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Doux News: January 25, 2015

This week: The X-Files Returns? -- Musings about Sleepy Hollow -- This week in casts -- This week in CATS indexes

There hasn't been a lot of TV news this week that I feel compelled to pass on to you guys. So instead, I'm posting two discussion topics, followed by a bit about Doux Reviews and its new flurry of topical indexes.

What? "Topical indexes," you say? Sounds exciting, doesn't it? (To a librarian, maybe. Did you know I was a librarian?)

The X-Files returns?

Chris Carter has struck out several times now (just look at his IMdb page), so he's going back to what made him famous: The X-Files. And of course, there is no X-Files without David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. Of course, it's just "talks" at this point -- except that Duchovny has already said he's interested. Come on, Gillian. What do you say?

The Agents of D.O.U.X. are in the midst of reviewing The X-Files as a group project. We post reviews every weekend, and right now we're halfway through season four. There's no question (at least for us) that The X-Files is a classic genre show, one of the greats, or we wouldn't be covering it.

So there was a good bit of discussion in the Doux Reviews virtual writers room about the possibility of a rebooted X-Files:
Juliette: "My feelings, they are complicated. I am confused. And I can barely remember what on earth was going on in the arc plot. But... Mulder was on my pencil case. And I love Gillian Anderson and her perfect English accent for ever (could Scully fake an English accent at some point?). And I love paranormal Monster of the Week stories. I will watch the heck out of this if they make it."

Heather: "I'm having a lot of different feelings about this!"

ChrisB: "As Heather says, it's hard to know what to think. On the one hand, I'd love to see more of my favorite duo ever. On the other, I rather feel as though their story has been told. That last movie wasn't the greatest, and that final shot of them in the boat was a great coda to a great run."

Sunbunny: "When would [Gillian Anderson] find the time? She's so overbooked as she is. She could probably leave Hannibal without too much of a fuss, but she *IS* The Fall, you know?

ChrisB: "I had a similar thought. The big question is whether Anderson would want to do it. She's gainfully employed these days; Duchovny is between gigs (as far as I know)."

Heather: "I listened to Chris Hardwick interview her this past week on the nerdist podcast and she was totally up for it, at least during the interview! Great great interview BTW."

So we're wondering. Isn't nine seasons and a couple of movies enough? What do you guys think about an X-Files reboot? Post a comment!

Musings about Sleepy Hollow

Why hasn't Fox renewed Sleepy Hollow? They renewed several other shows last week, but not Sleepy Hollow. Apparently, it's not tanking in the ratings. It's just not meeting their expectations.

I love the show... provisionally. Mostly, I love Tom Mison's Ichabod Crane and Nicole Beharie's Leftenant Mills, and their wonderful relationship. I assume that the suits are aware that that is the best part of the series and they won't screw with it. But the suits are saying that the mythology is a bit dense and they want to make it more of a supernatural procedural, change the format a bit.


It seems obvious to me that Sleepy Hollow's problem is that there are some dead weight characters that should be written out of the show. They also seem to be having issues with the mythology. Where is it going? Do we still have an Apocalypse? What's up with the Horsemen?

So for our second discussion topic, what do you think is wrong with Sleepy Hollow, and what should be done to get it back on track? Post a comment!

This week in casts

I don't have much casting news for this week. Don't get me wrong, there has been casting -- just not any that interests me. Except:

-- We have a Supergirl. The new CBS superhero show will star Melissa Benoist from Glee. I don't know who that is, but there you go.

-- Rutina Wesley (Tara from True Blood) has been cast in a major role on Hannibal.

This week in Cats Indexes

Doux Reviews has a lot of content. We have a back catalog of nearly six thousand television, movie and book reviews (mostly television), and a lot of them fall into our favorite genres. Co-site-owner Josie Kafka and I have started creating theme indexes for the site, so that someone who was into, say, vampires (who could that be?) could easily see what other shows we've covered and movies we've reviewed that also featured vampires.

We already had a few topical indexes here and there, like "Let's Doux Christmas", "Much A-Doux About Shakespeare" and "Pride & Prejudice".

So we started adding some obvious contenders:

-- Marvel

-- Space travel

-- Supernatural and Fantastic (yeah, that's where the vampires ended up)

-- Time travel

-- Superspies (still in the works)

Today, Josie added our Superhero Index. And that's my roundabout way of including a cat topic in this week's Doux News.


What do you guys think? Fun? Interesting? Waste of time? All three?
---
Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

8 comments:

  1. Love the new indexes/indices. Did you know that index is rare in the English language in that both plurals are acceptable? I didn't. I just learned that when I looked up how to spell the latter. Anyway, they are wonderful.

    Still on the fence about The X-Files, but of course, if they make it, I will watch.

    I loved Sleepy Hollow, but have run out of steam a bit. The last couple of episodes are sitting on my DVR and I find that I am watching other things instead. It all became a bit dark for me, and there are (as you say) a few characters that can go. I haven't given up completely, but it is no longer much see TV.

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  2. Love the picture on the Supernatural and Fantastic index! :)

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  3. Great topical indexes. I’m grateful for the Marvel one, actually. Now I can finally watch those movies in order and all (my interest on the MCU so far has mostly been about the Whedons involvement in it).

    On The X-Files... I was too young to watch the series on its original run, and now I’m not exactly excited to go through nine seasons (that’s a lot) knowing that the mythology is a mess. I only watched a few episodes of the final seasons (one I remember is that early season eight episode in which Scully goes to this creepy town filled with crazy religious people who adore this bizarre worm-thingy as the Second Coming of Jesus. It’s a great episode, in fact. Very scary). So, as someone who only knows a very small part of the X-Files universe, I’d been interested on a new movie. Also, I loved Gillian Anderson’s Scully.

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  4. It's nice to know I'm not alone in my X-Files wrestling. :) Overall, I think a reboot is totally unnecessary, as they had more than enough time to tell their story. And it was rather a mess by the end. But, I doubt I'll be able to resist watching, if such a thing comes to pass. At least for an episode or two. Sigh. I hope they just let the past stay in the past. Gillian Anderson has plenty of new and exciting roles to keep her busy.

    Re: Sleepy Hollow. I think you hit the nail on the head: too much focus on dead weight characters, and not enough attention to what made the show great in the first place --- the Abbie-Crane partnership, Crane adjusting to the modern world, the twisted history, and genuinely scary villains. Drop the dead weight and stop sidelining the great lead and supporting characters you already had, Sleepy Hollow!

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  5. I loved Sleepy Hollow's first season, but the second one is no fun.
    Katrina and Hawley can go, then fix the mythology bits-don't just say "whoops we cancelled the apocalypse, here have a picture of Katrina in a corset."
    Sigh.
    Good on Rutina for that part in Hannibal. You go, girl.

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  6. The problems with Sleepy Hollow are so obvious that it's mind boggling they haven't been rectified. This is through no fault of the actors, but Katrina, Henry and Hawley need to go. The strength of the show lies with Abbie and Ichabod and ever since they switched focus to Crane family drama, the show has gone rapidly downhill.

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  7. X-Files getting rebooted...yeah.

    I watched the series during its original run (from way back when it used to air Friday nights at 9 PM) and was into it to the point of reccing it to friends and family. My enthusiasm began to wane around S6--basically, right at the time when it became obvious that Chris and co. let the alien mytharc run every which way.

    It doesn't take much to see why Chris Carter would be interesting on going back to his most popular show. David Duchovny isn't doing much these days (though I get the feeling that's more out of choice than actual lack of work). Meanwhile, Gillian Anderson has become a well established TV actress. Mind you, I don't say that with disdain; the roles she's done are, for the most part, complex and fascinating.

    So, harsh as this is going to sound, Gillian going back to do the X-Files is a way of slumming.

    I have many fond memories of the X-Files and I'm hoping like hell that I'll be proven wrong, but rebooting this show is a bad idea. The world in which the show premiered and became a hit doesn't exist. TV shows have evolved. To me, The X-Files would have to adapt/change in order to survive even one season.

    But then, maybe it'd have a chance if it was a shorter (6-8 episodes) run per season?

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  8. I went and had a look at Mr. carter's page- you know why? I always want to know how come some artistes can successfully identify and repeat the elements that make their work popular among their target audience. The question has plagued me with Maroon 5- quite frankly there's been nothing like Moves Like Jagger recently and with Lana and her sister. Why after the matrix and Jupiter Ascending has it been sort of a dip for the filmmakers? Any thoughts?

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