The X-Files Season 1
SPOILERS TOTAL. You've been warned.
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101: Pilot 1993 September 10
Watching now, in 2011, this seems... a lot hokier than it did back in the day. Part, I think, 18 years of TV production values. Part, my greater knowledge on things like abduction and UFO phenomena make Fox Mulder sound like a kid trying to show off. Part, so much other fiction since mixing in paranormal mythology, and knowing this show itself has 200 episodes in front of it, it seems such a crazy thing that they get lost time, abduction scars, implants, magnetic fluctuations, strange mutated corpses, mysterious lights affecting people right in front of Mulder all in one episode. Part, it seems pretty shameless the way they have Scully seem worried about scars of her own as an excuse to get her in her underwear, and makes her look weak to be hugging on this guy she barely knows since she's so frightened about it.
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102: Deep Throat 1993 September 17
I can believe that the government or portions of the government can keep huge secrets... but I'm not so sure about the one on this show. A top secret military base with a hole in the fence that stoners regularly use to enter? With surveillance so poor they don't notice a guy going through and walking to their big hangar until he's literally on the runway? Incredibly regular and visible testing of ET-derived craft within bike distance of a small town, rather than out in the middle of nowhere?
Continuing the talk of hokiness from the previous episode--this episode itself wasn't quite as hokey. BUT the title sequence sure is. Big floating "PARANORMAL ACTIVITY" text plus vague imagery like a screaming face and twisting body? Early 90s hip!
Non-content note: I _think_ I saw this episode when it first aired. The first time I'd seen the show, and boy was it up my alley.
Also, Seth Green.
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103: Squeeze 1993 September 24
Now that's how you make a memorable "monster of the week" episode.
Also, Donal Logue.
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104: Conduit [[]] [[]]
Not much to say about this one, but following Seth Green and Donal Logue this episode features a small appearance by... the guy who played Ogre in Revenge of the Nerds II!
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105: The Jersey Devil [[]] [[]]
What a waste. Not that there's anything wrong with stories of sasquatch or wild men, but those are a dime a dozen and could be set anywhere in the world. Why conflate that with the much more fantastical creature known as the Jersey Devil, blowing their chance to do an episode about the real one?
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106: Shadows [[]] [[]]
We got the ultimate X-Files cliché twice in this episode. Mulder witnesses insane ghostly phenomena, it stops, Scully immediately bursts into the room. Though to be fair, the second time it was the insane ghostly phenomena keeping the door shut so she couldn't have done much about it.
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107: Ghost in the Machine [[]] [[]]
Some similarities with Stretch. In that an old friend of one of the lead pair comes along with a strange case asking for help, acts like a douche, and the mystery is weird enough to be on this show.
Scully, did you just use marker on a monitor? I wondered if she'd watched too much Stargate, but this show predates the movie.
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108: Ice [[]] [[]]
It's like The Thing without nearly as impressive a thing.
I like how Hodge assumes Mulder and Scully have extra knowledge because they're with the FBI. It's like Mulder's conspiracies dialed back one level.
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109: Space [[]] [[]]
Michelle seemed to want to be an anomymous tipster, and even at NASA Mulder and Scully would just say that the images they got "arrived", but I kiiinda think the three of them seeming to be tethered to each other while they were around gave it away.
The ghosty alien thing effects were pretty bad. Also, stock footage, but that rarely matches up well in anything.
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