Case 02, File 25: Anasazi

AKA: No, No, No, Anansi Is The African Spider God

Ah, the X-Files cliffhanger finale. At this point The X-Files figured out it was safe from being cancelled and started writing their finales with their planned season premiers in mind, rather than as possible series finales as well. So with that in mind, they began planning increasingly elaborate finales and premiers, often multi-part epics with big impacts on the plot and characters going forward. And with us about to hit the third season, big impacts are just what we need.

Case 02, File 24: Our Town

AKA: Cannibal Summer

I've mentioned before that The X-Files is a very subjective show. There are episodes that we all know are good, there are episodes we all know are bad, and there is a rainbow of a hundred different quality levels in between, and how you feel about individual episodes can be up to a myriad of different factors. This is my long form way of saying, I really like this episode, but I have trouble quantifying why.

Case 02, File 23: Soft Light

AKA: This Watchmen Fanfic Kinda Goes Off The Rails

There are a lot of reasons to like a specific X-Files episode. An interesting character, a cool concept or even just a fun effect. Less often cited are genuinely great performances, outside of our two leads. Oh a lot of people give solid work (Tony Todd in Sleepless or Brad Dourif in Beyond the Sea), but they're usually paired with a great script, so they don't have to carry the whole episode. There are, as you may have guessed, exceptions.

Case 02, File 22: F. Emasculata

AKA: No One Is Getting Emasculated, I Don't Know Why It's Called That

The X-Files is a paranoid show. I don't really know how to defend or elaborate on that premise, it's just so blindingly obvious to me. The premise of the show is literally that the government is, in fact, out to get you (although the cognitive dissonance that is the fact that the two leads are government agents is something the show consistently fails to deal with). What I do wish it did more of though, is spend some time acknowledging that, while the government can be evil sometimes, it has nothing on what the private sector can do.

Case 02, File 21: The Calusari

AKA: The Omen-Corcist

That The X-Files occasionally cribs ideas from pre-existing media is, in my mind, a given, although my indulgence for it varies from episode to episode. We established, as far back as Ice that the series is not above pulling whole plot outlines from other movies, and I guess I'm conceptually okay with that. Creating a new story every week is hard, and if you can borrow from another story to create the bones to build yours on, well that's no crime. You do have to build an interesting story on top of those bones, which is what trips some episodes up.

Case 02, File 20: Humbug

AKA: One Of Us, One Of Us

I've been referring to The X-Files as a horror show, and I will continue to do so, but that's not all it is. It's more often than not very, very funny, mostly due to David Duchovny's deadpan quips. So eventually, someone around the writers room got it in their head, why not try to make an entire episode that's intended to be more funny than scary. And while not all of them were hits, the good funny episodes are often counted among the best.

Case 02, FIle 19: Dod Kalm

AKA: No, No, No, Benjamin Button Goes The OTHER Way

Alright, first review of 2017. Let's do this.

The X-Files is a show of ideas. Some of them are big ideas, some of them are small ideas, but what's always set it apart from other shows is how weird and unique some of the concepts they came up with were. But that uniqueness can be a double edged sword; In order to find cool and interesting new concepts, The X-Files had to experiment. And, well, some experiments fail.