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The X-Files: My Struggle III

Well, that title seems right for the faithful X-Phile. (Except why stop at three?)

This review could go a lot of ways. I've wrestled, in the last 24 hours, on just which tone to strike. I could nitpick every single beat of this season 11 starter within an inch of its life but it probably won't be that fun to read. Knowing that this will be the last of the show, I feel like I should be more gentle. I'm aware there's going to come a day when I would kill to review a new terrible episode of this show. So, here I go into this final season, just the same as I went into the first, looking for the good.

In no particular order, (because Chris Carter) Gillian Anderson's wig was the perfect length for her lovely features. The X-Files incorporated modern footage of our president better than the ultra-sophisticated Mr. Robot. I was actually really happy to see Jeffrey Spender. All in all, I wasn't that mad at the extremely cheap, tawdry, brazenly rude, shite writing 'technique' that last season's ender didn't actually happen. In fact, that, to me, was the least of this episode's problems.

Now onto what was problematic. In no particular order, really, Chris Carter? Really? William is the product of the CSM and Scully? Really? No. I can't go there. I won't. It's 10 bridges too far, then another 50 on top of that. Also, why? Why reveal this now? I mean, for real, why? What could this show possibly hope to gain from this 'revelation'? What? I have already wasted too many words on this subject. I can almost guarantee that this plot point is a big reason that Anderson is not coming back. It's not the details of the storyline, itself, it's the cruelty with which Carter writes this character. Thankfully, we no longer live in a world where this type of violation of a woman easily slips by.

There were a lot of other problems, too. Around the 20 minute mark, the show inexplicably turned into a car commercial. For the next 20 minutes, I wondered if I was a watching an SNL skit of The X-Files, that is how tonally off the third act was. Even Mark Snow seems to have lost his mind. Fox Mulder's voiceover was among the weirdest choices I have seen any show make, maybe ever. There were whole belabored plots happening that I cannot begin to recount here. To me, very little made sense and Duchovny and Anderson just continue to look sad through Carter's lens. I mean, damn.

We can only go up from here, right?

Other Thoughts

* Was Mimi Rogers busy?

* This show always flailed when it made Mulder the skeptic and Scully the believer, and left religion out of the equation.

* This show also flailed when it gave either one of them 'visions' without a psychotropic explanation.

* I guess we're finally going to meet William.

* Can anyone explain to me why Agents Einstein and Miller appeared?

*Saving the best for last -- I want to watch the show that Mitch Pileggi is on. He's the only one who's fully risen above Carter's writing these days.

Final Analysis: A must-watch simply because it's almost over.

5 comments:

  1. We can only go up from here, right? Yes, that was pretty much all I could think, too. It's too late for someone to take this property away from Chris Carter before he could do it any more damage. And I hate saying stuff like that. What was he thinking???

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  2. I've watched "En Ami" many times (plus reviewed it) and I've always thought that the only way that CSM could have carried Scully from the car and changed her clothes, without waking her up, would be if he drugged her. That meant to me that when Scully finally got pregnant, that Smokey did something to her to have her be able to have a child. That doesn't mean that the old bastard is the father of William. It could still be Mulder.

    I'm not a fan of much of these new seasons and so far it's just getting worse. Scully spent almost the whole hour being attacked and driving her car so that she was hurt, some more. That's not what I want to watch Sully do. Make Reyes seem like a bad guy, too...you're a bad, bad man, Chris Carter.

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  3. I've never been a fan of the convoluted mytharc episodes. So, I'll probably continue watching it for the upcoming standalone episodes, which I usually really enjoyed.

    But, I kind of hated this episode. So much that I ranted about it to my mother, who has never seen an episode of the show.

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  4. I need to write a quick addendum: I can't find Mark Snow's name anywhere on this new season. It's possible I erroneously attributed score issues to him.

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  5. It was all a dream, the most hated resolution that even a preschool kid could come up with. I will watch it till the end but this is really bad.

    I was really confused with the junior agents, weren't they also present in episode 5 of last season which technically happened? So they should remember who Mulder and Scully are.

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