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Celebrating 1,000 NCIS-franchise episodes

Season 10: I've Been Waiting 23 Years to Say That

AntiBeeSpray

By AntiBeeSpray
in The X-Files [V]

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AntiBeeSpray

AntiBeeSpray

This is your place to talk about the entirety of s10 of the X Files!

What did you guys like about it? Dislike?

Thoughts on the writers and/or writing? (keep it civil though, criticism is welcome... but try to keep it as level as possible)

Favorite and least favorite moments?

Along with anything else general s10 related.

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Ghost of TWOP Past

Ghost of TWOP Past

The latter 3 or so seasons and the movies so disappointed me that I had decided not to watch the revival, because I feared it would be more of the same. I ended up getting sucked in and watching it after all, but it was, as I feared more of the same.

When you listen to Chris Carter interviews (which I did, because I paid for the DVD sets back in the day), he was always congratulating himself on "the stories." People love our stories, people watch the show for the stories, etc. No, CC, your stories never made any damned sense. People liked the moody photography, the even moodier music, the monster-of-the-weeks, and most of all, the characters of Mulder and Scully. They were fun and we liked them, but CC never understood that they were the heart of the show.

And so we got a revival stuffed full of yet another rehash of the mytharc nonsense, one pretty good comedic episode, and very little of Mulder and Scully interacting and adventuring together. When they were together, I was delighted by their banter and supportiveness, but on the whole, it was mostly wasted potential. Which is exactly what I feared it would be.

My wish would be for CC to sell the franchise to a Vince Gilligan/Darin Morgan tag-team, so they could make an all-MOTW format X-Files, but that will never happen because CC needs to make a living and XF is the only real success he's ever had.

Anyway, I don't want to sound too terribly bitter. It was fun to visit with my beloved old characters. But overall? Meh. But yeah, if it returns as a series, I will watch that, too. FOR THE CHARACTERS.

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Bastet

Bastet

(edited)

Yeah, I've been around since season two (and watched season one during the summer hiatus between two and three to catch up), and I've long since been in it for the characters, with a story that makes sense or entertains being a bonus (which happened many times along the way, to be clear).  So I was generally happy with the revival, as modern-day Mulder and Scully felt very natural to me.  Kudos to the actors, because little of it was on the page. 

 

When this revival was announced, the quick turnaround between pick-up, filming, and airing made me very nervous, and in hindsight I think I was right to feel that way.  These were good, but not great, episodes (except the Were-Monster; that was brilliant) and the overall trajectory had issues; this season was enjoyable in the context of the series as a whole, but not up to snuff with what you should come back with after all this time off the air (and after a lackluster second film).  I'd have rather a fall '16 airing to give the scripts more time to develop.  It was nowhere near "film a first draft" level of mediocrity like IWTB, but it wasn't all it could or should have been.

 

There Were-Monster episode was an instant top ten for me.  I saw it immediately following My Struggle at a screening a few days before My Struggle premiered on TV, and said then that no matter what happened, I would be thankful for this revival in order to have that Were-Monster episode in my life ... but I was still afraid episode six was going to suck.  And, yeah, that's how things played out for me.  Babylon had some serious issues, too, but on the whole I liked a whole lot more about this season than I disliked.  I come away happy, with some pretty specific - and sometimes severe - gripes.

 

Big dark cloud, though: I have no shits to give about William, so I don't care if the cliffhanger is ever resolved.  And I might rather it not.

 

(We need a witty title for S10 to match the other season threads, but I think if you asked most people right now the suggestions would be profane.)

Edited by Bastet
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Splash

Splash

(edited)

I think this season would have worked better for me if there was more buildup to the alien DNA/virus situation.  Some tweaks I've been thinking about that might make it more cohesive.  

 

-Don't kill Sveta in My Struggle, but have her be abducted.

 

-Alter Founder's Mutation a bit.  I'll have to rewatch, but I feel like they could have went in a different direction with Agnes.  Maybe instead of her approaching Scully and Mulder while they're talking to the nurse, they could have passed by an area where they have quarantined a group of teens that have been affected by random, unusual illnesses.  It wouldn't really be important to the plot of the episode, but would indicate that something odd is going on, but it's not yet cause for too much alarm or panic.

 

-Move Babylon to 3rd.  Ditch the entire bomber nonsense and use this to ramp up the alien DNA/virus stuff.  Even though we've all got the same alien DNA, how the virus manifests and becomes deadly could differ with each person, so it would be hard for a hospital to pinpoint an epidemic.  The kid gets sick, goes to the hospital, and get diagnosed with something he couldn't have been exposed to.  At the same time, other people are going to hospitals and are getting diagnosed with other illnesses, all that they couldn't be exposed to.  The newbie agents are sent to investigate, but it pings Skinner's interest, so he sends Mulder and Scully.

 

 Mulder can still have his shroom trip to the country bar, which is what the kid was doing when he got sick and Mulder notices other people that are sick in the hospital, helping them figure out that something happened at the club that made people sick.  You don't want to cause mass panic too early, so you slowly trigger the alien DNA/virus with something benign, so that by the time there's a pandemic, it's much too late to stop.  The ending is that the agents figure out that all the sicknesses are connected, but haven't yet made the connection to the virus.

 

-Keep Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster as is, but as episode 4.

 

-Ditch Home Again.

 

-Make My Struggle II a two part episode.  Have Tad O'Malley come back online, but Mulder hasn't disappeared yet.  Have the panic start and have the Scully's mom stuff from Home Again happen.  When Scully wants to back to work after her mom dies, Reyes calls to set up the meeting and Mulder says he's going to do research (his meeting with O'Malley). Have the episode end with O'Malley calling Scully about Mulder and us seeing Mulder fleeing.

 

Have the second episode pick up with Scully at Mulder's house with O'Malley, then her going back to the hospital to start looking at her blood with Einstein.  Meanwhile, Miller is looking for Mulder, while all hell is breaking loose, O'Malley is doing his reports about what is going on, and Mulder is confronting CSM.  While Mulder is confronting CSM, Sveta walks in.  It turns out she was sent by CSM to orchestrate getting Mulder back in the game, so CSM could offer to save him.  Scully and Einstein get the cure and the episode ends the way it did.  

 

 

You still have 6 episodes, you've still got the fun episode, not all of the rest are obviously apart of the mytharc, and it feels more cohesive overall.

Edited by Splash
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Bastet

Bastet

"I've been waiting 23 years to say that."

 

"Season 10: I've Been Waiting 23 Years to Say That" is my favorite thus far.  It takes something directly from an episode, like the others, but also sums up the season -- however one feels about how it transpired, S10 was a long time in the making, so it works without taking a yay or nay stand.

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AllyinthekeyofX

AllyinthekeyofX

I went in to season 10 with no real expectations other than I expected it to be pretty bad (given the debacle that was the second movie).

I didn't expect the characters to pick up right from where they left off in season 9 because too much time had passed.

Was I disappointed with the run of six? Yeah I suppose I was a bit. I hoped for some insight in to what/ how they'd been doing in the last few years. I didn't get that and feel a bit cheated.

BUT I was so damn grateful they were coming back that I was (and am) very forgiving.

I invested a good chunk of my life in this show back in the day and was happy to reinvest ;) I've enjoyed each ep enough to watch them again, probably multiple times, which I can't say about some of the original eps.

On the whole I'm happy. I'm not sure we will get the show back for another run - if we do then I will be less forgiving as it will no longer be a one-off treat. I will expect a much higher investment in the characters. My highlight of season 10 was the were monster eps even though I've never much liked the comedy eps (hated Jose Chung with a passion.) Why did I live were monster? Simple. Because THAT is how I like my Mulder! This forum has been great. I stumbled on it by accident. I won't be stumbling off again :)

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Taryn74

Taryn74

I think this season would have worked better for me if there was more buildup to the alien DNA/virus situation.  Some tweaks I've been thinking about that might make it more cohesive.  

 

Love all of your ideas!  As I mentioned in the My Struggle II thread, the onslaught of the ZOMG THE WORLD IS ENDING, LIKE, TOMORROW Spartan virus was way too rushed.  We needed to see some buildup in order for it to really feel worrisome and plausible.  The whole point of the mytharc has always been that there is an overlying connection to all these random events which only Mulder, Scully, and a few others could see.  When the whole world knows something is wrong, XF loses its mystery and loses its zing.

 

Something else that could also have been effective IMO would be to jump into things (in ep 10x01) in the middle of the Spartan virus, have the underlying theme of all 6 eps be focused on that, while telling the story of how things got to this point in a series of flashbacks (like in the movie I Am Legend).  That allows for a 'bits and pieces' telling without making it feel disjointed.  They could still incorporate the themes from all 6 eps (except for maybe the were-monster, but I didn't care for that one anyway so that wouldn't bother me, heh) but use them to tell one cohesive story rather than jumping from story to story.  Founder's Mutation = the scientist is experimenting to see how alien DNA co-mingled with our DNA can be manipulated into giving humans "super powers".  Babylon = people acting in extreme ways to kill off groups of human/alien hybrids, but in focused small explosions instead of on a larger scale like in FtF.  Home Again = Bill Scully can't come to the States even though his mother is dying because the military is dealing with Spartan outbreaks overseas.  There's all sorts of ways to tie everything together and keep the overall theme of Mulder always managing to stumble across something Important in spite of himself, that makes XF what it is.

 

None of this may have made any sense, but I had to get up early this am to get my daughter to a choir competition and I'm kind of rambling at this point.

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eleanorofaquitaine

eleanorofaquitaine

My suggestion for a title would be "You're a Dark Wizard."

 

I am going to go against the tide a bit and say, no, you can't do an X-Files revival without doing mytharc stuff.  Sure, it can get totally nonsensical and I do think that Carter should have committed to a payoff because you can't extend it forever, but I do think that the mythology is important to the DNA of the show.  So I have no problem with him reinventing the mythology, I just wish it had been executed better.

 

If it were up to me, I would have had the first three episodes of the season be MOTW's - I would have ditched Babylon all together, and kept Were-Monster, Home Again, and Founder's Mutation.  With slight alterations, all of them could have been the season premiere, though I suspect FM makes the most sense as a season premiere (even though it was my least favorite among the three MOTWs). I would have made the last three episodes mythology episodes, and I would have kept the pandemic idea, I just would have had it unfold a little more slowly. 

 

And yes, in all of them, I would have M&S interact more. FM and HA had the most interaction, and it absolutely felt to me like CC was artificially keeping M&S apart in his episodes.

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festivus

festivus

Season 10 thread title ideas:
 

1. "I've been waiting 23 years to say that."

2. "Believe me, you can't unsee that."

3. "Daggoo!"

4. "It's this new camera app."

5. "I'm here."

 

I like no. 5 that's what I was thinking too. 'Back in the day is now' is also fitting.

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supposebly

supposebly

(edited)

I find this dichotomy between mytharc and stand-alone episodes tiresome. It's not so bad with 6 episodes but I still kept wondering what happened to the important stuff (like Scully's alien DNA, the abductee woman with the holes in her body getting killed). Not one word about her in the interim as far as I remember.

So Scully and Mulder just can come back to work because Skinner says so? Who, might I add, is still only A.D.? Why was there nothing said about it? Skinner barely in and it felt like fanservice instead of his character really being integrated in the story.

I would have preferred a consistent, well-plotted story that has a beginning and an end ranging over 6 episodes. Maybe call, it, "the search for William who ends up being an alien confirming Mulder and Scully's worst fears but still tries to prevent the apocalypse".

Or really any other story. You can change the tone from episode to episode, meet some monsters on the way but keep it integrated. Even get in a wacky Darin Morgan episode (although I am a bit tired of this particular wackiness as well) and do that. Talking about wackiness, what is Ben Edlund up to these days?

 

This is 2016, make it completely serialized. It's possible, even with a show that supposedly is dealing with "law" enforcement. Justified anyone?

 

And please, someone take the laptop away from CC, these pointless voiceover blahblahs, the plot contrivances that make no sense, CSM coming back from the dead, terribly flat new characters, it's just hard to forgive these days when there is so much quality writing on TV. Scully as the savior of humankind, Mulder going off ditching Scully because....reasons, Monica's character assassination.

Btw., so Scully's implant kept her Spartan virus in check? So all abductees should be immune? But they took out their implants so they died before the virucalypse? A lot of the abductees we met in the show ended up dead including poor Max Fenig. A terrible plan, I think.

 

CC can barely plot one movie in a way that makes sense, so I vote for someone else doing the writing. Put his name there but really, it's just terrible. I'd love for Brian Fuller to get his hands on the X-files. Or Ronald Moore. He's good for short things. The BSG miniseries was a thing of beauty.

 

I hate these dialogues that start with: I have to tell you something....it's important...it's probably the most important thing ever....you must meet me.....tomorrow is the earliest I can make it, no really, I can't talk on the phone.....then the meeting starts and we again get this.....it's really really important.....seriously, though.....you must understand.....get to the bloody point already if it's so damn important! The world is about to end and you're waffling while getting your ass wet sitting on a bench in rainy Vancouver because CC thinks that creates drama. No one talks like that. Cut it out!

 

At this point, I feel I'm watching two characters I love very much in a show that moves between meh and outright bad. Without the benefit of nostalgia and memory, its flaws show up much more.

Edited by supposebly
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Splash

Splash

Love all of your ideas!  As I mentioned in the My Struggle II thread, the onslaught of the ZOMG THE WORLD IS ENDING, LIKE, TOMORROW Spartan virus was way too rushed.  We needed to see some buildup in order for it to really feel worrisome and plausible.  The whole point of the mytharc has always been that there is an overlying connection to all these random events which only Mulder, Scully, and a few others could see.  When the whole world knows something is wrong, XF loses its mystery and loses its zing.

 

Something else that could also have been effective IMO would be to jump into things (in ep 10x01) in the middle of the Spartan virus, have the underlying theme of all 6 eps be focused on that, while telling the story of how things got to this point in a series of flashbacks (like in the movie I Am Legend).  That allows for a 'bits and pieces' telling without making it feel disjointed.  They could still incorporate the themes from all 6 eps (except for maybe the were-monster, but I didn't care for that one anyway so that wouldn't bother me, heh) but use them to tell one cohesive story rather than jumping from story to story.  Founder's Mutation = the scientist is experimenting to see how alien DNA co-mingled with our DNA can be manipulated into giving humans "super powers".  Babylon = people acting in extreme ways to kill off groups of human/alien hybrids, but in focused small explosions instead of on a larger scale like in FtF.  Home Again = Bill Scully can't come to the States even though his mother is dying because the military is dealing with Spartan outbreaks overseas.  There's all sorts of ways to tie everything together and keep the overall theme of Mulder always managing to stumble across something Important in spite of himself, that makes XF what it is.

 

None of this may have made any sense, but I had to get up early this am to get my daughter to a choir competition and I'm kind of rambling at this point.

 

Thanks!  Obviously, my ideas have their flaws, but it helped clarify in my head what I felt were flaws in this run of shows.  I was feeling pretty disappointed about how this ended up, which didn't make much sense, because I didn't really hate any of the episodes.  For me, the problem was that there didn't seem to be any connection among any of the episodes.  Sveta was a pretty big part of the first episode and nothing happens with that.  I mean, they find out she does have alien DNA, she goes missing, and Mulder and Scully are basically all "huh" and that's the end of it.  To me, that kicked off the flaws in this run, because the lack of resolution with her case wouldn't have been treated like she was just some crazy woman screaming at the bus station.

 

Supposebly mentioned Justified as a successful serialized law enforcement show and I find that comparison interesting. Justified was a show where the character's "quest" coexisted with standalone "MOTW" episodes, without the quest taking over.  They had plenty of episodes where the MOTW was the focus, while the quest simmered in the background.  It wasn't pushed aside for several episodes, only to be brought to the forefront for an episode or two; it was always kind of there behind the scenes.

 

And I think that's really the biggest flaw with this run of episodes.  You have this huge opening episode, saying we're on the brink of something globally devastating.  We're not sure what it is, but it's enough for the FBI to pull two former agents back into the bureau to investigate, only to not mention it again for 5 episodes.  Heck, maybe that explains why Skinner hasn't been promoted past AD; he makes questionable personnel decisions.

 

Taryn74, I absolutely agree with what you said on My Struggle II, about the fact that things were just simply too rushed for it to make much impact, other than frustration.  I was continually baffled while watching this run after the first episode, because I figured it was setting up what the season would be about; stopping this global 'whatever' and I kept waiting and wondering when we'd go back to that, since I thought that was kind of the point of bringing them back into the fold.

 

It actually reminded me of my high school AP English classes.  We were told we at the beginning of the semester that we'd be required to write a 10 page research paper, which would be worth half our grade.  It never failed that a third of the class would forget to do more than the bare minimum on it throughout the semester until the week before, when they would promptly freak out about the paper.  It was out of sight, out of mind until it became a crisis of epic proportions.

 

I have no real opinions about CC as a writer, showrunner, etc.  I don't generally read interviews, articles, or much of anything about any creator or showrunner on any show I watch, so that kind of stuff isn't on my radar.  But it seems to me that the extent of his planning was was with a 22 episode run and not a 6 episode run.  With 22 episodes, you can afford to start your season's theme, drop it for 5 episodes, then pick it back up.  You can't afford to do that with only 6 episodes, because then you get what we got.  If he wanted to do six unrelated MOTW episodes, that's fine, but then do that.  Personally, just seeing Mulder and Scully back on my tv investigating weird cases would have been enough, without dragging a crisis into it.  That way, if it did well to show there's still a market for it, we'd have some fun new cases with our favorite FBI agents and they could do the "OMG, we're all going to die" plot in the next season.

 

As much as I'm 'eh' about Chekhov's Gun, I think Sveta was Chekhov's Gun and that's their misfire.  O'Malley introduced us to the gun in the first act and it didn't go off in the last act, so what was the point of her?  I know I keep bringing up the character and it's not because I thought she was awesome or compelling; it's because we spent an awful lot of time with her in the first episode, only for her to be completely irrelevant in the story.  You could ditch her character completely and have O'Malley just give Scully a file and some alien DNA blood to test and we'd have the same results.

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supposebly

supposebly

(edited)

I kept thinking about why Justified was successful and this one wasn't, at least not for me. I think it was because the characters that were involved in the overall arcs were given equal weight (or at least a lot) while the main character was off hunting some other criminals. We were always up to date on what Boyd or various other major players were doing so when Raylan caught up or he stumbled upon it, it felt organic and it wasn't this huge surprise! It was one for Raylan but not for the viewer. Well, sometimes that too. Different perspectives. We didn't have that this time. I remember Krycek in CSM's car and then I started REALLY watching his every move in Sleepless.

 

The arc wasn't built on surprises like OMG! a space ship! OMG! CSM is alive! but more on the drama created by their activities. Which we never hear about until we get the end result.

So, it's hard to make sense and even harder to get invested since they only get interested once they start appearing on the screen. Of course, dropped plots and characters don't help.

Like the abductee victim which didn't fire and also about O'Malley. What was the point of him? He seemed nothing more than a plot device to get Mulder to investigate this stuff again. Skinner could have done that with much more reason since Mulder probably owes him a few than this character.

Because someone thought it was clever to have a right-wing conspiracy theorist? What's new about that?

Edited by supposebly
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eleanorofaquitaine

eleanorofaquitaine

Like the abductee victim which didn't fire and also about O'Malley. What was the point of him? He seemed nothing more than a plot device to get Mulder to investigate this stuff again. Skinner could have done that with much more reason since Mulder probably owes him a few than this character.

Because someone thought it was clever to have a right-wing conspiracy theorist? What's new about that?

 

In rewatching the first several scenes of My Struggle, I feel like there was an interesting kernel of an idea there. Here's Mulder, whose life has fallen apart because of this conspiracy where "actual evidence is hard to come by" and then here's O'Malley, who has monetized Mulder's obsessions such that he can afford bulletproof limos and champagne.  Furthermore, for all of Mulder's obsessions regarding conspiracy theory, he has been apolitical for the most part, whereas O'Malley is just feeding into right wing paranoia and making a lot of money off of it.  That set up was interesting, but more for a stand-alone with O'Malley as a charlatan than IMO for the mytharc plot regarding the pandemic. I still like the pandemic idea but set up in a different way.

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HalcyonDays

HalcyonDays

How about a quote from the third episode (the one Darin Morgan wrote)

 

The conversation from M&S Meet the Were-Monster:
 

Mulder: "I'm just looking for some kind of internal logic."
Guy: "Why? There isn't any external logic to any of it."

 

Episode thread suggestion:

 

There Isn't Any External Logic - Season 10 General Talk Thread

or

 

No External Logic - Season 10 General Talk Thread.

 

 

Kinda appropriate for season 10, doncha think? :')

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AllyinthekeyofX

AllyinthekeyofX

I rewatched the second movie last night. I didn't think much to it first time around but given the shift in the M&S relationship evident through season 10 I decided (given that the movie was quite ship centred) to give it a go. Whether it was intentional or not, I have to say that CC has remained true to what we saw in the movie. The cracks appearing in the relationship and the conflicts between the two of them regarding the lifestyle/relationship choices they were making. Season 10 M&S dynamic actually makes much more sense to me. As an added bonus the movie was better than I remembered.

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eleanorofaquitaine

eleanorofaquitaine

I haven't seen IWTB since it first came out but I remember thinking at the time that it wasn't as bad as the critics were making it out to be. I mean, it felt like your average MOTW in terms of plot but even at the time, I felt like if you care about these characters, you should care about this movie.

 

One thing that I wish had Season 10 had addressed was the time - are we supposed to believe that Scully moved out right after IWTB? Eight years is a long time to be separated. (I also have to believe that Mulder isn't as difficult to get in touch with as we are initially led to believe. He asks Scully "why Skinner didn't call me," and Scully says he doesn't know where to find him but I suspect it was more that Skinner knew that he can't get Mulder back without Scully, so he was trying to get a read on her willingness to return before he approached Mulder).

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Taryn74

Taryn74

(edited)

I've watched IWTB once or twice since it came out, but I need to go back and watch it again now too.  I have a feeling I will like it a lot better now, since the reasons I was so disappointed with it the first time around (because we genuinely thought it would be the last time we ever saw M/S again, and we spent our bonus time with them watching an extended MotW where they completely ignored the coming doomsday that they spent nine years uncovering, like WTF guys?) no longer applies.  For what it was - an extended MotW with some relationship stuff thrown in - it was actually quite good.

 

Hubby still hasn't been able to watch My Struggle II so after he does I'll go back and rewatch S10 as a whole, with an eye on maybe finding more cohesion between all the stories.  I'll probably end up reading more into things than CC intended trying to tie everything together, but hey, that's what makes being a 'Phile so fun.  ;)

Edited by Taryn74
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AntiBeeSpray

AntiBeeSpray

  • Author

I rewatched the second movie last night. I didn't think much to it first time around but given the shift in the M&S relationship evident through season 10 I decided (given that the movie was quite ship centred) to give it a go. Whether it was intentional or not, I have to say that CC has remained true to what we saw in the movie. The cracks appearing in the relationship and the conflicts between the two of them regarding the lifestyle/relationship choices they were making. Season 10 M&S dynamic actually makes much more sense to me. As an added bonus the movie was better than I remembered.

 

Maybe. But I'm still not a fan of where things are at. At least given Mulder's depression. We got no real explanation as to where it came from, out side of his 'obsession' getting the best of him.

 

The cracks seem to be appearing more on Scully's end in the movie. She wanted out due to Mulder's obsession/darkness. Mulder explained to her that it was his life before he knew her. At the end, he gave that up for her. Did it work, no... but at least he tried. So in a way, it makes me more angry about where things are at. I hate it. There's no other way to put it. At all.

 

For now, I'll be sticking with where they were at in IWTB. At least it's a decent place and Mulder was trying. 

 

Now, we don't have much at all and it's way too ambiguous for my taste. The whole thawing of their relationship line from CC, in regards to the final scene in Babylon was such bs to me. The break up wasn't so much a break up as much as just taking a break from it.

 

I'll be going with what Gillian said about it (meaning that they don't live together but they still have sex occasionally -- M & S) and what the Morgans gave us (Darin with the whole My Mulder scene and letting Mulder find himself again; Glen with letting the characters flirt with each other and letting Mulder comfort Scully and be there for her (it reminded me of how the character was like in IWTB)). 

 

At least what they gave us made sense and wasn't nearly as ambiguous as what CC has been showing us. They seem to respect the characters, their history and their relationship. Same goes with James Wong in regards to their son. The scenes with M & S and their respective thoughts about their child was just heart breaking and well done. 

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Rushmoras

Rushmoras

Overall, I rate S10 6/10. I mean, we only have a couple of episodes in that season and for it to be waisted on stand-alone episodes (like monster of the week or comedic relief) was a poor choice in my opinion. I'm going to repeat what I've concluded on imdb.com boards back then - if it would have been a full 20-24 episode season then CC could have these stand-alone episodes, but when you have only six episodes... well, it's poor choice. Either do a mytharc episodes only or don't do them at all.

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AntiBeeSpray

AntiBeeSpray

  • Author
On 2/10/2017 at 10:35 AM, Rushmoras said:

Overall, I rate S10 6/10. I mean, we only have a couple of episodes in that season and for it to be waisted on stand-alone episodes (like monster of the week or comedic relief) was a poor choice in my opinion. I'm going to repeat what I've concluded on imdb.com boards back then - if it would have been a full 20-24 episode season then CC could have these stand-alone episodes, but when you have only six episodes... well, it's poor choice. Either do a mytharc episodes only or don't do them at all.

I agree with you on that. The only problem was that he blew up the entire mytharc. What we got stuck with this time (in my opinion) made little to no sense. So I actually didn't like what CC came up with at all. I liked the other episodes, warts and all. At least they tried.

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Bastet

Bastet

I re-watched this season recently (first time I'd watched anything other than the Weremonster episode again).  I came away with the same impression I had the first time around - it's good.  Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster is excellent, Founder's Mutation is great, Home Again is good (and could have been better; the case is great, as is the interaction between M&S, but the Margaret/William stuff ruins the pace and just drags it down overall), My Struggle is okay, My Struggle II is sort of okay, and Babylon is bad.  So, on average: good.  And, notably, had CC been banned from writing any episodes of his own show, it would have been great.

My Struggle is okay, as I said, but after all this time our reintroduction to the show is via the always-bad CC combination of voiceovers and stock footage?  He had EIGHT YEARS to come up with a better way of handling the exposition.  It does a good job of establishing why their relationship is in a different place than we left it in IWTB, while showing it's still an intense and affectionate connection, and of bringing them both back to the FBI, so it does its job as a bridge between what came before and what's to come.  It's also fast paced; when it ended, it felt like I'd only been watching for about half an hour.

But, my gods, the mythology.  Watching this after having marathoned the whole series (well, minus seasons 8 and 9) in the past month or so, it was particularly obvious - and annoying - how every.fucking.time someone tells Mulder that what he'd believed before was wrong, and the truth is actually this new thing, he believes it.  Immediately.  I lost count of how many "keys to everything" he's gone through by this point, but he's gonna need a big chain to hold them all.  So how can I possibly get invested in believing this latest theory, or that Sveta is the key to everything?  Until the franchise is 100% guaranteed to never be coming back - which CC will never admit - each "No, really, this is The Truth" story is destined to be discarded.

And the new theory is just about eleventy steps too far into Crazy Town.  I like that they dropped the warring alien factions roaming the earth stuff and went back to government cover-up of experiments using alien technology; as Rance Howard laid things out for Mulder, I let out a big sigh of relief that the mytharc was going to be simpler and more realistic this time.  And then Mulder, Tad Whitney, and Sveta let loose with their giant ball of conspiracy theories and I was suddenly wishing we'd go back to alien-human hybrids and faceless alien rebels setting folks on fire.  "It's fear mongering, isolationist, claptrap, techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason," indeed, Scully.

My other big problem is the scope and scale of it in part two don't fit with XF; it has always been about the clandestine actions of a cabal that go unreported/buried as something else, so a global pandemic creating apocalyptic conditions playing out over international media feels out of step.

And, while I agree CSM was a fantastic villain for nine years, I just cannot with bringing him back.  The man wasn't just burned, he was a flaming skeleton when we last saw him!  Yes, it's a shame that you killed off your villain in the final episode and then, oops, that wasn't our final episode, but live with it.

The reordering of episodes doesn't count as a big problem, but adding the "Welcome back, you two" line does not succeed in making what was supposed to be episode five feel appropriate as episode two; the office is all set up, and they're totally back in the XF groove.  So you have the "Wait, what?" disconnect when, in the next episode, the office isn't much further along than it was when it sat abandoned, and Mulder is rattling off all the old X-Files he was wrong about and questioning his entire professional existence.  The emotional and logistical flow of the season would have worked much better as originally planned: My Struggle, Home Again, Weremonster, Babylon, Founder's Mutation, My Struggle II.

The gag reel for this season is my favorite yet, though; they were clearly having the most fun they've ever had playing these roles, and it's a lot of fun to watch.

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AntiBeeSpray

AntiBeeSpray

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You bring up some good points. I agree with most, only with Home Again as my favorite in terms of feeling in character, Were-Monster was ok, but sometimes it felt a bit forced, Founder's was good but the history, chemistry and what not were just not there for me and it took me out of all of the M & S scenes and it was very disappointing. Loved the dream like sequences with them and William though and the cold open was very well done. Babylon, minus the ok M & S scene in the office at the start, I'd just want to forget. It truly was 50 shades of bad. >_< And MS and MS II are just bad, period. Didn't like the new mythology, it felt like a bunch of woo woo claptrap and the latter episode was way too fast paced to even try to keep up with.


I love the gag reel as well along with the BTS, it looked like the had fun making it. Just wish that it would have transferred more to the screen.

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