a large factor in how interesting and effective they are, to totally non-human or even inanimate villains (bugs/worms/computers), where it's all about the way they attack and how that affects their victims is tricky but fascinating.  

[Taryn74]

Both of these grab my interest at below-snooze level, so they're the first to go:

 

Warren Dupre through Jack Willis (Lazarus)

Deputy Lyle "Werewolf" Parker (Shapes)