Slashdot Mirror
The End of The X-Files
fonixmunkee writes "CNN is running this story that says the cult TV classic, "The X-Files," shall be no longer after this season. I have been a huge fan of this show since it started in '93, so I'm quite saddened by it's projected departure." The story originally showed up in Daily Variety, saying that Chris Carter wants to move on to other projects.
I gave up watching the x-files a long time ago.
Origionaly it was very good but the writers seemed to confined with the same plotlines and format of each episode.
Had the program been given a freer reign and alowed to evolve over time (think star-trek) I think I would be still watching it today.
Shame
Anyone quoted by a reporter knows how little they understand
Don't believe what you read is the truth.
With the season that ended in 2001, it was obvious that way too many patches had been applied to the story continuity, and with the season finale, I simply gave up. The show just sucked at this point. Heck, my sister and I decided that when something sucked real bad, we would simply call it "X-files bad".
I do feel bad for the show and Duchovney. He is a very likeable actor, however, he has been severely typecasted (see the last two or three movies he's been in) and I don't think he can really shake that off. I don't even know if Gillian Anderson can make the break, but she probably has a better chance.
Anyway, R.I.P.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...
The show should have ended after the 5th or 6th season. Use the movie as a stopping point, or as a prelude to the final season. In an abstract way, I like how Mulder & Scully are now the shadowing unknown figures to the newbies Doggett and Reyes.... but the show just lacks the same sort of viceral, "what the hell is going on here?" punch that it used to have. How many bug episodes have there been, now? 4? (Cockroaches, flies, bees, little-glowy-green-things from inside trees) After you unravel the whole Alien Conspiricy (tm), there's nowhere to go but down.
Pity Fox didn't give Lone Gunmen a better chance. The 1st episode was.... eh (and HOW "eh" after Spet 11th), but some of the later ones were just brilliant. Guess John C. Potato doesn't wanna watch middle-aged geeks. Who knew?
AHHHHHHH! I'm burning with goodness again!
- Reakk, Sluggy Freelance
the 3rd time the found Mulder's sister.
Scully has a baby.
The New Year's Eve kiss.
Right after "From Outer Space"
This
The X-files is ooold. Old in the sense that it's
out of touch with the trends. Government conspiracies were all the rage back in the early
ninties (Oliver Stone's J.F.K. for example),
but it doesn't feel very fresh today.
I think in 20 years people will look back on 'X-files' as a typical ninties show,
like "Cheers" for the 80's, "M*A*S*H" for the 70s,
etc..
Comparing Dallas (80's soap) with X-Files (90's soap):
Dallas - Bobby has an affair with another woman.
X-Files - Mully gets kidnapped by aliens.
Dallas - Yet another JR scheme to get all the money from the familly.
X-Files - Yet another conspiracy at the highest level.
Dallas - Pamela's dream sequence.
X-Files - Scully's dream sequence.
I've been watching X-Files since its first season, and let's face it... it's been pretty terrible in recent years, even before Mulder and Scully were written off into the margins. How long can you milk an alien colonization/invasion/kidnapping/master-race-breed ing conspiracy before the plot twists and turns cease to be surprising? Personally, I think they should make more episodes involving... what was her name, Candy? the entomologist. Or more episodes where Mulder kills vampires by driving stakes through their hearts. Or yes, more carnie episodes with real Geeks and the puzzleman!
I'm not going to miss X-Files. Give me the reruns!
--Jim
which episode was that? i've got some gnutella searching to do :)
and, as it has been said before, Mulder's departure killed it. They could have survived a few more seasons answering questions leading to other questions leading to blah... But Mulder's presence was IMHO mandatory for the X-Files concept to catch audience.
:]
:)
BTW, I always thought the way they designed the Mulder character was chosen to perfectly suit us geeks. It was Mulder's charism that made the show enjoyable (and later on, "watchable") instead of what it has now become : absolute crap
Until Carter has another good idea ("good idea" != "Millenium"), I will live on my memories of the first 3 seasons of X-Files
Karma cannot be described by words alone.
The cinematography still rocks- the homage to 'Traffic' last week was cool. (I just got the arc between 'All Things' and 'Grand Canyon' after seeing the latter last week) And even if the character development has stalled a bit, the writing still exhibits creative flashes (even if the only character to ever speak truth was Kritchcau during his walk with Mulder thru the Pentagon!) The problem has always been that while we want Mulder and Scully to wild thing, we're sorta repulsed by the cheapening of the act into some sorta alien conspiracy instead of the natural progression of a relationship.
Course while the reality of Anderson and Duchovney's 'antipathy' towards one another doesn't help the overall vibe one gets from the show, there's no denying the onscreen chemistry is one of the best ever. Reyes and Dogget do hold some hope, although there was one scene where Reyes and Anderson appeared simpatico.
Overall, perhaps it's better to do movies, where the plot lines could have the continuity of writing and cinematography and feel more of a piece than a 44min tv show.
I agree, but it's timing was all off. Chris Carter was looking to take control of Fox Friday night along with Sunday night. Unfortunately, that was back when X-Files was still a decent show and no one had enough time to try to keep track of two twisting storylines. Millennium would have been a great followup to the end of X-Files.
Wooden armaments to battle your imaginary foes!
Been an X-File fan for years and originally thought that the loss of Duchovny was irrecoverable.
But...let me just say that Robert Patrick is one damn fine actor. While Mulder's character was far more likeable and what not, Patrick's portrayal of Doggett is superior IMHO. If they could have severed ties to the Scully/Mulder X-Files and just call the Doggett/Reyes X-Files The Next Generation or something - I'd be happy.
The restrictions imposed by continuity and actors disinterested in continuing their roles hamstrung the entire show. Unfortunately, what could have been a more than viable alternative (Doggett/Reyes) is weighed down by the legacy of the show.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.
In a hotel in a small mountain village, Chimgan, on the edge of the Altai mountains there is a hotel. At 2$/night, you may guess that this isn't the Hilton.
On entering the hotel, I sneaked passed the reception (I was registered as a local there)and we passed a television room where about 30-40 people were watching TV with rapt attention,
It was the X-files, of course (earlier episode with Mulder as well as Sculley). In a country where the government really does have control, it was hot stuff, even when badly dubbed into Russian.
See my journal, I write things there
There's a nifty little website out there called Jump The Shark ... "a Chronicle of the moments a TV shows goes downhill" ...
For me, I'm not sure when that momemnt happened, but I just know I haven't been watching it for the past couple of years. To me, the show lost it's "Twilight-Zone-Like" playfulness somewhere down the line and is now just another tedious soap-opera with a monster waiting to jump out of a closet.
Then again, I liked the original Lone-Gunman, and lost interest after only a couple of episodes.
healyourchurchwebsite.com - WWJB?
I am glad that that shuffling animated corpse of a show will finally be given the long-overdue burial it deserves. It hasn't had anything new to say since the last millenium.
I have been a fan of The X-Files pretty much since its inception. It's one of the only TV shows I actually put aside time to watch (the others being the local news that's on while I get ready for work, and CBS Sunday Morning. Everything else is pretty much tripe IMHO).
I have to confess that I was not sorry to see Mulder go. Once the whole Samantha thing was resolved (well done, I might add), he bored me. As much as I like Scully, I think she probably should have left along with Mulder. The two are too closely intertwined in the series to survive without the other. Especially with the revelation a few shows ago that Scully and Mulder had a thing going (I thought they just did a turkey baster number and moved on from there). Scully and Mulder in love? Good grief... Remember when Mork married Mindy, or when David got together with Maddy (that was on Moonlighting, for those who don't remember)? Talk about a death knell for a TV show. Now we have the whole Scully & Mulder fling to bore us into changing the channel.
This has me worried about a sequel to the X-Files movie. If both Mulder and Scully are in it, I can guarantee it's going to be a love story. I don't mind love stories, but I don't think they fit with the whole X-Files thing. If it's a love story, I'm going to skip it fer sher.
All that said, I am very sorry that Reyes and Doggett won't be able to develop more. I sincerely think that those two characters could have easily taken over for Mulder and Scully. I find them immensely more likeable at this point anyway. They have all the sexual tension that Mulder and Scully had, and they still offer that "I believe" vs. "I'm skeptical" professional tension that M & S had. Plus these two actually have lives. This makes them much more interesting.
Anyway, I'll shut up now. RIP X-Files... You gave me something to watch after Twin Peaks was cancelled...
E.
The show did not go downhill after Mulder left. The show went downhill after Cancer Man left. He was the face of the conspiracy. He was the glue to it all. Without him the show has languished and there appears to be no overarching purpose anymore.
Mulder: What are they doing?
Scully: I think they're trying to tell us something, Mulder.
Scully: Mulder?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
The shows went bad when they moved production of X-files from Canada to California. The show lost its feel, its mood, its whole character. David D. got married and demanded that the show move to California so that he could be close to his wife. David was the main reason the show was likable and also the main reason why the show sucks now...
Thankfully I will no longer have to deal with Xfile zealots whining on about "We'll you just never know".
The problem with the Xfiles was that at the heart of it's fundamental premise was a contradiction. They existed in "our" universe, but shit happened that was total fantasy. As a result, science would always fail to explain what was happening because it was bound by the rules of the real universe but the "other side" of the dramatic tension, was not. This really annoyed the shit out of me. I mean it _REALLY_ annoyed me, to the point that I could just never watch it.
I think the comedy analysis with Dallas was quite pertinent. Xfiles was soap opera and nothing more. I have never found a soap opera compelling (unless you count Chances in the last series or so, but then they got canned with funding for another 12 episodes or something and so that just got bizarre!). BTW I would argue that Bab5 was not soap (definitely) and that shows like space 1999, dr who, start trek, stargate (not all are series I like) whilst not necessarily "dramtically complex" are not soap opera either.
"The first thing to do when you find yourself in a hole is stop digging."
For awhile I was thinking that it was time for the X-Files to end. Many of the most recent plots centered around a hackneyed government conspiracy and the acting was only good at best (save Robert Patrick, he's been very good in my opinion.) but I hardly think that the X-Files has gone downhill as badly as, say, the Simpsons.
This was until I saw the latest episode last Saturday, which I can venture to say was one of the best X-Files Episodes I had ever seen. The plot was great, the acting likewise was excellent, and the cinematography was top-notch. It was really a testament to how well the X-Files has been able to recover after losing one of their stars, and nearly losing the other. Another of my favorite episodes also was a fairly recent one, also starring Robert Patrick and not David Ducovney, namely the one starring another Terminator 2 alum, Joe Morton. This was the one where the lawyer seems to be moving backward in time from when he is killed by the father of his wife who he allegedly killed, to the actual murder itself. The plot was ingenious, the acting equally as good, and ranks among my top 20 or so episodes. First rate work, and although I commend them on choosing to go out on top, unlike many of the posters here, I will be sad to see the show end.
forma3
When they announced that Duchovny was leaving, they had a chance to bring some fresh air to the show. Unfortunately, they blew the opportunity by letting Duchovny hang around with Mulder casting a shadow on the last two seasons. Patrick, unfortunately, never really had a chance to do much with his role.
I guess this was a pretty good deal for Duchovny who mistakenly thought he was good enough for movies just because his wooden delivery worked on the small screen. Now without X Files, the frightening thought is that we'll get more Duchovny movies. So long as he sticks with roles like that which he had in Zoolander (the wacky conspiracy nut), he'll be OK.
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
David D. got married and demanded that the show move to California so that he could be close to his wife.
Fox asked Chris Carter to move the show to LA. The tax breaks in Canada were reduced, so the cost per episode ended up being the same in both locations (since they were still flying a lot of the actors up from L.A.) David Duchovny mentioned that he'd support the move so he could be closer to his wife, and that's what the media jumped on. We shouldn't blame David Duchovny for something that wasn't his decision.
- W. Blaine Dowler
http://www.bureau42.com
I got into the X-Files during the 2nd or 3rd season, while I was in college. I loved it, never missed an episode, and loved trying to figure out what happens next. I kept thinking that Carter was going to tie it all together, that there was some story arc going on that was so big I couldn't even see it all, and that at least a few of the plot lines would come together.
Sadly, several years later, I still watch every week via my TiVo, but I do so only because I invested so much time before. Don't get me wrong, I like what Patrick and Gish have brought to the series, and though I miss Duchovny it's not about that either. I've come to realize that the Emperor has no clothes. Carter just drops some acid, pulls some wild conspiracy theory out of his ass for the week, and writes an episode. Nothing is resolved, nothing is explained, nothing even ties into another episode, you can watch them in almost any order.
The only way Carter could possibly redeem himself is by making a 2-3 hour movie that opens right after the series ends, that ties everything together, brings back Duchovny, explains the aliens/bounty hunters, Scully's Baby, Mulder's sister, Patrick's son, and whether chewing gum loses its flavor on the bedpost overnight.
As it is now, I'll kind of plod through it, fast forwarding through the slow parts, and yelling at the TV every 15 minutes. The Cigarette Smoking Man has won...
When in danger or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout. --Robert A. Heinlein
Yeah. Like "Harsh Realms"?
I've hated the X-Files since the second episode. (The first episode was actaully promising, but then it got real dumb, real quick. Imagine how great the X-Files would have been if David Lynch & Mark Frost had worked the project.)
Carter was only successful because there was a severe vacum in culture which needed to have that massive up-swing in weird UFO, crop circle & abduction stories acknowledged in some manner. He did it in the dumbest possible way which has had the basic effect of making such material seem ridiculous and beyond consideration. "Nobody cool believes in conspiracies anymore!"
Nice job, Carter! You did a bang-up job of putting the nation back to sleep with your nose for extraordinarly DUMB writing. (The X-Files actually had one of those 'The Office Tower Computer has gone Homicidal' stories, for goodness sake! I thought we'd left that kind of crap behind with Wonder Woman and freeking Knight Rider!)
Good riddance, Carter.
-Fantastic Lad