The X-Files Season 4, Episode 4: Unruhe

Well, here's another brilliant and disturbing episode that only minimally involves paranormal activity. Though that minimal paranormal activity does provide the clues they need to break open the case. And to rescue Scully, because she gets abducted. AGAIN. She's a decent investigator and a good scientist, but holy shit she is not genre savvy. Yes, let's pursue a mentally unbalanced man already suspected of stalking his victims and using a powerful dental anaesthetic to subdue them. JUST SAYING.

Also, sharp things near eyes. STOP.

The X-Files Season 4, Episode 3: Teliko

Um, guys. Writers. Composers. WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

'Tribal' or 'exotic' music in an episode about West African immigrants? Yes, clearly someone must have thought that was a good idea.

This is going to be 'Fresh Bones' all over again, isn't it? Yeah, this isn't going to be easy to write about, because like 'Fresh Bones', I didn't really like the episode.

The X-Files Friday Feature: Nightmare Fuel

Since I just finished watching 'Home', this is probably the time to talk about nightmare fuel, which The X-Files contains rather a lot of.

The X-Files Season 4, Episode 2: Home

Holy shit this episode is disgusting. Which I already knew.

'Home' is rather horrifying, but reasonably well done, all things considered.

The X-Files Season 4, Episode 1: Herrenvolk

Everything dies. Well, that's bleak.

And we start season 4 with the other half of 'Talitha Cumi'. To be continued, indeed. I actually watched this more or less immediately after finishing season 3, because there was no way I was going to let that cliffhanger keep me up all night wondering what was coming.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 24: Talitha Cumi

We've reached the end of all thingsseason 3. And it's another cliffhanger. They're going to do this a lot, aren't they? Like, every season, right?

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 23: Wetwired

DO IT! DO IT NOW! DO IT AGAIN! KILL 'EM ALL!

When I first saw 'Blood', I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought that was a great episode. And now they've remade it and called it 'Wetwired' and instead of Mulder being the one affected, it's Scully, and the paranoia runs much deeper than before, and the violence seems much more real.

And this episode is significantly better than the already outstanding 'Blood'.

The X-Files Friday Feature: Fringe

I've mentioned the show, Fringe more than a few times here, and figured it was time to expand on some of those mentions. Obviously, this will contain plenty of spoilers for the show.

If you haven't seen Fringe, I highly recommend it, especially since I know you already like The X-Files.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 22: Quagmire

This is not a boat accident! It wasn't any propeller, it wasn't any coral reef and it wasn't Jack the Ripper. It was an alligator.

Oh right, SPOILER ALERT.

It was an alligator.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 21: Avatar

Well, I was not expecting a Skinner episode. I especially wasn't expecting him to be that heavily involved in any case of the week episode, let alone the prime suspect.

While this is another one with a bit of a shaky resolution, the basic plot is rather solid and certainly makes Skinner a more sympathetic character, and really helps explain a lot about the way he works at the FBI.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 20: Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'

How does one write a blog post about an episode of a science fiction television show that completely deconstructs the entire premise of the series?

'Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"', another Darin Morgan penned episode, is framed in quite possibly the most interesting way of any episode up to this point, and while it does focus on aliens and generally similar mythology to the long arc episodes, it doesn't appear to actually be connected to them.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 19: Hell Money

OK, so here's yet another episode that, like 'Teso dos Bichos', depends at least a little bit on a tenuous interpretation of cultural or religious mythology.

And, like 'Teso dos Bichos', pretty much falls flat on its face.

The X-Files Friday Feature: Intelligent Life

So I guess this is as good a time as any to talk about the possibility of intelligent life in the universe.

Note, I did not say elsewhere in the universe.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 18: Teso dos Bichos

The good episodes are easy to write about. The bad ones, not so much. I make no promises about the quality of this post about 'Teso dos Bichos', which was incomprehensibly bad.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 17: Pusher

Please explain to me the scientific nature of the Whammy.

'Pusher' was yet another brilliant and disturbing episode, ending with one of the tensest and most unsettling scenes in the series so far.

The X-Files Season 3, Episodes 15/16: Piper Maru/Apocrypha

Another two-parter! Third one of season 3! Best one of season 3! Also the densest. There are about a million plot and character threads in these two episodes, and I wish I could say we learned something from it, but I'm afraid it just opened up more questions without at least closing something.

But that's obviously the show's Thing, so I don't really expect to get any real actual answers until, I don't know, probably the second movie. Either way, 'Piper Maru' and 'Apocrypha' are two very good episodes that at first appear to diverge from the season's initial plot regarding the human experimentation and focus more on just aliens, but eventually come full circle and continue the plot threads started in 'Anasazi'.

The X-Files Sesaon 3, Episode 14: Grotesque

Nightmare fuel alert: people being murdered and covered in clay as if they are sculptures. That's horrifying. But also leads to a pretty interesting episode in 'Grotesque'. Oh, and Mulder becomes delusional and paranoid. Well, more than usual, I mean.

The X-Files Friday Feature: Spot the Actor

One of the interesting things about getting into a show as late as twenty years after it first aired is that I've seen a lot of other more recent shows and movies, and some of the people who may not have been stars then have since moved on to bigger and better things. (Though some came from bigger and better things than even The X-Files at the time.)

I mean, I do this all the time in everything I watch, not just this. I'm sure everyone does to some degree, especially if there are people you see again and again - after all, there does seem to be a bit of a line between TV and film actors, and there are an awful lot of people who have just been in dozens and dozens of TV shows for one or two episodes.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 13: Syzygy

Sure. Fine. Whatever.

I admit I enjoyed 'Syzygy' when I first watched it, minus the hideously uncomfortable out of character behaviour from both Mulder and Scully, but as I watch it again, I find there's less to like and more to be disturbed by.

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 12: War of the Coprophages

When I first saw the description of 'War of the Coprophages', I was rather concerned about the notion of killer cockroaches. I'm not good with bugs. Like, at all. I've been known to unload entire cans of RAID on stink bugs and spiders before. I think the presence of actual cockroaches in my home might induce a desire to use a small nuclear device.

But then the episode turned out to be really really ridiculous and funny?

The X-Files Season 3, Episode 11: Revelations

Religious mythology plus typical X-Files mythology equals an interesting role reversal for Mulder and Scully in 'Revelations'. And some fantastic character development for Scully.

But this is also a difficult episode for me to watch and comment on, due to my intense non-religiousness and general lack of religious knowledge.

The X-Files Season 3, Episodes 9/10: Nisei/731

This seems to be becoming a pattern. Aliens to start the season, then a mid-season two-parter, then ... well, then I don't know, but probably complete abandonment of anything related to the main series alien mythology storyline until the season finale. We'll see.

Either way, they know how to create tension in these two part episodes, and I think '731' is a pretty amazing followup to the otherwise kind of meh 'Nisei'.