found_drama

Take Philip K. Dick
mix well with ice cream and nuts
top with saccharine.

Coming off the heels of Season Three, the fourth season of The X-Files is a bit of a strange animal.  Whereas Season Three took a lot of chances with the narrative and let itself unpredictably intersperse humor throughout, Season Four seemed a return to the the otherwise dark and heavy subject matter that was more characteristic of Season Two.

Which is not to say that this season was without its humorous moments¹ but it did not let its hair down in the same way the Season Three did.

That being said, Season Four is arguably a definitive one for the Series, perhaps more so than even the landmark first season.  Many of the plot threads from the past 73 episodes come together in these twenty-four.  And while most go unresolved in a fashion that characterizes the Series, the writer perform well overall, striving — and almost managing — to make every minute count.

Read the rest of this entry »

1. Intentional or otherwise.[↩]

After the thrilling, cliffhanger ending to Season Two, A. and I were more than ready to get to the next developments in the series.  Too bad we had a “Very Long Wait” ahead of us in the rental queue¹.  It was worth the wait though.  The writers for Season Three have found their stride and the actors are thoroughly in character, delivering strong performances all around.  If there was a central theme in Season Two², I am not finding the same centralized scaffolding for Season Three.  That said, for as bleak and dark as Season Two got, Season Three seems to respond with a reprieve — an equal mix of “serious” episodes balanced by vaguely self-parodic episodes. Read the rest of this entry »

1. Not to mention the “tease” when we had Disc One of Season Four shipped to us well ahead of time…[↩]
2. Recall my write-up of Season Two and how nearly every episode somehow dealt with “the frontiers of life and death”.[↩]

As I mentioned in my discussion of Season One, it has been about ten years since I have seen The X-Files; and as I mentioned there, the series seems to have held up well over time. Happy coincidences seem to have us re-watching these almost as if in preparation for a coming film sequel.

Settling in to watch Season Two, it’s easy to find yourself tempted to skip entire episodes (e.g., “The Host”) and just focus on that central “Mythology” plot. However, it’s worth noting that there is a great deal of character development and exegesis on the milieu that takes place outside of those “core” episodes. Sometimes it’s hard to tell what to discard and what to keep. But part of you will no doubt know; and part of you will squirm through it.

One thing is for certain, Season Two opens without missing a beat. Read the rest of this entry »

Amazon correctly recommends:

The X-Files: The Complete Collector’s Edition.

Maybe it’s because we’ve been re-watching the series lately but our interest has been seriously rekindled.  And what a handsome collector’s edition.

About 10 years has elapsed since the last time I saw an X-Files episode. While I would not say that I watched it religiously during high school, it was certainly a favorite. Who but Chris Carter was doing anything interesting on TV during the 1990s? It was somewhat amazing to me that Fox — the same network that had killed Profit and would later kill Firefly — could have such a winner on its hands and not screw it up. A. & I recently grabbed the DVDs of the first season to watch some X-Files — partly out of nostalgia and partly out of a sense of “we seem to have run out of TV series DVDs to watch”. Some comments, notes, remarks, and thoughts about the first season:¹ Read the rest of this entry »

1. The intro and the reviews of the first three episodes first appeared on this site on Feb. 9, 2008; the reviews of episodes four through eight appeared here on Feb. 23, 2008. Midway through this process, I changed my mind and decided to do one big post with all of the reviews instead of breaking them. The courteous thing to do seemed to be to re-publish those reviews here.[↩]

Following up on my first X-Files viewing post:

• Conduit. Season one, episode four. Back to the central alien theme; Duchovny nails Mulder and brings out the combination of quirk and moroseness that is this character’s hallmark. On the DVD series’ first disc, this is by far the best episode thus far. It has nuanced variations on the character archetypes that will become part of the show’s signature but more so than that, this episode has a wonderful rhythm and balance. We keep swinging nicely between the conventional and the fantastic; as if the field report narration wasn’t enough, it becomes apparent in this episode that Scully rules the narrative: bikers have crazy stories and a burned-off ear isn’t “evidence” of UFO shit but you’ll be damned if you don’t witness some creepy and not-quite-explicable shit of your own…
• The Jersey Devil. Season one, episode five. A Neanderthal (???) “wild man” comes out of the Pine Barrens to terrorize Atlantic City, NJ. It’s a bit jarring to go from “Conduit” to this episode though. “Conduit” is in the central narrative arc; “Conduit” is structurally sound and establishes Scully as our narrator; “Conduit” is emotional. “The Jersey Devil” seems to discard some of this. It’s played a bit flat. Scully-as-narrator seems almost discarded; but we do get some fair characterization with respect to Scully trying to “have a life” and a bit more Mulder’s obsessive tendencies.
• Shadows. Season one, episode six. A decent rebound off of “The Jersey Devil”; we still don’t get back to the central narrative but we do get Scully-as-narrator back in substantive effect. We don’t mind that there are no aliens because the story is strong on its own. Poltergeists versus terrorists? Hell yes.
• Ghost in the Machine. Season one, episode seven. Not exactly brushing against the paranormal. Which maybe explains why our principals are involved only at the behest of some estranged colleague of Mulder’s. Narrative structure (viz. Scully) returns rather strongly here, more so than in “Shadows”. But ten or so years after this episode was produced, this one feels oddly dated. It isn’t the DOD involvement (that shit never goes out of style); it’s the modems and the huge honkin’ CRTs and the impossibly sophisticated AI apparatus. At least their AI “death” scene gives the appropriate propers to Kubrick and HAL9000.
• Ice.  Season one, episode eight.  Core subject matter but not the core story line; all done with ice cores.  I find myself missing the Scully field report here but I suppose it would not work in the overall narrative structure of this particular episode.  Über-hostile ammonia breathing space worms infecting an arctic ice crew and then Mulder and Scully get on the case.  Probably the best-paced episode yet; certainly the most suspenseful.

I would estimate that about 10 years has elapsed since the last time I saw an X-Files episode.  While I would not say that I watched it religiously during high school, it was certainly a favorite.  Who but Chris Carter was doing anything interesting on TV during the 1990s?  It was somewhat amazing to me that Fox — the same network that had killed Profit and would later kill Firefly — could have such a winner on its hands and not screw it up.   A. & I recently grabbed the first disc of the first season to watch some X-Files — partly out of nostalgia and partly out of a sense of “we seem to have run out of TV series DVDs to watch”.  Some thoughts on the first three episodes:

• The Pilot.  Season one, episode one.  Where the fun begins, eh?  It is interesting to watch this first, pilot episode after such a long break from the series.  Carter & co. do such an excellent job with the set up in this first hour.  We are immediately given the central premise and in such an easily digestible way that we expect a great deal of story back-fill to follow — should enough people “get” the show.  We get a David Duchovny trying on Fox Mulder’s skin, making him a little geekier and a little less melancholy than the character we accept as the series develops.  We get a proto-Dana Scully out of Gillian Anderson: a bit more bristle but just about the right amount of confrontational empathy.  We also get the conspiracy theory hints dropped; the Cancer Man is in our introductory scene and also files away our evil little metal device…  A strong start to the series.
• Deep Throat.  Season one, episode two.  The “in case you missed the pilot” episode…  Replace Cancer Man with Deep Throat, re-inject the government conspiracy and alien abduction-slash-alien technology themes, and we’re off and running.  We still have Duchovny playing a little more on the geeky elements of Mulder’s character but you can see the melancholy emerging a bit more; it is a bit of a satire unto itself but the levity seems to be necessary to keep us from taking things too seriously.  At the same time, we also get a little more emotionally involved.  The stakes seem higher.  Perhaps it’s the well-played repetition of the alien and conspiracy themes.  Perhaps it’s the weird cross-section of side characters Carter gives us as part of the back-drop.  Perhaps it’s the more plausible way that Dana Scully handles her pistol.
• Squeeze.  Season one, episode three.  Our first “off-topic” episode.  We back off from the central plots and themes, we back off from the aliens and instead toy around with bizarre murdering monster-ific mutants in (where else?) Baltimore.  Duchovy and Anderson are starting to really hit their respective strides as Mulder and Scully (respectively), to really nail down their characters.  A part of you wishes that the stretchy mutant villain has a tie-in with the central alien plot themes but there is another part of you that recognizes how important it is to deviate from that.  We need some breadth of subject matter in addition to the depth of that central mythos; it will give the show some stamina.  Plus it lets us see our Special Agents in some “more curious” scenarios.  Things become a bit more unpredictable.

Good stuff, this show.  And I’m impressed with how well it holds together after so many years.  These first three episodes are a good 15 years old now.  Sure, the background music and pantsuits are a little dated but whatever; I’m looking forward to working my way through the rest of these.

Take a breath and organize your thoughts, eh? The year is off to an interesting and exciting start in nearly every dimension. Fortunately, most of those dimensions are good. Not all, but certainly enough of them to think optimistically about the big year that is setting up and stretching out before us. More recently…

First: I dashed off to see Cloverfield with my brother last night and gave it the usual haiku treatment.  Not all together bad but still not sure it was worth the full $8 they charged at the door.  As far as the “found footage” format goes, I think they did a good job with it.  But I could do without the first half-hour.  That said, the movie hit a few sweet spots that I can only think to describe as a surreal nexus of our worst fantasized fears and how we really do cope with events around us.  The scene where the crowd gathers around the Statue of Liberty head to snap pictures with their phones was simultaneously hilarious and palpably frightening.  The zen-like calm over each actor’s face as each fixed their respective attentions not on the statue’s severed head but on the 1″ x 1.5″ screen right in front of their faces.  My first response was to laugh out loud¹ and then I started to think about the subway bombings in London back in 2005.  That, my friends, was when the terror set in.

Second: assorted “social networks” stuff keeps cropping up on the conversational radar lately.  Mostly Facebook and LinkedIn stuff.  I continue to resist.  I started to write a long ranting exegesis of this USA Today article (via Smart Mobs) but decided against it because I don’t believe I have anything new to contribute — even to my own understanding of the phenomenon.  For all those proponents that keep hailing it with all that future-is-now/next-big-thing status, I’ll continue to disagree; I think it’s just one of those personal preference things.  You get it or you don’t.  You’re not left out in the cold if you don’t.  And if “you don’t” then maybe you’re doing yourself and your privacy² a big favor.  You have got to want the overlap that comes with it, you have got to want the friends-as-points hangers-on…  But I’ll cut myself off there before I reconstruct that ill-fated essay.  I wash my hands of the subject once more, for the foreseeable future.

Third: A. & I will hit our calculated halfway point this week.  Progress is made.  Seems safe to mention it since the secret is more/less out at this point.

Lastly: currently plowing through Freakonomics while A. finishes up with the library’s copy of Ghostwritten — which I’m told is the next book on my agenda.  As for Freakonomics: the opinion jury is still out but we’ll see where we land.

Gotta go: cookies are ready.

currently playing: Underworld “Juanita/Kiteless/To Dream Of Love”

1. I think I was the only one in the theater that laughed at the precise moment.[↩]
2. Read as: “the imaginary boundary between your public/professional and private/personal lives”.[↩]

So they taped over
The Blair Witch Project and then
added this monster.