Case 09, File 14: Scary Monsters

AKA: And Super Creeps, Yeah I Gotta Name It That, Sorry

There is a tendency, when criticized, for an artist to get defensive, and I have to admit I understand the impulse. You worked hard on something and here comes someone else to give you some feedback, which depending on the critic and fanbase, can often be uh...let's call it less than constructive. But the flipside of that is that the response to criticism often comes across as petulant and even childish, especially if you feel the criticism is warranted or constructive. So there has to be a delicate balance in a response. And there almost never is.

Case 09, File 13: Improbable

AKA: Never Tell Me The Odds

As the series progressed into its new cast in Season 8, one of the things that got left by the wayside was the comedy episodes. There were a couple of reasons for this, Robert Patrick is just not very good at comedy and the main outlet for that energy being the more straightforwardly comic spinoff chief among them. But with the cast expanding out to include Annabeth Gish, whose previous credits include stuff like Mystic Pizza, and The Lone Gunmen folded back into the main series, there was room to try and bring back the comedy episode.

Case 09, File 12: Underneath

AKA: I Could Hide Out Under There, I Just Made You Say Underwear

Outside of broad strokes and one or two specific details that come up now and again, The X-Files doesn't really have concrete backstories for its characters. This is a good thing though, it allows them go digging into those broad strokes to find seeds to grow stories from. And from that angle, Doggett's years in the military and the NYPD seem like they would be a fertile ground to go digging into. I may have lost the metaphor a bit there, but I think you get what I'm going for.

Case 09, File 11: Audrey Pauley

 AKA: Wasn't There An Episode Named Audrey Already?

One of the core issues with The X-Files' tension is that the leads are FBI Agents, giving them a degree of power and authority that can occasionally cause issues. Villains can't just make our leads disappear without consequence; Someone knows where they are and will miss them, pretty quickly, and they are both armed and capable of summoning law enforcement without issue. This doesn't come without benefits (since it provides a lot of storytelling shortcuts) but it is an issue that each episode has to navigate.

Case 09, File 10: Providence

AKA: So It's About Rhode Island, Right?

At what point did The X-Files lose control of its storyline. Arguably it never had control, it is very clear in retrospect that the plan for the story was functionally nonexistent and they had been winging it long before everyone figured out they were. But that doesn't need to be a problem, lots of decent stories weren't written with a game plan in mind, and they can work out. No, I think that the problem is a lot stranger and more interesting than a simple lack of a long term plan.

Case 09, File 09: Provenance

AKA: It Cannot Be THAT Hard To Kill A Baby

Thus far most episodes of Season 9 have been surprisingly good, or at least not bad enough to justify getting upset about. The exceptions have mostly been the Myth Arc episodes; It's very clear that the series lost any control it had over the tv show's long term direction ages ago, and is spinning in circles trying to find a plotline that'll stick. The super soldier plotline has been pretty inconsistent so it turns out the best way to move the plot forward is to grab plots from like 3 seasons ago.

Case 09, File 08: Hellbound

 AKA: Wasn't That The Subtitle To Hellraiser 2?

While The X-Files is supposedly a horror show, it rarely has the desire to be horrific, so to speak. That doesn't make it not-a-horror-show, lots of horror movies and tv shows don't try to be horrific. The X-Files' vibe tends to hover more towards the spooky or creepy end of the horror spectrum, in keeping with its Twilight Zone roots. This makes the brief bouts where it does go directly horrific, like Home or Irresistible all the more notable.