Case 07, File 13: First Person Shooter

AKA: Twitch Stream This

Once, while on a stream with YouTuber and generally excellent human Dan Olson, he said to me that, for any discussion of the worst episode of The X-Files to be interesting, Space has to be excluded. His reasoning was sound: Space is the episode with the least good in it, basically nothing worth talking about (and thus a very dull episode to review, honestly). But while there are no episodes with less good in them, there are some episodes with much, much, much more bad in them.

Case 07, File 12: X-Cops

AKA: The Only Thing To Fear Is Pro-Police Propaganda

The X-Files exists in an odd space, compared to other law enforcement centered media. Even when discussions of pro-cop media in the 90s media comes up, The X-Files is rarely part of the conversation. Part of that is that our heroes, despite being FBI Agents, are so often positioned as against the government (or at least the vast conspiracy within it) or maybe it's cause what Mulder and Scully do is so unlike what normal law enforcement does. Either way, when they actually do engage with real life law enforcement, it strikes an...odd tone.

Case 07, File 11: Closure

AKA: Oh Boy! Closure!

Let's be honest with ourselves: There was never a concrete plan for what happened to Samantha. And I don't mean that in the way that David Lynch never actually intended to resolve the question of who killed Laura Palmer, I mean they intended to resolve it at some point, but I don't think they ever knew what that way was. But with the future of the series in flux and Duchovny's exit coming like a freight train, I think they made the choice to just find an ending for it, and I'm determined to approach it as it's own thing. Even if it does contradict one of my favorite moments from Season Two.