Edmond vs The X-Files!

Okay, so here's my "warm-up" liveblog!

I guess there should be a sort of preamble, but honestly I don't know what to say. So let's just jump into the first episode, shall we?

Pilot

Originally I wasn't going to do plot summaries (since X-Files is available on DVD like a million times over and plays on TV all the time), but since I'm going to do them for my He-Man liveblog I figured I'd get some practice in.

Plot Summary: Dana Scully is assigned to the X-Files, a special branch of the FBI devoted to solving unexplained cases. The branch was (re)opened by Fox Mulder, a gifted detective who has an obsession with the paranormal. Mulder introduces Scully to a case of four teens who died under mysterious circumstances, the latest one discovered with weird puncture marks and chemicals on her body. Mulder suspects that all the victims were abducted by aliens. He and Scully go to Oregon to investigate, and exhume one of the bodies (suspecting that Dr. Nemman—the guy who examined the first three victims—was in on a cover-up) only to find its not a teenager but an alien skeleton. They continue investigating and discover that two friends of the victim are in a mental hospital—one, Billy Miles, is catatonic and the other, Peggy O'Dell is wheelchair-bound and prone to psychosis. During a drive, Mulder and Scully experience missing time, and after that things go to hell: their hotel room is trashed, the evidence they had left with the police is gone, and Peggy O'Dell suddenly learned to walk again just in time to get hit by a truck. Mulder wants to dig up the graves of the other two victims, but somebody beat him to the punch. Mulder somehow makes the snap deduction that Billy Miles is behind the deaths (and Scully starts laughing hysterically), and they head out to the woods to stop him from delivering the last one to his alien overlords. They meet Billy's father, who had been blocking the investigation earlier but now tries to stop Billy, but for some reason Mulder keeps him from firing his gun (I don't really understand why). Afterwards, Billy is interrogated under hypnosis and says basically "Aliens told me to do it." Scully files her field report to her disbelieving superiors, and the only piece of physical evidence they have at the end is locked away (in what looks like the same room as the Ark of the Covenant).

Comments

0:21:54 - When I was younger this scene became the source of an in-joke: Any time me and my friends saw an inexplicable bright light in a movie or something (sometimes even in real life), we'd do like Scully does and cry out "Mulder, is that you?" (this isn't the last time Scully does it, either)

0:22:39 - The X-Files in general has a continuing formulaic element of local police and sheriffs being able to restrict Mulder and Scully's investigations. In this instance, dude threatened to have them arrested for trespassing. Ummm... can he do that? Also, it boggles my mind that the authority of some local cops supercedes that of the fricking FBI. I mean, I know the FBI isn't untouchable but I always thought they had privilege for being higher on the food chain (somebody correct me if I'm wrong about this).

0:25:10 - I used to be into UFO literature as a kid, and I have a problem with how this bit is representing the phenomenon of "missing time." Okay, "Missing Time" is not time "disappearing" or "being stopped." Missing time is actually the abductee having a selective amnesia of a certain time frame.

For an example: Let's suppose you're watching Doctor Who at 4:00 PM. The sun is shining through a window. During a commercial break, you get up to get a coke. Halfway in transit, the sun inexplicably disappears and when you get back to the sofa, its 6:30 and The Graham Norton Show is on! But to you, it looks like only a minute has passed. That is Missing Time.

0:34:00 - I love Scully's reaction at this bit, because really—I've never heard of an alien abduction case that involved cripples being healed or graves being dug up.

0:40:54 - And Billy Miles stepped into the Quantum Leap accelerator, and vanished. He awoke to find himself trapped in the past, facing a mirror image that was not his own, and hoping each time that his next leap... Oh, nevermind (sorry, but that bright light/swirling leaves scene reminds me so much of Quantum Leap)

0:44:25 - Now, the "vibe" here is supposed to be that the EVUL GOVERNMENT wants to cockblock Mulder and shut down the X-Files, but to be honest I'm finding this is a serious case of Strawman Has a Point - the dude is right: the X-Files ia a pointless branch because, by design, it can't accomplish anything insofar as solving or preventing crime because it deals exclusively with untestable, unprovable phenomenon. How are you supposed to prove, in front of a judge and jury, that a ghost committed a murder?

Overall Thoughts - To be honest, this wasn't that bad. Factoring in that its a pilot episode and first episodes are normally not representative of the rest of the series, this was actually decent viewing. There are a few bad handlings and shakey premises, but nothing that isn't par for the course in a TV broadcast.

That is all for now, and I'll welcome your comments!

edited 9th Nov '10 4:28:38 PM by Edmond_Dantes

And let's not forget Gillian Anderson in her underwear. They really didn't waste any time getting to that. Though it's nice that Mulder isn't cistracted at all and gets right to business.

I went through the whole series for the first time a couple years ago, recording my thoughts on every episode on the show's boards at Television Without Pity. I really liked the pilot, and was a bit surprised that the Cigarette Smoking Man was there right from the start. Though it's pretty annoying in retrospect how Mulder's story of his sister's abduction is completely different from the one we get every other time it comes up.

This is a little belated, but I figure I'll talk about my history with The X-Files to better explain where I'm coming from.

People who read my earlier entry and saw the part where I used to be into paranormal lit as a kid may assume that I was "drawn in" by those elements, but the truth is: as a kid I hated the X-Files. It was my mother who was into the show, and years later collected the DVD sets when she could find them bargain-priced. I'm watching the show now through her DVD sets.

My main problem with The X-Files, then and now, is simply that I always see the paranormal as this wide field of wonder and possibilities, things beyond what my pathetic human brain could possibly begin to understand, and there's no way in hell that a simple TV show could ever replicate that. Indeed, to be completely fair The X-Files is hardly the only guilty party, and for that I've kind of forgiven it some.

Anyway, it is now time for another liveblog:

Deep Throat

Plot Summary

Mulder gets wind of a disappearance in Idaho, near a military base. He begs a skeptical Scully into investigating with him, despite discovering taps on his phone lines and running into a strange man who warns him away. The victim is one Colonel Budahoss whose wife they interview and discover that the Colonel flew experimental jets. Mulder then goes looking for evidence of UFOs and finds pictures and manages to get a hand-drawn map to a local base (which isn't on the real maps). Mulder and Scully stay parked outside all night and witness a strange light show, then run into two teens who they believe are being chased off by military police (Mulder later theorizes that it was he and Scully being ran off—the kids just happened to be there). The kids tell Mulder a little about the base. Afterwards, they find out that Colonel Budahoss returned, but he's acting weird and has selective memory loss. Scully and Mulder are then stopped on the road by government agents who steal all their evidence. After this, Scully—who had entertained serious doubts about this case the whole time—tries hard to convince Mulder to just drop it, saying that she can no longer see anything extraordinary about it and anyway the guy whose disappearance they were sent to investigate is back now. This only prompts Mulder to sneak onto military grounds alone, where he witnesses a UFO and then is caught by the MPs, who do God-knows-what to him. Meanwhile Scully is confronted by a man from earlier in the episode who she thought was a reporter but who is actually Airforce Security. He tries to get her, but this being Scully she easily takes the advantage and gets the dude to do her bidding. She manages to rescue Mulder, but unfortunately Mulder has had his mind wiped of everything he's seen on the base. This is the straw that breaks the camel's back, and the agents finally go home. Mulder does, however, have one more encounter with that mysterious man, who offers to be his informant (but only when it suits him).

Timestamped comments (format mm:ss)

00:00 - First thing I want to comment is... "Deep Throat?" that's the name of this episode? (its never revealed in-show but that happens to be the name of Mulder's mysterious informant too. Back in the day the only way to discover this was through the first Official Guide book)

01:18 - And they find a man who spilled Cherry Kool-Aid all over himself.

02:45 - When David Duchovny says he wants to show me something, it puts me on edge.

05:30 - I honestly second Mulder's question: Mulder's a dude who works out of the FBI's basement, how does some random old geezer know about his work?

14:40 - I love the way Scully calls Mulder a "sucker" for buying the UFO print. Cuz really... it looks like a cheese wedge, not a UFO.

17:49 - I personally think the agents are too slow in reacting to that helicopter.

23:50 - Is it just me, or is the guy who plays Colonel Budahoss (I'm guessing at how that name is spelled BTW) the same guy who plays Skinner in later episodes?

26:00 - It must be fun to argue like Mulder. "It is not amnesia! I believe it is something far more deliberate and insidious!" I'm so using that line in an IJBM flamewar one of these days...

30:00 - This probably comes as no surprise, but I'm completely siding with Scully here: Sometimes things are better off not known and if the government really wants to keep an experimental jet/UFO secret that badly, I say let 'em. As was pointed out earlier, all the pilots who developed problems volunteered for the job, and you don't complain about risks when you're a test pilot. Mulder just keeps harping on how its (supposedly) hurting people, but (like most Mulder beliefs) he has no proof, and even if that was true, so what?

33:30 - First rule of stealth, Mulder: Don't stand out in the open!

40:00 - Though Scully rescuing Mulder was cool, the fact that the military wiped his mind rather than killing him leads me to believe that they would've let him go even without Scully's theatrics.

Overall Thoughts

This conversation, from near the end of the episode:

Deep Throat - Mulder, why are those like yourself who believe in the existence of extraterrestrial life on this earth, not dissuaded by all the evidence to the contrary?

Mulder - Because all the evidence to the contrary is not entirely dissuasive.

I'm so going to quote that someday.

Again, I''m surprised this episode wasn't more painful for me. Aren't I supposed to loathe this show?

But I've developed a theory. My theory is I listened to Hanamaru Sensation and Bouken Dessho Dessho three times each before viewing this episode, and the sheer amount of positive energy was enough to carry me through the day. Also, chocolate. Of course, its likely that its just that I haven't yet gotten to the point where X-Files jumps off a bridge and dives right into the land of utter bullsh** yet, but just to be safe I'm going to pep myself up before each viewing. Remember, everyone: Whenever Edmond is feeling angry, DO THE HANAMARU!!!

Incidentally, I'm one-third of the way through watching He-Man. I anticipate the liveblogging of it could start in the next two weeks. Stay tuned, true believers!

edited 11th Nov '10 1:21:01 AM by Edmond_Dantes

I like your perspective on the show. I watched it with Bellisario's Maxim and the MST3K Mantra firmly in mind when it was on. My problem was — hold on. Hey, spellchecker? BellisariosMaxim you have a problem with, but MST3KMantra is just fine? Okay, what?

...

Anyway, as I was saying, my problem was the lack of background information on some of the longer story arcs later in the series.

My big issue is that Scully hardly ever got to be right. Which also had the side effect of making her look more and more like a Flat-Earth Atheist as the series went on, considering all she'd witnessed.

The guy who plays Deep Throat was Mark Twain in the Star Trek The Next Generation season finale/premiere Time's Arrow. It was a pretty odd experience after seeing him here.

My big issue is that Scully hardly ever got to be right.

Ayup. It's a pity that the writers chose to make The X-Files disproportionately about Mulder and Mulder's speshul in-the-know heroic quest of TRUTH!!; Scully got shafted.

edited 11th Nov '10 8:17:00 AM by Aoede