Case 07, File 08: The Amazing Maleeni

AKA: Ocean's...I Dunno, I Think Two?

I go back and forth on how much I want Mulder and Scully to actually accomplish in a given episode. Obviously they can't take down the conspiracy, capture an alien and prove that supernatural shit exists, that would make the rest of the series pointless and I need to see Mulder and Scully flirt dammit. But, outside of the Myth Arc episodes, I like it when I feel like they accomplished something by their presence. Maybe they don't need to actually catch, or even stop the subject at hand, but it would be nice if they did something.

Case 07, File 07: Orison

AKA: If I Could Slow Down Time

As a series enters its twilight years and original ideas begin to get thin on the ground, the temptation to revisit old ideas becomes greater and greater. The Office's final season devolved into a series of love triangles ala its early seasons, Seinfeld brought back the Mandelbaums in its final season, Buffy handed Spike a soul so they could do another variant on that storyline, it's hard to resist. But reusing old characters comes with the risk that you'll fall short of the original, and make an episode that cheapens them. Especially when the original is one of the best episodes of the series.

Case 07, File 06: The Goldberg Variation

AKA: Luck Isn't A Super Power

Season Seven has an...odd relationship with the funny, quirky episodes The X-Files did every so often. I think everyone on the writing staff realized they'd gone kind of overboard with them in Season Six, but they'd been doing funny, quirky episode since Season Two, they were basically as much a part of the show's DNA as Alex Krycek. Their solution, it appears, was to throttle them down to only 2 or 3 episodes, and make those episodes vary wildly in quality.

Case 07, File 05: Rush

AKA: Today's Tom Sawyer Gets High On You

The X-Files is not a show that usually felt the need to borrow from contemporary popular shows (okay, Twin Peaks, but that's the one exception). As popular as it was, The X-Files was and is a kind of weird show, with a weird tone and its own style. Adding in elements from popular other genres wouldn't suit it well, and The X-Files' style would suit those other shows even less. So despite the popularity of high school set shows in the 90s, even supernatural high school shows, The X-Files usually steered clear. Usually.

Case 07, File 04: Millennium

AKA: Yo, Excuse Me, Willennium

Despite being, rather self evidently, a big fan of The X-Files, I'd never really engaged with Chris Carter's other works. Maybe it was that I didn't really perceive him as the main force behind what I loved about The X-Files, maybe it was just sloth, but I just never watched most of the other stuff he worked on. This is a long form way of me saying, I've never watched Millennium and have no idea of its plot leading up to here.

Case 07, File 03: Hungry

AKA: The Adventures Of Sharkboy

By Season Seven, a show like The X-Files will have its formula down to a science, one which the audience can practically set their watch to. That's not necessarily a bad thing, the fun of a show like The X-Files is seeing what interesting or engaging stories they can tell within that framework. Still, it's occasionally nice to see them turn the entire premise, and normal way of telling an episode's story, on its head.

Case 07, File 02: The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati

AKA: Is That The Title? Cause It's Long

In addition to being a moment that's usually kind of transitory, the seventh season is when you have to start wondering what your endgame is, especially if you're a plot heavy show. What plot threads are still dangling, what character arcs and motivations would you like to resolve. How is your plot going to finally wind down, if it is going to wind down any time soon. What do your characters actually want? These are the sort of questions the series has to look into as it hits Season Seven.