Season 3 wrap post
Aug. 7th, 2019 11:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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tori_reviewsNow seems like a good time to pause for a moment and cover a few general points; finally getting into my own history with this series, my opinion of this season as a whole, and a couple other things that needed to be said.
Finally, my history (and effects)
I feel like I’ve said a lot of this, but I also feel like I’ve never really laid it all out there, and considering that I think it had a big impact on how I saw things this season, I want to get into how my history with this show has put me in a strange spot with this season.
If I remember correctly, I started watching the show during the post-s4 hiatus. I don’t think it was during s4 proper but I know the first episodes I started watching were in s4. That would also track date-wise, as the friend who talked me into watching the show was someone I had met the year before and was hanging out with a fair amount that summer.
So that summer was sort of my crash course in TXF, the s4 episodes in repeat week to week and what was out on video (and had by the local video store), mostly a collection of important or iconic s1-2 episodes and maybe a couple s3 pairs. We didn’t have cable at the time for me to even know if there was a station showing more of the history, and this was the days before downloads or even full DVD boxsets...or DVDs come to think of it. This is why up until a certain point in s4, the number of episodes I remember seeing has been so spotty.
I can’t exactly say I fell in love with the series immediately (or maybe ever) in a way where I really wanted/needed to see everything. As I know I’ve said several times, I was comparing everything to B5 (I still kind of do) and this show really can’t compete on that level. But I watched it fairly regularly and did see what of the past episodes I could. But after that summer, this became a show I rarely went out of my way to view episodes of the series I hadn’t seen. I made a point of watching the new episodes, but I still missed some (this lead to some confusion at times); if I happened to catch a rerun here and there I wouldn’t turn it off (unless it was of one I didn’t like the first time); mytharc episodes that had some importance or just ones that really interested me I might keep on tape for a bit before taping over them but after the first week or two I mostly stopped making a point at preserve them. It was a show I watched, but only occasionally could be considered a fan of; one I think I was always more a fan of in theory than I was in fact.
But then we hit s7. That’s a season I remember feeling super into when it started and...not so much by the end. Should we get there, I’ll try and remember why, but I seem to recall the show feeling like it gotten super gimmicky, and I think I was somewhat aware of the behind the scenes drama going on with Duchovny wanting out. And I’ll admit I probably didn’t give s8 as fair a shake as I could have. And s9 happened to be my freshman year of college so I was a little busy with that and failing headfirst into Buffy, so I caught some episodes but definitely not all of them.
This show doesn’t end well, but I had enough good memories of it that it’s always lived in my memory as something that I liked and enjoyed. Maybe I was mostly here for the mytharc (that I never really understood but always wondered if I was just missing some key part of it) and the shipping, but it was enough to leave a good impression. But because I also remember a lot that I didn’t care about, I never really had much desire to go back to it once it was over. So it basically sat at that place in my memory for about 15 years. There was IWTB, but that definitely didn’t rekindle much desire to go back to the series.
And then the revival happened. Season 10 prompted my first attempt at this re/watch; I barely remember s10 now but it definitely sparked a desire in me to return to the show’s roots and figure out how we got here. That petered out, but then s11 did the same thing. Whatever else we may say about the revival it definitely brought me back to this show that I had never had a particular desire to return to. An interesting thing about s11 I noted was how much it felt like watching the old show, complete with the fact that I didn’t really like it most of the time but I kept wanting to watch it.
This cobbled together, higgledy-piggledy history I have with the show I think explains a lot of why season 3 got so many different reactions from me than my previous review effort did. I have little to no history with this season, nor am I coming to it with new stuff fresh in my mind. I’m not exactly coming to it with a clean slate, I know too much of where we’re going for that, but I’m looking at it with as fresh of eyes as I can, and I’m seeing it differently. It’s hitting about the same level on whether I like it or not, but for different reasons; some things I like, some I like less, I’m finding other things of interest that weren’t really factors before. It’s been a rather different experience, and that’s part why I’m curious how I’ll feel doing s4, because I start having more old opinions than I have in a while; but I also have all these new opinions that will probably change some things. I think it’ll be an interesting effort to continue.
S3 overview
I’m kind of glad I took the unplanned break after I finished reviewing s2. Of course I’ve forgotten bits of it, that’s sort my lot in X-Files watching, but I was clearly a bit burned out before and had I forced myself on I wouldn’t have made it far in the unevenness of s3.
Thinking back, because of everything going on in the beginning of s2, they had to create an arc for the first section of the season. It was loosely connected to be sure, but it was there. And a good chunk of the middle of s2, while not actually dealing with the fallout of what happened to Scully, found ways to hint at it and her unresolved feelings about it, so the show felt more like an arc than it really was. This season they get the cliffhanger resolved in a really wonky way and slam right back to status quo; you had mytharc eps and standalone eps and the rare case that’s a little of both, but mostly never the twain shall meet even in references.
This season had some real highs, and some real lows. They weren’t always in predictable places either, the mytharc was mostly boring, the comedy episodes were often a little over the top for my taste, but then there would come along something pretty great that gives me hope (even though I know it’s mostly futile) and remind me a bit why I always kept coming back to this show back in the day too.
More often than saying it was bad I found this season got into stretches of boring. Though there was definitely eps that were fully bad mixed in. I think part of what made this season a touch more frustrating than previously was that I can accept a show that takes a bit to find its footing, but we’re in s3 and the show still doesn’t seem to know itself. It’s tentative at taking a stand for its identity; I think that’s why Darin Morgan’s episodes are ones that stand out because they do have an identity, it’s usually only decisive for that episode, but it’s an identity. There are other episodes that find a voice, but nothing that really stamps the show. Even the mytharc is too unwilling to nail down what it is so far, where it seemed like it kind of had been decided on in s2.
The actors don’t seem to be getting any more comfortable with their roles. GA is a really good actress, but her characterization is so inconsistent that there’s only so much she can do; and DD seems to be getting worse. I wonder if they were taking pity on him a bit in the first couple seasons and not asking as much of his limited range, and he hasn’t really caught up with where they want him to be now. I’m pretty sure next year they just let GA off the chain and let her act her little heart out more often, so hopefully she can go back to carrying the series.
There are a lot of things about this season that I feel are kind of a step back, which is tied up with the generic feeling I had for so many episodes. The story structure, the characters, their relationship; we should have been here a year or two ago; and I kind of think we were here a year or two ago. I feel like we haven’t gone anywhere since then except maybe backwards.
I’m hesitant to look back over this season’s episode list, because I feel like I disliked a lot more than I liked, but a lot of what I liked was in the back third or so of the season, so I’m is a not-terrible place with my opinion of the show at this evaluation. I had a few potential topics to go back over, but there’s really only one thing I really feel the need to break down.
Shipping lanes
Probably my biggest surprise this season was how I felt about the shipping. I expect to have a wide swing of opinions about the sort of episodes we get on this show; I didn’t necessarily know what to expect about my opinions now now, but I wasn’t expecting to finally start loving everything this show does after so long having it never hit a consistent sweet spot with me.
But one thing that was always consistent back in the day was how much I shipped Mulder and Scully and now...I kind of don’t. I want to, and I’m still expecting that I will once we get into the big stuff next season, but right now I kind of get the NoRomos in ways I never thought I would (well not no romance, but we’ll get to that). Things have definitely backtracked on this relationship this season.
Looking back, it sort of started last season, but I put that down to limited continuity and DD’s limited range that Scully kept getting snatched and Mulder didn’t react like someone who had come so close to losing her not that long ago and who had been utterly broken by the experience. It’s another place where the opening arc of s2 cast a long enough shadow over the season that I didn’t start to question until pretty close to the end whether that was where they were in their relationship. I did rewatch ‘Anasazi’ before I watched this season’s opening so I wouldn’t be starting in the middle of things, and it was even more clear than the time I reviewed it that he is a major dick to her in that episode. And while he has the excuse of being drugged to be a dick to everyone, he doesn’t really stop being a dick after they’re away from there. He doesn’t seem to care about her that much; and as the season goes on, I’m less sure she cares about him. She’s a bit possessive of him (or maybe just mistrustful of his taste in girls of the week) but the loving devotion that I always saw between them before doesn’t seem to be there.
The conversation on the rock is sweet, but it’s something that definitely should have happened seasons ago. It would have fit right in in season 1; a season theoretically about them getting to know each other and the season when Pa Scully died so this would have fit. I have a hard time believing they’re all that close if he doesn’t know her connection to Moby Dick.
They end up feeling like work colleagues; siblings in arms, maybe; friends at the most; but not that into each other, and definitely not the codependent soul-crushing love I always thought was between them. I’m old enough now that I might not find that as romantic as I did then, but that’s a different question than it not being there. I’ve never been of the opinion these two’s relationship was completely healthy, but it was a situation where there was no one in the world that could partner in any fashion with either of them than each other.
On the other hand, there’s my newfound appreciation for Scully/Skinner. Now, the potential for me shipping them has long been there. I remember thinking at times in s8 that he seemed a little into her, and if she wasn’t so focused on Mulder I wouldn’t entirely mind if she ended up reciprocating. By the time the revival came along I do believe that he absolutely loves her, even though the chance of anything happening doesn’t seem very likely. I don’t necessarily even think he’s pining for her, but I think the love never went away.
But in my head it was more a product of the later seasons, especially when Mulder wasn’t around, I didn’t expect to find myself so drawn to it in s3. I’m sure the decline of my opinion of MSR and my rising interest in SSR are connected, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to go away even if my MSR feelings come back. I think this is all going to play with my emotions quite a bit going forward.
It’s been a while since I had both a non-canon ship and an attachment to a character’s main ship. In most of my non-canon shipping I don’t have to deal with the fact that a large part of me thinks the character should be with someone else. Of course, in most canons I also don’t have to deal with this much time and material. I guess we’ll see how I end up feeling as we get more through the material.
One small note
So I was thinking as I wrote part of this, how much TV has changed since this show started, and how they might do things differently if it did get a reboot. Then, about the fact that I don’t think people really want a reboot at this point; the original still holds a fairly known place and the basic concept and structure in generic enough that it has been reused plenty of other places.
Then something hit me that made me feel really old. There has now been more time since TXF premiered in 1993, than there was between Galactica 1978 and the reboot in 2003. Now, that was a one, kind of two, season show that largely faded from common knowledge so it felt like an old show when the reboot came along; plus meaning that the time between the end of the series (even barring the revival) and any potential reboot is definitely not even yet, but still. This show just makes me feel old sometimes.
Finally, my history (and effects)
I feel like I’ve said a lot of this, but I also feel like I’ve never really laid it all out there, and considering that I think it had a big impact on how I saw things this season, I want to get into how my history with this show has put me in a strange spot with this season.
If I remember correctly, I started watching the show during the post-s4 hiatus. I don’t think it was during s4 proper but I know the first episodes I started watching were in s4. That would also track date-wise, as the friend who talked me into watching the show was someone I had met the year before and was hanging out with a fair amount that summer.
So that summer was sort of my crash course in TXF, the s4 episodes in repeat week to week and what was out on video (and had by the local video store), mostly a collection of important or iconic s1-2 episodes and maybe a couple s3 pairs. We didn’t have cable at the time for me to even know if there was a station showing more of the history, and this was the days before downloads or even full DVD boxsets...or DVDs come to think of it. This is why up until a certain point in s4, the number of episodes I remember seeing has been so spotty.
I can’t exactly say I fell in love with the series immediately (or maybe ever) in a way where I really wanted/needed to see everything. As I know I’ve said several times, I was comparing everything to B5 (I still kind of do) and this show really can’t compete on that level. But I watched it fairly regularly and did see what of the past episodes I could. But after that summer, this became a show I rarely went out of my way to view episodes of the series I hadn’t seen. I made a point of watching the new episodes, but I still missed some (this lead to some confusion at times); if I happened to catch a rerun here and there I wouldn’t turn it off (unless it was of one I didn’t like the first time); mytharc episodes that had some importance or just ones that really interested me I might keep on tape for a bit before taping over them but after the first week or two I mostly stopped making a point at preserve them. It was a show I watched, but only occasionally could be considered a fan of; one I think I was always more a fan of in theory than I was in fact.
But then we hit s7. That’s a season I remember feeling super into when it started and...not so much by the end. Should we get there, I’ll try and remember why, but I seem to recall the show feeling like it gotten super gimmicky, and I think I was somewhat aware of the behind the scenes drama going on with Duchovny wanting out. And I’ll admit I probably didn’t give s8 as fair a shake as I could have. And s9 happened to be my freshman year of college so I was a little busy with that and failing headfirst into Buffy, so I caught some episodes but definitely not all of them.
This show doesn’t end well, but I had enough good memories of it that it’s always lived in my memory as something that I liked and enjoyed. Maybe I was mostly here for the mytharc (that I never really understood but always wondered if I was just missing some key part of it) and the shipping, but it was enough to leave a good impression. But because I also remember a lot that I didn’t care about, I never really had much desire to go back to it once it was over. So it basically sat at that place in my memory for about 15 years. There was IWTB, but that definitely didn’t rekindle much desire to go back to the series.
And then the revival happened. Season 10 prompted my first attempt at this re/watch; I barely remember s10 now but it definitely sparked a desire in me to return to the show’s roots and figure out how we got here. That petered out, but then s11 did the same thing. Whatever else we may say about the revival it definitely brought me back to this show that I had never had a particular desire to return to. An interesting thing about s11 I noted was how much it felt like watching the old show, complete with the fact that I didn’t really like it most of the time but I kept wanting to watch it.
This cobbled together, higgledy-piggledy history I have with the show I think explains a lot of why season 3 got so many different reactions from me than my previous review effort did. I have little to no history with this season, nor am I coming to it with new stuff fresh in my mind. I’m not exactly coming to it with a clean slate, I know too much of where we’re going for that, but I’m looking at it with as fresh of eyes as I can, and I’m seeing it differently. It’s hitting about the same level on whether I like it or not, but for different reasons; some things I like, some I like less, I’m finding other things of interest that weren’t really factors before. It’s been a rather different experience, and that’s part why I’m curious how I’ll feel doing s4, because I start having more old opinions than I have in a while; but I also have all these new opinions that will probably change some things. I think it’ll be an interesting effort to continue.
S3 overview
I’m kind of glad I took the unplanned break after I finished reviewing s2. Of course I’ve forgotten bits of it, that’s sort my lot in X-Files watching, but I was clearly a bit burned out before and had I forced myself on I wouldn’t have made it far in the unevenness of s3.
Thinking back, because of everything going on in the beginning of s2, they had to create an arc for the first section of the season. It was loosely connected to be sure, but it was there. And a good chunk of the middle of s2, while not actually dealing with the fallout of what happened to Scully, found ways to hint at it and her unresolved feelings about it, so the show felt more like an arc than it really was. This season they get the cliffhanger resolved in a really wonky way and slam right back to status quo; you had mytharc eps and standalone eps and the rare case that’s a little of both, but mostly never the twain shall meet even in references.
This season had some real highs, and some real lows. They weren’t always in predictable places either, the mytharc was mostly boring, the comedy episodes were often a little over the top for my taste, but then there would come along something pretty great that gives me hope (even though I know it’s mostly futile) and remind me a bit why I always kept coming back to this show back in the day too.
More often than saying it was bad I found this season got into stretches of boring. Though there was definitely eps that were fully bad mixed in. I think part of what made this season a touch more frustrating than previously was that I can accept a show that takes a bit to find its footing, but we’re in s3 and the show still doesn’t seem to know itself. It’s tentative at taking a stand for its identity; I think that’s why Darin Morgan’s episodes are ones that stand out because they do have an identity, it’s usually only decisive for that episode, but it’s an identity. There are other episodes that find a voice, but nothing that really stamps the show. Even the mytharc is too unwilling to nail down what it is so far, where it seemed like it kind of had been decided on in s2.
The actors don’t seem to be getting any more comfortable with their roles. GA is a really good actress, but her characterization is so inconsistent that there’s only so much she can do; and DD seems to be getting worse. I wonder if they were taking pity on him a bit in the first couple seasons and not asking as much of his limited range, and he hasn’t really caught up with where they want him to be now. I’m pretty sure next year they just let GA off the chain and let her act her little heart out more often, so hopefully she can go back to carrying the series.
There are a lot of things about this season that I feel are kind of a step back, which is tied up with the generic feeling I had for so many episodes. The story structure, the characters, their relationship; we should have been here a year or two ago; and I kind of think we were here a year or two ago. I feel like we haven’t gone anywhere since then except maybe backwards.
I’m hesitant to look back over this season’s episode list, because I feel like I disliked a lot more than I liked, but a lot of what I liked was in the back third or so of the season, so I’m is a not-terrible place with my opinion of the show at this evaluation. I had a few potential topics to go back over, but there’s really only one thing I really feel the need to break down.
Shipping lanes
Probably my biggest surprise this season was how I felt about the shipping. I expect to have a wide swing of opinions about the sort of episodes we get on this show; I didn’t necessarily know what to expect about my opinions now now, but I wasn’t expecting to finally start loving everything this show does after so long having it never hit a consistent sweet spot with me.
But one thing that was always consistent back in the day was how much I shipped Mulder and Scully and now...I kind of don’t. I want to, and I’m still expecting that I will once we get into the big stuff next season, but right now I kind of get the NoRomos in ways I never thought I would (well not no romance, but we’ll get to that). Things have definitely backtracked on this relationship this season.
Looking back, it sort of started last season, but I put that down to limited continuity and DD’s limited range that Scully kept getting snatched and Mulder didn’t react like someone who had come so close to losing her not that long ago and who had been utterly broken by the experience. It’s another place where the opening arc of s2 cast a long enough shadow over the season that I didn’t start to question until pretty close to the end whether that was where they were in their relationship. I did rewatch ‘Anasazi’ before I watched this season’s opening so I wouldn’t be starting in the middle of things, and it was even more clear than the time I reviewed it that he is a major dick to her in that episode. And while he has the excuse of being drugged to be a dick to everyone, he doesn’t really stop being a dick after they’re away from there. He doesn’t seem to care about her that much; and as the season goes on, I’m less sure she cares about him. She’s a bit possessive of him (or maybe just mistrustful of his taste in girls of the week) but the loving devotion that I always saw between them before doesn’t seem to be there.
The conversation on the rock is sweet, but it’s something that definitely should have happened seasons ago. It would have fit right in in season 1; a season theoretically about them getting to know each other and the season when Pa Scully died so this would have fit. I have a hard time believing they’re all that close if he doesn’t know her connection to Moby Dick.
They end up feeling like work colleagues; siblings in arms, maybe; friends at the most; but not that into each other, and definitely not the codependent soul-crushing love I always thought was between them. I’m old enough now that I might not find that as romantic as I did then, but that’s a different question than it not being there. I’ve never been of the opinion these two’s relationship was completely healthy, but it was a situation where there was no one in the world that could partner in any fashion with either of them than each other.
On the other hand, there’s my newfound appreciation for Scully/Skinner. Now, the potential for me shipping them has long been there. I remember thinking at times in s8 that he seemed a little into her, and if she wasn’t so focused on Mulder I wouldn’t entirely mind if she ended up reciprocating. By the time the revival came along I do believe that he absolutely loves her, even though the chance of anything happening doesn’t seem very likely. I don’t necessarily even think he’s pining for her, but I think the love never went away.
But in my head it was more a product of the later seasons, especially when Mulder wasn’t around, I didn’t expect to find myself so drawn to it in s3. I’m sure the decline of my opinion of MSR and my rising interest in SSR are connected, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to go away even if my MSR feelings come back. I think this is all going to play with my emotions quite a bit going forward.
It’s been a while since I had both a non-canon ship and an attachment to a character’s main ship. In most of my non-canon shipping I don’t have to deal with the fact that a large part of me thinks the character should be with someone else. Of course, in most canons I also don’t have to deal with this much time and material. I guess we’ll see how I end up feeling as we get more through the material.
One small note
So I was thinking as I wrote part of this, how much TV has changed since this show started, and how they might do things differently if it did get a reboot. Then, about the fact that I don’t think people really want a reboot at this point; the original still holds a fairly known place and the basic concept and structure in generic enough that it has been reused plenty of other places.
Then something hit me that made me feel really old. There has now been more time since TXF premiered in 1993, than there was between Galactica 1978 and the reboot in 2003. Now, that was a one, kind of two, season show that largely faded from common knowledge so it felt like an old show when the reboot came along; plus meaning that the time between the end of the series (even barring the revival) and any potential reboot is definitely not even yet, but still. This show just makes me feel old sometimes.
