The Search For Truthiness

[bloodyrosemccoy]

Following Netflix’s suggestion, I finally started watching The X-Files. Partly it was in an attempt to understand what the hell everyone else was watching back in the day when I was an adorable little counterculture twerp who feared scary TV shows, and partly it was being sick of only having seen what fans assure me are the four worst episodes,* although how they differentiate is difficult to tell now that I've seen more. I mean, they're all pretty bad. And as I watch, I think I’m finally starting to understand what my sister was talking about when she explained her addiction to True Blood. My thought processes for The X-Files go something like this:

“Dang, this is a terrible show.”
*next episode*
“Totally boring and pointless.”
*next episode*
“Nobody told me the actors were this bad.”
*next episode*
“And I never knew how completely ineffective Scully and Mulder are.”
*next episode*
“I mean, do all of these monster-of-the-week episodes end with the monster still at large, or at most temporarily inconvenienced?”
*next episode*
“Why am I still watching this?”

You get the idea.

Although I am having a great time seeing just how different things were just under two decades ago. I can see how people get stuck in the When I Was Your Age loop: it’s fascinating to see how things change. Even the mindset is different. (No Straight To The Internet mentality—not even for crazy conspiracy theorist loners looking to meet other crazy conspiracy theorist loners—and at least one episode based entirely on phone tag.) Pretty entertaining.

Mostly, though, it’s a perfect show to ignore while writing, and I’ve certainly got a lot of that to do if I’m gonna get this OGYAFE done by my own deadline. Time to turn on another boring ineffective badly-acted** X-File and get back to work!

*next episode*


*The one where Scully gets an evil tattoo, the one where Bryan Cranston's head explodes, the one where inbred hillbillies booby trap their house, and the one where Deep Roy crawls up people's asses and kills them.

**The first season has terrific sound mixing, though. I can hear every single ambient conversation in the street scenes. Sadly, though, I was left hanging with the drama of Lady Trying To Establish Which Store She Will Meet Someone In Front Of Later in favor of some other story about monsters running amok. Also I swear our heroes are being shadowed by one very determined, Tourette’s-affected dog.

Comments

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

I always preferred the monster-of-the-week eps. The ones about the Big Bad Conspiracy bored me to tears. I really could not give less of a shit about the Cigarette-Smoking Man.

The best were the ones written by the guy who played Fluke Man, because he always made fun of the whole thing. And especially made fun of Mulder.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

The comedy writer who wasn't sure why he was writing for this show? Yup. The one thing that actually made me laugh out loud was from an episode he wrote--"Humbug." It wasn't even a line; it was just a well-timed cut to a shot of Mulder posing. It was obviously self-aware and meant to be funny--and it succeeded beautifully.

[gwalla.livejournal.com]

The GQ pose? Yeah, that was a golden moment.

IMO, his crowning achievement was "Jose Chung's From Outer Space", which thoroughly skewered the show itself and all of the UFOlogy & conspiracy bullshit it drew on. And in a later episode he revealed how Mulder was fated to die (it's...not a particularly heroic end).