iconocaust (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} iconocaust) wrote,@ 2008-03-11 02:31:00 |
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X-Fails
With my housemates now making a habit of crawling into bed by 10, I'm spending a lot more time with the TV on for company. Recently, I've discovered that the Sci-Fi channel screens syndicated episodes of The X-Files in the wee hours of the morning -- presumably to stretch out the progamming so that there's more money left over for SFC's spate of cinematic masterpieces, including such future classics as Rock Monster, Frankenfish, and Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York.
Now, in the interests of disclosure: about fifteen years ago, I thought The X-Files was one of the greatest things on television. Sure, David Duchovny's acting made him seem like a robot whose drama circuits had gotten permanently stuck on "bored monotone," but for a 14-year-old kid who'd just discovered the library copy of Chariots of the Gods, the show's smorgasbord of ghosts, mutants, and little green men was just about everything you could want out of a television drama. Still, as cool as the bits about liver-eating mutants, mass murderers and psychic amputees were, what really kept me watching was the overarching plot, the show's "mythology" -- a web of cover-ups and conspiracies spun over the course of decades that dropped Mulder and Scully right into the midst of a shadowy power struggle involving aliens, humans, and betrayal at every level.
It's appropriate, then, that the mythology was precisely what broke my patience with the show. In early episodes, it made sense that the writers would avoid dishing out too much of the 'truth' at once -- the reveals felt slow but careful, and there were enough big revelations and shocks along the way to make up for every rote monster-of-the-week episode it took to get there. But after season four rolled around and our dynamic duo still seemed no closer to an actual resolution, it became starkly obvious that the much-vaunted "conspiracy plot" was being stretched out as thinly as possible by network execs eager to milk the supernatural cash cow for all it was worth. And if that seems exaggerated, consider this: out of some 200 produced episodes, roughly 30% of them actually advanced the plot in any way. Two-thirds of The X-Files was effectively filler. I tuned out, went to college, and remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that The X-Files was still running until I one day discovered a review for the series finale. Five seasons later, Chris Carter had finally remembered to wrap things up. (Sort of. After all, there's still that sequel movie doing the rounds, and god only knows Gillian Anderson needs the work.) At the time, my reaction could have been summed up as "cue much rolling of eyes" -- if I'd have known I was going to be jerked around for nine seasons, I'd probably have bailed out much sooner.
Still, that was then, and this is now, and I'm finding there's some oddly nostalgic pleasures in watching two familiar characters go through their paces. But god only knows they're not making it easy. The very first episode I sat through, "The Goldberg Variation," involved a schlub with improbable luck that turned to dire misfortune for those around him. Written like comedy without actually being funny -- sort of like a Larry the Cable Guy stand-up special -- "Variation" made it abundantly clear that the early seasons' greatest asset was to present ridiculous concepts in a way that forced viewers to take them seriously. When the show can't even put up the pretense of a straight face, the whole thing falls apart.
Next week's episode, "Orison," returned to more familiar territory but suffered from an overstuffed plot involving a psychic priest and a necrophiliac killer who may or may not be demonic in origin. Either one would have carried a fine episode; both together felt ludicrous. Two-parter "Sein und Zeit"/"Closure" starts with an arresting premise -- children disappear without a trace after their mothers unconsciously write threatening ransom notes appended with the bizarre phrase "Nobody shoots at Santa Claus!" But when the focus swings to tying up the plot thread involving Mulder's missing sister, Samantha, the setup is simply dropped as an afterthought; the writers attempt to cover their tracks by introducing an actual Santa Claus-impersonating serial killer, but he's no X-File, just a pervert with a barnful of camera feeds. That the half-hearted sendoff the Samantha subplot gets -- she's dead, but it's OK because she was spirited away by kindly ghosts or somesuch; we waited six seasons for this? -- isn't the most dispiriting aspect of this entire exercise can be chalked up entirely to the fact that Mulder's mother goes and commits suicide off-screen halfway through. Yep, she doesn't even get the dignity of an on-camera death -- we see her leave a message on Mulder's answering machine, and the next thing we know, we're told she overdosed on medication. Fantastic.
The throwing-hands-up-in-the-air desperation with which the writers attack the mythology's loose ends might seem justified if the show hadn't gone on for two more seasons after this. But tonight's episode topped even that. The title, "X-COPS," can only give you the barest hint of the idiocy within:
A filming of an episode of COPS gets in the way of the investigation by Mulder and Scully of a monster that feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity, Scully is not so sure...
Yeah. An entire episode of The X-Files filmed in COPS-style documentary fashion. This might have worked better if Comedy Central's Reno 911! hadn't effectively turned the inherently ludicrous format of Fox's proto-reality powerhouse into one giant joke -- as it stood, I spent twenty minutes waiting for the punchline, five more minutes watching with the sound off, and then finally lost patience at the thirty-minute mark.
And here's what I have to look forward to tomorrow:
The Lone Gunmen summon Mulder and Scully to a virtual reality firm when the new game they have helped design is thwarted by a bizarre female computer character whose power is much more than virtual.
That's "First Person Shooter," widely regarded as one of the most aggressively stupid episodes of The X-Files ever made. Hell, just read the opening act.
We see three young men wearing futuristic costumes. They are preparing for a battle and take automatic weapons. They seem to have a lot of fun. It turns out that their battlefield is in fact a virtual reality game. In a control room, Ivan and Phoebe, the workers of First Person Shooter Company, are monitoring the players' vital signs. Suddenly, motorcycles appear in the game. Three men shoot at them and the motorcycles explode. One of the players encounters a beautiful female warrior in a sexy leather outfit. She says "I am Maitreya. This is my game." and then kills him.
Later on, Scully and Mulder strap on virtual reality gear and get all Counterstrike on our asses. The fact that this was scripted by William Gibson only makes the whole thing more despairingly hilarious. Shockingly, Gibson's first episode is just as idiotic:
Mulder and Scully find the container. When they approach it a girl runs out of it but Scully catches her. The container is full of state-of-the-art computer equipment. The girl warns the agents that an armed Department of Defense satellite has pinpointed their location. They leave the place immediately. A green laser descends from the sky and destroys the container. Inside the car, the girl admits that she is Invisigoth (her real name is Esther Nairn) and Mulder realizes that Gelman has created artificial intelligence, thus fulfilling his dream. Invisigoth describes how the AI works - it monitors all communication and recognizes her voice so she cannot make any phone calls. Moreover, once the AI locates its enemy it destroys them using the satellite.
Looking back on the episode listings, it starts becoming clear just how much the later seasons were floundering. Hell, we got almost two full seasons without Mulder after David Duchovny got it in his head that he actually could kick-start a movie career by standing around droning like a man rudely awakened from just three hours of sleep. But seriously, consider the following synopses:
Doggett and Scully encounter a dead man who is still living - only somewhat changed. What they discover is a man made of metal, enacting vengeance on those he believes created him.
I like the "somewhat changed" here, as if being made of metal is no big deal. This is apparently an overly elaborate way to set up an in-joke involving one of Robert (Doggett) Patrick's previous roles, the T-1000.
Mulder and Scully find a man and his dim-bulbed, wheelchair-bound brother who choose three wishes which backfire increasingly. The cause of which is an indifferent genie whose willingness to grant wishes belies a deeper motive.
I've read fan fiction synopses with more convincing plots than this.
On Christmas Eve, Mulder convinces Scully to put aside her gift wrapping and stake out a reputed haunted house. But they discover a pair of lovelorn spectres living inside the house who are determined to prove how lonely the holidays can be.
One of these spectres is Ed Asner. No joke.
In a small town plagued by drought, Mulder and Scully come upon a man who claims to be able to control the weather — at a hefty profit. Yet the agents discover a force of nature at work even more powerful than the weather, and just as unpredictable.
That force is love. They proceed to give the titular Rain King the romantic advice he needs to get over himself. X-Files fans continue to switch off in droves.
An entrepreneurial Hollywood producer, and college friend of Skinner, picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files, however the agents find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable.
Know what would be a fun game? Mixing genuine X-Files fan fiction summaries with synopses of actual episodes and letting people guess which is which. Apropos of nothing, this was written by David Duchovny.
While working in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, young cop Arthur Dales (the brother of the Arthur Dales who started the X-Files) stumbles across a “negro” baseball player who is actually an alien with a love of the game hiding among humans.
So was this, apparently after Mr. Duchovny watched Men In Black. You'd think the showrunners would have learned their lesson the first time around.
The world is trapped in a time loop, and only one woman seems to know. A bank robbery is committed over and over again until Mulder and Scully can make it go right.
You know a show's in trouble when they resort to ripping off plotlines from Bill Murray comedies. You know a show's in even bigger trouble when Xena: Warrior Princess beat them to the punch by over two years.
Filmed in black-and-white, The Post-Modern Prometheus chronicles Mulder and Scully’s investigation when a letter from a single mother leads them to a small mid-Western town where a modern-day version of Frankenstein's monster lurks, Jerry Springer is an obsession, and Cher plays a significant part.
Thankfully, I've already missed this one.
While protecting a man due to testify against the Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret...
Because cigarettes are, y'know, evil, and there's no harm in slathering that message on nice and thick.
The agents cross paths with a pair of doppelgangers whose close proximity leaves a trail of destruction.
This synopsis may not sound too terrible. The episode it's attached to, however, was voted the worst in the series by X-Files fans, mainly because the doppelgangers in question are played by Kathy Griffin and are fighting for the affections of a semi-professional wrestler. Shamefully, series creator Chris Carter penned this drivel, which includes also includes the disturbingly memorable line "I yankee doodled into a plastic cup!"
The fact that many of the episodes listed here will be hitting my TV in the coming weeks makes me seriously reconsider this whole "nostalgia trip" thing.
With my housemates now making a habit of crawling into bed by 10, I'm spending a lot more time with the TV on for company. Recently, I've discovered that the Sci-Fi channel screens syndicated episodes of The X-Files in the wee hours of the morning -- presumably to stretch out the progamming so that there's more money left over for SFC's spate of cinematic masterpieces, including such future classics as Rock Monster, Frankenfish, and Disaster Zone: Volcano in New York.
Now, in the interests of disclosure: about fifteen years ago, I thought The X-Files was one of the greatest things on television. Sure, David Duchovny's acting made him seem like a robot whose drama circuits had gotten permanently stuck on "bored monotone," but for a 14-year-old kid who'd just discovered the library copy of Chariots of the Gods, the show's smorgasbord of ghosts, mutants, and little green men was just about everything you could want out of a television drama. Still, as cool as the bits about liver-eating mutants, mass murderers and psychic amputees were, what really kept me watching was the overarching plot, the show's "mythology" -- a web of cover-ups and conspiracies spun over the course of decades that dropped Mulder and Scully right into the midst of a shadowy power struggle involving aliens, humans, and betrayal at every level.
It's appropriate, then, that the mythology was precisely what broke my patience with the show. In early episodes, it made sense that the writers would avoid dishing out too much of the 'truth' at once -- the reveals felt slow but careful, and there were enough big revelations and shocks along the way to make up for every rote monster-of-the-week episode it took to get there. But after season four rolled around and our dynamic duo still seemed no closer to an actual resolution, it became starkly obvious that the much-vaunted "conspiracy plot" was being stretched out as thinly as possible by network execs eager to milk the supernatural cash cow for all it was worth. And if that seems exaggerated, consider this: out of some 200 produced episodes, roughly 30% of them actually advanced the plot in any way. Two-thirds of The X-Files was effectively filler. I tuned out, went to college, and remained blissfully ignorant of the fact that The X-Files was still running until I one day discovered a review for the series finale. Five seasons later, Chris Carter had finally remembered to wrap things up. (Sort of. After all, there's still that sequel movie doing the rounds, and god only knows Gillian Anderson needs the work.) At the time, my reaction could have been summed up as "cue much rolling of eyes" -- if I'd have known I was going to be jerked around for nine seasons, I'd probably have bailed out much sooner.
Still, that was then, and this is now, and I'm finding there's some oddly nostalgic pleasures in watching two familiar characters go through their paces. But god only knows they're not making it easy. The very first episode I sat through, "The Goldberg Variation," involved a schlub with improbable luck that turned to dire misfortune for those around him. Written like comedy without actually being funny -- sort of like a Larry the Cable Guy stand-up special -- "Variation" made it abundantly clear that the early seasons' greatest asset was to present ridiculous concepts in a way that forced viewers to take them seriously. When the show can't even put up the pretense of a straight face, the whole thing falls apart.
Next week's episode, "Orison," returned to more familiar territory but suffered from an overstuffed plot involving a psychic priest and a necrophiliac killer who may or may not be demonic in origin. Either one would have carried a fine episode; both together felt ludicrous. Two-parter "Sein und Zeit"/"Closure" starts with an arresting premise -- children disappear without a trace after their mothers unconsciously write threatening ransom notes appended with the bizarre phrase "Nobody shoots at Santa Claus!" But when the focus swings to tying up the plot thread involving Mulder's missing sister, Samantha, the setup is simply dropped as an afterthought; the writers attempt to cover their tracks by introducing an actual Santa Claus-impersonating serial killer, but he's no X-File, just a pervert with a barnful of camera feeds. That the half-hearted sendoff the Samantha subplot gets -- she's dead, but it's OK because she was spirited away by kindly ghosts or somesuch; we waited six seasons for this? -- isn't the most dispiriting aspect of this entire exercise can be chalked up entirely to the fact that Mulder's mother goes and commits suicide off-screen halfway through. Yep, she doesn't even get the dignity of an on-camera death -- we see her leave a message on Mulder's answering machine, and the next thing we know, we're told she overdosed on medication. Fantastic.
The throwing-hands-up-in-the-air desperation with which the writers attack the mythology's loose ends might seem justified if the show hadn't gone on for two more seasons after this. But tonight's episode topped even that. The title, "X-COPS," can only give you the barest hint of the idiocy within:
A filming of an episode of COPS gets in the way of the investigation by Mulder and Scully of a monster that feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity, Scully is not so sure...
Yeah. An entire episode of The X-Files filmed in COPS-style documentary fashion. This might have worked better if Comedy Central's Reno 911! hadn't effectively turned the inherently ludicrous format of Fox's proto-reality powerhouse into one giant joke -- as it stood, I spent twenty minutes waiting for the punchline, five more minutes watching with the sound off, and then finally lost patience at the thirty-minute mark.
And here's what I have to look forward to tomorrow:
The Lone Gunmen summon Mulder and Scully to a virtual reality firm when the new game they have helped design is thwarted by a bizarre female computer character whose power is much more than virtual.
That's "First Person Shooter," widely regarded as one of the most aggressively stupid episodes of The X-Files ever made. Hell, just read the opening act.
We see three young men wearing futuristic costumes. They are preparing for a battle and take automatic weapons. They seem to have a lot of fun. It turns out that their battlefield is in fact a virtual reality game. In a control room, Ivan and Phoebe, the workers of First Person Shooter Company, are monitoring the players' vital signs. Suddenly, motorcycles appear in the game. Three men shoot at them and the motorcycles explode. One of the players encounters a beautiful female warrior in a sexy leather outfit. She says "I am Maitreya. This is my game." and then kills him.
Later on, Scully and Mulder strap on virtual reality gear and get all Counterstrike on our asses. The fact that this was scripted by William Gibson only makes the whole thing more despairingly hilarious. Shockingly, Gibson's first episode is just as idiotic:
Mulder and Scully find the container. When they approach it a girl runs out of it but Scully catches her. The container is full of state-of-the-art computer equipment. The girl warns the agents that an armed Department of Defense satellite has pinpointed their location. They leave the place immediately. A green laser descends from the sky and destroys the container. Inside the car, the girl admits that she is Invisigoth (her real name is Esther Nairn) and Mulder realizes that Gelman has created artificial intelligence, thus fulfilling his dream. Invisigoth describes how the AI works - it monitors all communication and recognizes her voice so she cannot make any phone calls. Moreover, once the AI locates its enemy it destroys them using the satellite.
Looking back on the episode listings, it starts becoming clear just how much the later seasons were floundering. Hell, we got almost two full seasons without Mulder after David Duchovny got it in his head that he actually could kick-start a movie career by standing around droning like a man rudely awakened from just three hours of sleep. But seriously, consider the following synopses:
Doggett and Scully encounter a dead man who is still living - only somewhat changed. What they discover is a man made of metal, enacting vengeance on those he believes created him.
I like the "somewhat changed" here, as if being made of metal is no big deal. This is apparently an overly elaborate way to set up an in-joke involving one of Robert (Doggett) Patrick's previous roles, the T-1000.
Mulder and Scully find a man and his dim-bulbed, wheelchair-bound brother who choose three wishes which backfire increasingly. The cause of which is an indifferent genie whose willingness to grant wishes belies a deeper motive.
I've read fan fiction synopses with more convincing plots than this.
On Christmas Eve, Mulder convinces Scully to put aside her gift wrapping and stake out a reputed haunted house. But they discover a pair of lovelorn spectres living inside the house who are determined to prove how lonely the holidays can be.
One of these spectres is Ed Asner. No joke.
In a small town plagued by drought, Mulder and Scully come upon a man who claims to be able to control the weather — at a hefty profit. Yet the agents discover a force of nature at work even more powerful than the weather, and just as unpredictable.
That force is love. They proceed to give the titular Rain King the romantic advice he needs to get over himself. X-Files fans continue to switch off in droves.
An entrepreneurial Hollywood producer, and college friend of Skinner, picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files, however the agents find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable.
Know what would be a fun game? Mixing genuine X-Files fan fiction summaries with synopses of actual episodes and letting people guess which is which. Apropos of nothing, this was written by David Duchovny.
While working in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947, young cop Arthur Dales (the brother of the Arthur Dales who started the X-Files) stumbles across a “negro” baseball player who is actually an alien with a love of the game hiding among humans.
So was this, apparently after Mr. Duchovny watched Men In Black. You'd think the showrunners would have learned their lesson the first time around.
The world is trapped in a time loop, and only one woman seems to know. A bank robbery is committed over and over again until Mulder and Scully can make it go right.
You know a show's in trouble when they resort to ripping off plotlines from Bill Murray comedies. You know a show's in even bigger trouble when Xena: Warrior Princess beat them to the punch by over two years.
Filmed in black-and-white, The Post-Modern Prometheus chronicles Mulder and Scully’s investigation when a letter from a single mother leads them to a small mid-Western town where a modern-day version of Frankenstein's monster lurks, Jerry Springer is an obsession, and Cher plays a significant part.
Thankfully, I've already missed this one.
While protecting a man due to testify against the Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret...
Because cigarettes are, y'know, evil, and there's no harm in slathering that message on nice and thick.
The agents cross paths with a pair of doppelgangers whose close proximity leaves a trail of destruction.
This synopsis may not sound too terrible. The episode it's attached to, however, was voted the worst in the series by X-Files fans, mainly because the doppelgangers in question are played by Kathy Griffin and are fighting for the affections of a semi-professional wrestler. Shamefully, series creator Chris Carter penned this drivel, which includes also includes the disturbingly memorable line "I yankee doodled into a plastic cup!"
The fact that many of the episodes listed here will be hitting my TV in the coming weeks makes me seriously reconsider this whole "nostalgia trip" thing.
