I feel incredibly bad for Skully. She is a medical doctor who was recruited by the FBI because of her qualifications. Then, as she’a just getting starting with the bureau, they assign her to this guy Mulder and give her the task of debunking him. So, right off the bat, the FBI upended her entire career path only to give her a dead-end assignment, for which she’s grossly overqualified.
If that’s not bad enough, every case starts with Mulder making wild, unsubstantiated claims based on incredibly flimsy evidence. She uses her scientific knowledge to calmly and rationally put forward a more plausible theory, only for Mulder’s insane hunch to be proven right against all logic and reason.
When I was a kid, I thought Mulder was smart, but watching it as an adult, it seems more like he’s an incredibly lucky dumb-ass. Seriously, every episode is like:
Skully: “Looks like a serial killer that takes body parts as trophies.”
Mulder: “Skully, look at these footprints. These shoes are very large. I think we’re looking at a Frankenstein that’s trying to build himself a Bride of Frankenstein.”
Skully: “Mulder, don’t you think it’s more likely that it’s just a tall serial killer?”
Mulder: “Yeah, but they’re, like, really big. Like, size 13. It’s a Frankenstein.”
Then, 42 minutes later, it turns out it’s a Frankenstein, and we’re all supposed to think Mulder’s some kind of genius, and Skully was just too pround and stubborn to listen to him.
The one episode where Skully turned skeptic was when her Christian faith came into play and she witnessed a series of miracles. When she gets abducted by aliens-“There has to be a scientific explanation for all of this!”
A TV-show that has aged surprisingly well.
Skully sees a literal zombie crawl out of a grave and eat a man’s brains after being filled with 10 magazines full of bullets
“There has to be a reasonable explanation, Mulder! Zombies. Aren’t. Real!”
Turns out she’s right, and it’s just a fuckton of adrenaline and bath salts keeping him alive.
You see it wasn’t actually a zombie, but a secret military program to create supersoldiers which was abandoned in the 50s because it was a failure but the disposal site leaked into a cave and gave birth to a parasisic fungus which can seeming reanimate recently deceased corpses by random triggering of the sodium- potassium pump but they aren’t actually reanimated it’s just random convulsions which can generate a rudimentary form of locomotion.
“Then how did the fungus respond to the Zombie’s name, Scully?”
Fade to black
Scully is usually right most of the time. Really there are only a handful of episodes where the spooky option ends up being the most plausible one. Even the stuff about Mulder’s sister and the “walk-ins,” which is ostensibly the most direct confirmation of anything supernatural in the show, is arguably an unreliable narrator trope since it is told to us by the show’s on again off again villain and “confirmed” by Mulder’s vision. Personally I don’t even consider that episode canon because it was such a thematic departure.
Fun fact: I have literally never not fallen asleep watching an episode of x-files
(Might be due other underlying neurological issues, but shush)
Nah friend. You were being probed. X-Files was how they chose their test subjects.
I’m the same way with Schitt’s Creek. Just something about it makes me have happy naps.
When I was 10 I watched an episode without knowing what it was. I think it was the episode with the red eyed forest people… I had nightmares for weeks and couldn’t sleep :D
I like spooky stuff and cryptids w.e, but the X-Files just didn’t do it for me.
That being said I did try to watch it like two decades after it aired so maybe the cultural shift was already enough to disinterest me.
It was a total plot tease that never gave up the goods. There are a handful of good standalone episodes but overall it falls flat.
I think a lot of scary shows and movies have aged that way. We’re so desensitized now.
I remember people being legitimately spooked by the X-files back in the day.
Oh I was 100% scared of it as a kid, but I didn’t “watch it” as much as hide behind a pillow when my parents were watching it
You must like Supernatural
I think Supernatural is actually not that bad before it turns into a chick flick.
I think S1 is pretty solid.
I’m not sure about the rest. Growing up I would watch it because my sister watched it but it never really connected with me.
I gave up around season 6 or 7. It got annoying
Exactly! First three seasons are legit amazing, 4 & 5 are ok, 6 & 7 are the weaning period
Warehouse 13 is up there too.
cultural shift
They didn’t even have mobile phones for the first season or two. There were all these godawful scenes wherein the only point was to put them in the vicinity of a landline to eventually move the plot forward.
She’s the only one thinkin’ it through.
