S10.E06: My Struggle II

[Happy Harpy]

OK, this episode pissed me off.

 

First, the total cliffhanger. Not for a short revival, thank you.

 

Second, same as many, Mulder and Scully apart for 99% of the time. No.

 

Third, what they did to Reyes. I know that she was unpopular, but I loved Reyes. She was never a coward, she was the most daring and "in your face"/uncompromising with the bad guys, imo (IIRC, it even backfired during Mulder's trial in the S9 finale). I've seen her risk her life on countless occasions and she never hesitated; including when she was alone with a mob of nutcases and Scully giving birth. Her loyalty to Scully, Dodgett, Mulder and the cause was boundless.

If she sacrificed herself in exchange for Gibson Praise and Dodgett's safety? It would be in character for me. But making a deal with the devil to save her own butt? No way in hell, imo.

 

I managed to make sense out of the general conspiracy, unlike in episode 1, so it was OTT but the writing was better for me. Einstein works as the voice of reason/science since Scully is on board of the alien train, Miller is still the most adorable thing in a suit. Really, he can't be William? Scully's "I'm here" mirroring Mulder's previous one at the hospital was my little lovely M/S moment in this episode.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Happy Harpy

[icewolf]

No ending! No resolution!

Chris Carter strikes again!

DAMMIT!

[Baby Button Eyes]

So I am clearly attached to Scully because I'm always fearing the worst with her. First I was nervous, she would become alien in some way. Now I'm nervous that in the end, she's going to sacrifice her life for the rest of the word. She only has so much to give, and would she give her all ??

[GreenScreenFX]

Scully is immortal. The sooner you are on board, the better I feel.

Edited February 23, 2016 by GreenScreenFX

[VCRTracking]

Scully saves the world! If this is the final episode ever(which I now think is unlikely) I'm satisfied with that.

 

Reyes disappointed me but at least Scully still thought of her as a trusted friend after.  Also loved the cheek on the kiss greeting with Scully.

 

I'm not sure when Mulder learned to fight but it looked cool.

[Baby Button Eyes]

Scully is immortal. The sooner you are on board, the better I feel.

I keep forgetting about that! Thanks for reminding me, lol.

Dammit, I would love to see Mulder and Scully working together.

[GreenScreenFX]

I will be sad when Mulder dies, but not really. Scully would kill me.

That being said, none of these characters will ever die... If CSM is alive, so are they.

[Shaynaa]

Benevolent aliens saving us humans from natural catastrophe reminds me of the Outer Limits "Music of the Spheres." I'm surprised that Scully running through a crowd of sick and dying people waving the antidote over her head wasn't attacked and the antidote destroyed in the melee. If Mulder is at death's door, I wonder how he'll survive a hiatus and then a season looking for his son.

 

Kristen Dunst was in that episode, wasn't she?  I remember that.  Yes, Scully waving the cure around was dumb.  She would have been mobbed.  The stem cells plot makes no sense.  Even if they find the kid in the next episode...well the leap in logic there really didn't work and considering how fast Mulder progressed he will be pushing up daisies rather quickly.

2. Scully....I love her, but seriously, the moment Mulder is ill she thinks about using William to harvest his stem cells?  Really the height of hypocrisy when it comes to adopting out your kid. If Mulder had kidney failure, would she be looking to William to provide as a long distance donor farm?  

 

 

Yeah, now she wants the kid.  I know the adoption was for his protect...blah blah, but William really out to tell them to go take a hike.  You don't get to undo an adoption to harvest cells.  Of CSM obviously knows damn well where he is.

 

I could not believe this was all crammed into one episode! The fall of the civilized world, multi-state driving trips, and vaccine development, all in 24 hours. It seems like episodes 1 and 6 are the story they came back to tell, and it would have been plenty for 6 hours. So why didn't they do that? Like I said, I like the sillier stuff, but now looking back I feel like the middle eps were killing time to get to the real story.

 

The timeline of this episode was ridiculous.  We needed to see more than Tad's internet show and some sick people at the hospital.  What gas shortage?  How did Scully create a cure so fast.  How did they drive to SC and back so fast?  This should have been the entire 6 episodes.  You can't shove the apocalypse into one hour and have it make any sense.  The end of the world requires more story.

[GreenScreenFX]

Also... Why make it a cheap TMZ type story? This would be national news. Make Joel McHale a CNN reporter.... Why make him a semi nut job?

The Internet conspiracy did nothing for the story

The Joel McHale story made him look like a sad kook with bad make up. I hope he died.

[baileythedog]

Also... Why make it a cheap TMZ type story? This would be national news. Make Joel McHale a CNN reporter.... Why make him a semi nut job?

The Internet conspiracy did nothing for the story

 

I can understand sticking with Joel McHale because although CNN would be covering the "breaking news" aspect of it, because that "lamestream media" had ignored everything else, they would have no context to their reporting at all. 

[Ronin Jackson]

Me when this thing ended:

[AllyinthekeyofX]

I haven't seen it yet - watching today as I'm in the UK. But I'm a spoilerwhore so I've lapped up this thread ;)

[GreenScreenFX]

I apologize.... I made a mistake in replying to a personal message instead of this very public message board. I am so so sorry and I publicly apologize to you. I realize where I went wrong, and I am sorry .

[Juice4Cheeze]

It may be a bit of a stretch, but I may assume that William is actually in control of that UFO in the final scene, in some fashion. Perhaps he's even in it, locating Mulder in order to save him. CSM probably knows about William, and had a hand in helping to shape Williams life thus far in order to make use of him for the coming scenario we see play out in the finale, though he may not know William is choosing to save his own father, etc.

[Sandman87]

Thanks, Chris Carter, for dragging me back into the seething mass of alien/CSM/end of the world kudzu, and then not giving me a final resolution...again! Go suck a cactus.

[rags]

I liked Monica Reyes in this episode. I didn't feel they destroyed her character. I felt the opposite. I thought the way she was written, and the way Annabeth Gish played her, made Reyes  a much more interesting character this time around. Yes, the Monica from season 9 would have never made a deal with CSM. But, a lot can change a person within 10 years. In my mind, I think there is more to the story than just Monica out to save herself.

 

The cliffhanger at the end of a limited run is annoying/

 

Also, if the x files does come back, let's hope GA doesn't use a wig. It was really distracting.

Edited February 23, 2016 by rags

[90PercentGravity]

I thought that was a disjointed mess. I felt like there was a whole episode missing somewhere. Why end a limited run on a cliffhanger?

[Accidental Martyr]

I guess the anti-vaxxers and chemtrail kooks enjoyed this episode.

At least I got to see Lauren Ambrose and Gillian Anderson together for most of the episode. :)

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I'm surprised at how many people were surprised by the cliffhanger. For one thing, I read several interviews with CC (and a few with DD) that said it was going to be a cliffhanger, so it's not like they were keeping it secret. For another, this is what watching the show was like the first go around.  I remember vividly freaking out with the idea that Mulder had killed himself, and having to wait long months for the resolution. Carter loves his cliffhangers, they are a part of the show's history, and I actually kind of love that he went ahead and did it.

 

That being said, I agree that she should have skipped Babylon and made this a two-parter (which still could have ended with the cliffhanger).  There was a lot to develop here and trying to cram it into one episode was too much.  Like I said, I didn't have much of a problem with Miller and Einstein here but they could have introduced them in some other way - even in the season premiere - without us having to sit through Babylon. And honestly, I kind of like the reboot of the mytharc.  I think that it makes way more sense for a shadowy cabal of humans to use alien technology in this way than to cooperate in the invasion of the planet.

[Chaos Theory]

I know people a nitpicking the hell out of this but I enjoyed it. I was calling William would play a part with all the references to him but I was for a second there I was thinking Miller was going to turn out to be William then I realized he was sick too. It would have been interesting symmetry though.

This Rosie was full of cool scenes. The bridge scene was my favorite. I also like Mulder and Cancer Man.

[Sandman]

Maybe it was Doctor of Physical Education or something.

Maybe they're Doctors of Thinkology. Which would make him the man behind the Conspiracy Curtain, I suppose.

[jecica]

How come Mulder isn't immune to this "Spartan" virus? Since he was also abducted by aliens and all that... Also, I desperately want to know about the new I Want to Believe poster in the revival, one that Scully refers to as "hers". How did she acquire it?

[shrewd.buddha]

I thought the dialogue between Scully and Einstein at the beginning of the episode was some of the worst I had ever heard.

...Until I heard the dialogue between Mulder and ol'Smokey. Chris Carter should not be allowed to write dialogue. 

 

Also, Mulder, don't bring a gun to wave around during a verbal pissing match. It's annoying.

 

Dear Alien Overlords,  I suspect you are taking Mulder and Scully away for a while and will bring them back for short periods during network sweeps months. Any chance you could take Chris Carter with you? I guess we will be fine with the mini-me's during their absence, since everyone seems to forget about everything else for four episodes at a time. 

Edited February 23, 2016 by shrewd.buddha

[benteen]

Yeah, Scully waving the cure around was ridiculous.  I was surprised she wasn't attacked or had it stolen.

[Primetimer]

There's filler, and then there's FILLER.

Read the story

[eleanorofaquitaine]

Yeah, Scully waving the cure around was ridiculous.  I was surprised she wasn't attacked or had it stolen.

 

Well, to be fair, it's not like anyone was aware she had the cure, they just saw a redhead waving around some hospital bags. O'Malley didn't name her as the doctor with the cure, and as difficult as it is to believe, not everyone in the world knows who Scully is.

[Prevailing Wind]

From the "filler" story...

 

if you knew you'd have to maneuver through gridlocked traffic to get to your dying buddy, wouldn't you grab a smaller vehicle, maybe even a motorcycle?

But Vespa isn't a show sponsor.

[terrymct]

"Maybe someone who works for the X-Files should have considered that widespread use of the smallpox vaccine was ceased in 1972. So when Scully talks about how Einstein (and everyone else) got the DNA glitch via the vaccine, well, unlikely, since Einstein was clearly born later than that. But why let that little nitpick get in the way of an otherwise excellent episode?"

The smallpox vaccine modifies the person's DNA and that change is then passed on to their kids. I think that's how the younger generation is supposed to be affected.

[PreBabylonia]

I watch The X Files to see Mulder & Scully work together. Not Scully & Einstein, not Mulder & Miller, Mulder & Scully. They wasted half the episodes on WIlliam, & now in the finale the 2 leads aren't even together most of the episode. This is not what I want to watch.

 

Does Lauren Ambrose automatically get any role that calls for a redhead?

 I'm just grateful that it wasn't Bryce Dallas Howard.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

"Maybe someone who works for the X-Files should have considered that widespread use of the smallpox vaccine was ceased in 1972. So when Scully talks about how Einstein (and everyone else) got the DNA glitch via the vaccine, well, unlikely, since Einstein was clearly born later than that. But why let that little nitpick get in the way of an otherwise excellent episode?"

The smallpox vaccine modifies the person's DNA and that change is then passed on to their kids. I think that's how the younger generation is supposed to be affected.

 

Yes, that's how I interpreted that. Because I was aware that the smallpox vaccine ended in the 1970s - but I wish they had made that more clear.

 

Also from the article:

 

Smoking Man tells Mulder all the same stuff we've been told all episode: the conspiracy guys seek to clean house, hence the global sick day from which most will not recover. But Mulder can save himself, by accepting "a seat at the big table." This is the part where I expecting Smoking Man to announce "Fox, I am your father," but we didn't get that. But there was this!

 

I feel like a lot of people have forgotten that, in fact, CSM is Mulder's father and we've known this for a while.

Edited February 23, 2016 by eleanorofaquitaine

[Neurochick]

But overall, the episode fails miserably as a series finale, and only works on the understanding of an upcoming eleventh season. I don't think that was the best idea for a limited, test-the-waters miniseries revival. Season 11 having a cliffhanger for a likely Season 12 would make sense. In my mind, they should've tied up the Tad O'Malley-plot, maybe had their big action-packed alien immunodeficiency virus (and solved it), and perhaps tossed in the cliffhanger with the UFO and/or William announcement as an afterthought, after the main plot of the revival had been settled.

 

 

I didn't like it.  I loved X Files but I felt like I wasted 6 weeks of my life.  If it doesn't come back next season...yawn.  I think it's because I'm older and have watched better shows on cable, but...sorry IMO this sucked.

[madam magpie]

Yes, that's how I interpreted that. Because I was aware that the smallpox vaccine ended in the 1970s - but I wish they had made that more clear.

I'm also not sure how quickly it ended completely. I think the CDC stopped recommending it, but some doctors still did it. I was born in 1973 and got it. I believe Lauren Ambrose was born in 1978. I can buy that it trickled away during the 1970s, and many of the people born during that time got it...and then passed the mutation to their kids.

Edited February 23, 2016 by madam magpie

[njudah]

first, thank you for writing this, you basically said what needed to be said, and did so awesomely, like here:

"humanity will be going out not with bang but a whimper, to which I reply, "Like this fucking show."'

I mean, wtf was even the point of this 6 episode exercise beyond earning some pension and health days for the actors and some royalties for Chris Carter? 1 bad 2 parter with "monster of the week episodes" in between? Seriously? The cabal won.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I'm also not sure how quickly it ended completely. I think the CDC stopped recommending it, but some doctors still did it. I was born in 1973 and got it. I believe Lauren Ambrose was born in 1978. I can buy that it trickled away during the 1970s, and many of the people born during that time got it...and then passed the mutation to their kids.

 

It stopped being routine in 1972 but yes, there were a few years where it was at the discretion of the doctor (I was also born in 1973, and I don't think I ever received the vaccine, but I am not sure).  The disease itself was considered eradicated by 1980, so I imagine by 1978, most doctors were not administering it.

[elzin]

Did Not Like.

 

I mean, lots of Scully is good. Reyes is good.  CSM half face? NOT GOOD.

 

I could *maybe* get past a cliffhanger if I liked the episode enough to give a shit about what happens next. Alas, I don't. Now, I will watch if more eps happen, but this episode really killed a lot of my enthusiasm for this revival.

 

I know this is going to sound weird for a show about monsters and aliens, but I like my X-Files grounded in reality. I like it when it COULD have happened IRL and we'd never know. That it coexists for the most part with the real world. But a global crisis that's this scale and extent? That's great when I'm watching You, Me, and the Apocalypse or Last Man on Earth, but X-Files works for me more real, less diverging from what is true.  And this show went too far this time.

[eleanorofaquitaine]

Did Not Like.

 

I know this is going to sound weird for a show about monsters and aliens, but I like my X-Files grounded in reality. I like it when it COULD have happened IRL and we'd never know. That it coexists for the most part with the real world. But a global crisis that's this scale and extent? That's great when I'm watching You, Me, and the Apocalypse or Last Man on Earth, but X-Files works for me more real, less diverging from what is true.  And this show went too far this time.

 

See, I am the same way, which is why some of the mytharc stuff - once they got into the alien war - got a little far afield for me. Which is actually why I like the idea of human beings attempting to engineer a pandemic, because that actually seems more grounded in reality. That being said, I agree that the execution of that story is a bit off - you just can't cram it into one episode. But in terms of being more plausible as an extension of the mytharc? This did work for me in ways that some of the later season mytharc didn't.

[festivus]

I don't know if they were banging their heads on desks, but there were certainly two people co-credited with CC on the story, and "Dr." was notably attached to both names. Maybe they're his therapists? I don't know.

 

Hilarious

 

if you knew you'd have to maneuver through gridlocked traffic to get to your dying buddy, wouldn't you grab a smaller vehicle, maybe even a motorcycle?

 

If this would have happened I would spontaneously combust so it's better that it didn't.

 

I wish this end of the world could have been a movie instead. Everything was just too crammed in there.

[mledawn]

From the previously.tv recap:

What a shamefully wasted opportunity.

 

 

Yep. Damn you, Chris Carter. After all these years, still so gd tone deaf.

Edited February 23, 2016 by mledawn

[roomtorome]

For the last episode I was very disappointed they kept them apart - the story was/is stupid, that I expect but I watched to see these two characters sharing scenes together not whatever crap they threw together for this limited run.

 

(As a note to whomever mentioned GA's wig - I read that her hair had begun to fall out and so it was decided not to risk harming it more by dyeing it red - that I can definitely understand.  I don't personally care if it is a wig or not - I only care if there is some decent writing, directing, etc and, on that score for me, they failed miserably).

 

Oh well.  I didn't have super duper high hopes in the first place - 

[Tardislass]

See I saw this series different. I saw it being a cross section of what the X-Files was before. MOTW, conspiracies, etc. While I think the finale prob. Would work better as a movie, I am 100% certain that Fox is not going to free lite another one. For them TV episodes are a better value. Also a virus seems more plausible then the alien shape shifters as far as The end of the world. I'm sorry that so many people were unhappy with this. Personally, I've had a lot of heartache this year and this miniseries was the perfect escape. It wasn't perfect but it I am now a Phile again after 15 years and 1 bad movie. I was entertained for an hour each Monday-so thanks to all cast and crew.

[festivus]

I was happy too on the whole Tardislass even if my posts don't quite come across that way. My X-Files obsession has been simmering on the back burner for 15 years and I'm more happy than I can say that we got more. I still would have liked for this end of the world to have more than one episode but that's what season 11 will be for. 

[HalcyonDays]

You know, I know Mulder and Scully are not killers, but at the same time, sometimes you've got to just pull the trigger - for the greater good of humanity. One, for millions.

 

Mulder, aim that gum at CSM and pull that trigger...

 

I can only speculate that they will reveal in season 11, that CSM is officially an alien/human hybrid - literally put back together with alien tissue. Othewises, who could survive that?

[Bastet]

I’m still so disappointed in this episode in the light of day.  There was a lot of Scully, which is great, and as Scully and Einstein continued to work together – and Einstein stopped being such a pill – I really enjoyed that.  The science was ridiculous, but I was willing to go along with it for a while.

 

But then it turned into something that is just not XF (or, more accurately, not the XF of the six and change seasons I watched).  I know it’s sci-fi, but, as someone said up-thread, it was (again, until the last season or so, which I’ve only read about) generally grounded in stories that could conceivably be happening in real life without us knowing.  So this televised global pandemic is just too far for me.

 

So that's one of my fundamental issues.  There's also keeping M&S apart for 59 minutes.  CC loves to separate them for season finales, which is annoying enough when that finale is one of 22 episodes.  When it’s one of SIX? 

 

And then there's the cliffhanger.  That there was a cliffhanger was known going in, but I don’t want to just skip over that – it’s easy to sit here now, with weeks’ worth of stellar ratings and knowing FOX will green light another season if the actors can come to terms, and say, “Well, sure, a season-ending cliffhanger.  That’s XF.”  But at the time CC wrote this, he was damn lucky to be getting these six and had no reason to believe he’d get anymore.  Yet instead of writing a self-contained story – which doesn’t preclude the possibility of telling any of the gazillion other stories out there should the show be renewed – he writes a cliffhanger in which the world possibly ends. 

And, finally, the specifics of the cliffhanger.  Now for the show to come back, it has to revolve around the search for William.  And I’m rather aggravated by that, which has been my issue all throughout this revival (which I enjoyed other than the constant William, William, William).  You don’t build a show around Cousin Oliver, you mitigate your last-gasp mistake in creating him by getting rid of the damn character.  Which we did FIFTEEN YEARS AGO.  Now he’s back as the Key to Everything?  We had a nice – yet muddled and rushed (and not particularly logical) - thing going in this episode where Scully was the key.  Works for me, after all these years of her playing second fiddle.  But, no.  She’s just the incubator for the real Key to Everything.

 

So, yeah; as someone else said up-thread (and which I have already stolen in each of the three email conversations I have going this morning about how disappointing this episode was): Go suck a cactus, CC.

[green]

I thought that was a disjointed mess. I felt like there was a whole episode missing somewhere. Why end a limited run on a cliffhanger?

 

I had no idea why Mulder looked like he did in the first episode all unshaven and weird but there were like 3 or 4 episodes when he looked all FBI-look.  I started to think the middle episodes were just dreams or something because I don't get how you go through them from episode 1 to episode 6 when those two episodes seem to be happening within hours of each other given how Mulder looked etc. 

 

Or, if it was the other way, why weren't they running around in the middle episodes working on the junk from episode 1 that seemed so important at the time.  Or at least mention or reference it.

 

There's filler, and then there's FILLER.

http://previously.tv/the-x-files/the-x-files-limps-to-the-finish-line/"> Read the story

 

Thanks for great re-cap.  I'm not the only one that found this episode totally weird I guess.

 

Again, I will always have the were-monster-human to remember with joy.  The other 5 episodes capped off by this total dribble episode at the end ... not so much.

 

Also cliffhangers went out like with the old century.  No one likes them.  They just piss off people.

Edited February 25, 2016 by green

[madam magpie]

But at the time CC wrote this, he was damn lucky to be getting these six and had no reason to believe he’d get anymore.

I don't see it that way at all. I see it as...Fox was damn lucky that all of these people who made them a MINT on this show are still interested and excited to work on a project they left behind 15 years ago. The people with the power here are Chris Carter, Gillian, and David. They don't need this show anymore. Fox still needs to make money, though. The network should be stoked that these people fit them in.

I really don't understand all the crazy about this ending on a cliffhanger. Did anyone expect anything else?? Ending on a cliffhanger is so common it's basically a cliche. Writers have been doing it since stories became serialized. The goal is to leave us all dying to know what happened so the audience demands that Fox continue the show. That's not bad writing; it's economics. And so far, it appears to be working exactly the way it should. Why would anyone wrap this story up neatly when there's still so much money to be made from it??

As for William, the hybrid being is ALWAYS the key. Of course he is. As his mother, Scully is also crucial, and she has to piece it all together and protect him. But I mean...I don't get why that surprises people either. He's a link between two worlds.

I'm also not convinced William is driving the UFO, though it's a legit possibility for sure.

Edited February 23, 2016 by madam magpie

[AntiBeeSpray]

I had no idea why Mulder looked like he did in the first episode all unshaven and weird but ther were like 3 or 4 episodes when he looked all FBI-look.  I started to think the middle episodes were just dreams or something because I don't get how you go through them from episode 1 to episode 6 when those two episodes seem to be happen within hours of each other given how Mulder looked etc. 

 

Or, put another way, how in the middle episodes they weren't running around working on the junk from episode 1 that seemed so important at the time.

 

 

Thanks for great re-cap.  I'm not the only one that found this episode totally weird I guess.

 

Again, I will always have the were-monster-human to remember with joy.  The other 5 episodes capped off by this total dribble episode at the end ... not so much.

 

Also cliffhangers went out like with the old century.  No one likes them.  They just piss off people.

 

Yep. I was never a fan of cliffhangers back then, and now I really don't like them.

 

At least I have eps 2, 3 and 4. Better than nothing I suppose.

I don't see it that way at all. I see it as...Fox was damn lucky that all of these people who made them a MINT on this show are still interested and excited to work on a project they left behind 15 years ago. The people with the power here are Chris Carter, Gillian, and David. They don't need this show anymore. Fox still needs to make money, though. They should be stoked that these people fit them in.

I really don't understand all the crazy about this ending on a cliffhanger. Did anyone expect anything else?? Ending on a cliffhanger is so common it's basically a cliche. Writers have been doing it since stories became serialized. The goal is to leave us all dying to know what happened so the audience demands that Fox continue the show. That's not bad writing; it's economics. And so far, it appears to be working exactly the way it should. Why would anyone wrap this story up neatly when there's still so much money to be made from it??

As for William, the hybrid being is ALWAYS the key. Of course he is. As his mother, Scully is also crucial, and she has to piece it all together and protect him. But I mean...I don't get why that surprises people either. He's a link between two worlds.

I'm also not convinced William is driving the UFO, though it's a legit possibility for sure.

 

Fair point. But it doesn't leave any character in a good place if things don't continue.

 

I think he might be on the UFO itself. Not driving it, just being brought by the aliens to help his parents out.

[madam magpie]

But I think, of course it's going to continue. When Carter thought he was done, he wrapped up the plot (season nine and the 2008 movie) and left the main characters together. The fact that he didn't do that here seems like a good indication that he fully expects the show to come back.

I kind of hope William's on that ship because I really want Scully to find her kid. But I worry that when she does find him, he'll be a psycho or something, a la the miracle grow child on Falling Skies. (I forget her name...)

Edited February 23, 2016 by madam magpie

[Sandman]

Did anyone else find that the final episode had a markedly different tone than even the rest of the revival? The show has always been about discovering and combating the conspiracy, not halting the complete destruction of civilization across the planet. Having Mulder and Scully (and Miller and Einstein and Monica) pitting themselves against the Apocalypse while it's happening onscreen is something the show's never attempted on this scale, I would say. Some of my reaction to feeling rushed through the episode may be attributable to that, I think. Although I agree, a two-part format might have worked a bit better.

 

Edited to add: I probably shouldn't have been at all surprised by the cliffhanger, given the show's past reliance on them. But I still feel frustrated by it. And the fact that they're still common enough to be considered clichés is an argument against them, in my view.

Edited February 23, 2016 by Sandman

[Ghost of TWOP Past]

Opening narration: "My name is... conspiracies... aliens... yadda yadda... damn, I'm pretty... holy cow, what marvelous eyes I've got... " Well, that's how I heard it, anyway. 

 

Sigh. This is what they expend the last episode upon? The Big Conspiracy, of which there are 97 versions, none of which make sense? And the return of the Wonder Twins? More sigh. And a cliffhanger? RAGE! Oh my god, the pretentious dialog! "I'm going to tell you something you need to know," instead of just telling it. Five minute conversations with one piece of information in them. I knew it was a CC script before looking.

 

Moronica sitting on a bench, in the rain. Unless she was sitting there when the rain started, she would have been sitting on a cold, wet bench. (Yes, things like that bother me.) And then Scully sits on it. too. Ew! Wet pants!

 

I must have missed something. When did Einstein switch from angry skeptic to helpful believer?

 

All of a person's DNA is identical. The quantity of the sample should have absolutely no effect on test results, right?

 

For the umpteenth time, X-Files! Vaccines do not cure, only prevent new people from being infected!

 

At least the divine Scully saves the world with her gene Communion.

 

 

Maybe it's the twenty years I've aged, but I'm kind of over the aliens. Take the planet, don't take the planet, just make up your damn minds.

 

I know, right? They've been working on this for 30,000 years or so. We'll have Afghanistan pacified before the aliens finally rule earth.

Mulder, aim that gum at CSM and pull that trigger...

 

CSM: "You can't kill me! I've watched air to ground missiles die! Stung a bit."

Edited February 23, 2016 by Ghost of TWOP Past

[eleanorofaquitaine]

I really don't understand all the crazy about this ending on a cliffhanger. Did anyone expect anything else?? Ending on a cliffhanger is so common it's basically a cliche. Writers have been doing it since stories became serialized. The goal is to leave us all dying to know what happened so the audience demands that Fox continue the show. That's not bad writing; it's economics. And so far, it appears to be working exactly the way it should. Why would anyone wrap this story up neatly when there's still so much money to be made from it??

 

I don't get it either because, c'mon, this is what The X-Files does.  To be perfectly honest, I think I would have been disappointed if they hadn't ended on a cliffhanger.  I get that television has changed and a lot of the delayed gratification that comes from a cliffhanger isn't what we're used to seeing anymore.  But it was a lot of fun during the first run to end a season on a cliffhanger and to spend months speculating as to what's next.  I don't see this as much differently and I've been honestly quite surprised at how many people seem to feel almost betrayed that they would end with a cliffhanger.  CC, DD, and GA have been all over creation at this point saying they'll do more episodes if schedules allow, the ratings have been good and the limited series is making Fox money.  I just don't think that they ever believed that this was going to be the end, and I can't get too worked up about it, even if it was.