Snooty editorial on The X Files....

The other day I happened upon one of The Guardian's TV reviews, and noticed they had an entire category for editorials on where and why a particular popular show jumped the shark. I read through a few of them (on Gladiators, TOTP, Sherlock, Red Dwarf, Skins, Dawson's Creek) and with most of them I appreciated their angle and found it easy to agree.

Then I came across one on where The X-Files jumped the shark, but it just seemed to be a piece based on rubbishing the entire series as a joke, and doesn't seem to even want to get the concept of suspending disbelief for anything more out there than a soap.

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2018/feb/19/when-good-tv-goes-bad-the-x-files

Just a few quotes of how shallow and moronic the writer is being, which suggests he never watched the show properly.

Perhaps the fact that The X-Files was happy to send itself up so early in its original run meant it was already partially aware of what a load of nonsense it was.

Are we really expected to believe in the supernatural or are there rational explanations? We are never given an it-was-the-janitor-all-along, Scooby-Doo-style reveal. Nor did we find out that Mulder had ET living in his cupboard. Instead, all spooky shenanigans were left infuriatingly ambiguous.

When would they finally get round to doing it? And would their offspring have three fingers and huge glowing eyes?

So, when did The X-Files jump the shark? There was the terrible werewolf episode in the first series; the rubbish voodoo one in series two; and the stupid one about evil water (yes, water) in series six.

Will their alien/human teenage son have Spock-like ears and find everything “illogical”? Mulder and Scully only have nine episodes to find him

Will the level of ridiculousness in this (probable) final series simply be par for the course? Or was The X-Files just not much good in the first place?

What baffles me is that frankly I think The X-Files has aged better than most 90's sci-fi shows. It had the very emotional core that the New Who sycophants keep going on about being so crucial.

The writer doesn't seem to get that people who watched it actually bought into the horror element and watched it for the sustained dread. Or worse he seemingly wants to act all cool and macho about how it never affected him because he just laughed at it all.

It comes off like he's ashamed of the idea that anyone bought into the show. And in that he reminds me so much of many Who fans who once the New Series took off, utterly talked down the old show as silly nonsense no-one's sad enough to care about anymore.

It's enough to make you think...... what if? What if this had been typical enough of the flippant, shallow media denigration of The X-Files and its fans, that any comeback would be shaped by that low status and be forced to conform to utter shallowness and flippancy about itself like New Who ended up becoming, in order to win over philistines like this?

Eh, it's a dull half-arsed article from a paper where being stuck up your own arse is the only hiring qualification.

The X-Files is from that era of television where series were by standard a rarefied medium of entertainment - too many episodes, too many writers, too little time to actually plan things out.

Occasional shit episodes were a staple of that era even in the best shows, alongside myriad inconsistencies due to a lack of planning time.

You accept that, and if you're going to watch a show you accept the synopsis. The whole point of the X-Files is that it presents a world where myth and conspiracy are generally true, if you can't abide by that concept then why are you watching it? Sometimes it's supposed to be silly, sometimes they lean towards more plausible and horrific scenarios.

I don't know, there doesn't seem to be much substance to the article to even argue with. It basically boils down to 'I never liked this show' which avoids the purpose of the 'jump the shark' evaluation.

For the record I'd say the X-Files was pretty consistent in its original run. A peak came in the middle seasons, and a decline in Season 9 - largely due to the receding mythology arc. The two more recent seasons gave us some of the worst in the mythology stuff, but plenty to like in the monster-of-the-week stories.

I’ve read that, yes, and it did evoke what myriad media outlets were saying about Classic Who during the 2000s. To be honest, although I prefer the Guardian to the deranged tabloid alternatives (The Sun and The Daily Mail being the prime examples), they’ve always had a bourgeoise elitism to their journalistic output, and often come across akin to members of RTD’s social circles.

They’re inherently upper-class and elitist, yet assert a left-leaning position, akin to RTD: A writer who went to Oxford university and should have the intellectual capacity to produce respectable Doctor Who, only to both dumb it down beyond recognition and to insert working class Eastenders inspired stereotypes to try to appease that audience in a pathetic attempt to steer away from elitism (see Eccleston’s working class persona, costume etc, and a clear desire to turn away from Received Pronunciation in order to reinforce this, as Eccleston himself said in that 2005 BBC interview).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=4uD9IJqLMBo

The compromise being that RTD’s Who came across as snobbish and patronising in that it tried to attract this audience, yet treated them like fools either via illogical narrative construction or via inserting more working class stereotypes, indicative of a decidedly conservative programme as opposed to a progressive one. The Guardian is similar, and this article on the X-Files indicates a snobbish attitude to the talents of yesteryear as well as a patronising attitude to readers who could well be fans of the series. Their article on the possible fan remake of The Last Jedi indicated such a snobbery as well:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2018/jun/25/the-last-jedi-what-would-the-200m-fan-funded-remake-look-like

They also released this article on Ad Astra and ‘toxic masculinity’ in an attempt to look progressive:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/film/2019/sep/16/ad-astra-movie-toxic-masculinity-brad-pitt-james-gray-sci-fi

Tiberius, I’ve just read your post, and your point about the Guardian at the start encapsulates all I’ve said in a much more succinct, concise and telling manner.

I haven't watched the X-Files in years, but this does come across as mean spirited. I'm surprised as I always thought that the X-Files was very well regarded? Xena and Babylon 5 seemed to be the two that were often looked down on by elitists?

In answer to your question of would an X-Files remake or sequel have to pander these cretins, the answer is yes.

These bastards are the types who looked down on sci fi and fantasyf or decades, but when they realised it was profitable they took it over and continued to bully and smear it, but in a different way.

The Guardian sucks.

TiberiusDidNothingWrong wrote:I don't know, there doesn't seem to be much substance to the article to even argue with. It basically boils down to 'I never liked this show' which avoids the purpose of the 'jump the shark' evaluation.

I could only assume he was writing from the presumption that he's speaking to an audience that watched for the Mulder-Scully sexual tension, and saw all the sci-fi elements as an inconvenient distraction from that.

But yeah it really does boggle the mind why they picked a berk like him to do a piece on a show he never really liked or got.

If a show jumps the shark you lose investment in it, so it makes no sense picking someone who could clearly never be bothered investing in it in the first place.

For the record I'd say the X-Files was pretty consistent in its original run. A peak came in the middle seasons, and a decline in Season 9 - largely due to the receding mythology arc. The two more recent seasons gave us some of the worst in the mythology stuff, but plenty to like in the monster-of-the-week stories.

To be honest (though bear in mind this is how I felt back when I was 16), I think I just did get a bit tired and weary of how thick the arc and conspiracy was getting around Series 4 or 5. It felt too much for me to keep up with anymore. Maybe I felt that the show had simply peaked too early (with the Scully abduction storyline) and I wasn't sure where else it was going or could go.

The last memory I have of watching it semi-regularly was the first of a two-parter where Mulder finally caught Krycek, and he and Skinner spent the whole story just treating him as a punching bag. I think it started to get a bit too ridiculous and unbelievable for me there.

After that there was the first movie which I did go see, but I think again I got a bit tired of coming to the end with still no answers. Years later I finally happened upon the finale of Closure, and I have to say I can see its merits now but it was not the resolution I wanted for Mulder. So maybe that's another reason my interest waned.

Maybe I should give the later seasons another look though. I think it is one of those shows that rewards more with age.

I've never seen the X-Files but I do remember a really good Simpsons episode where Mulder and Scully come to Springfield after Homer claims he came into contact with an alien.

Pepsi Maxil wrote:I've never seen the X-Files

I never liked it much, so you'll probably love it.

Sounds like a typical Guardian cunt to me.
Honestly, who cares though? The people on that show achieved more than losers writing for some long since discredited laughing stock Commie newspaper ever will.

I just found X-Files boring for the most part. David whatsisface was as wooden as fuck, which didn’t help. Or maybe the character was just meant to be dull, I was never sure. Lol
I bailed out pretty early on when it was on tv, until later when a mate insisted it got so much better around season 4? Can’t remember exactly, but I still couldn’t get into it.
Ironically, I strayed onto an episode repeated on tv some years ago and thought it was pretty good. It was the later characters Dogget and Reyes? They seem to have breathed some life into it, and I made point of watching the rest and thought it was a big improvement. I found out after that apparently most of the fans don’t like those last couple of seasons (?) I found that quite amusing. Lol

And the Guardian is far too middle class to be considered a Commie paper.
It’s more Blairite Labour/PC/Centrist Remainer, which if it ever had a pull out poster like the Sun used to do from time to time, it would be of Chuka Umunna and Jo Swinson.
You mean the Morning Star, comrade. ;-)

Mulder is meant to be slightly aspie and unreactive. Duchovny does give an impressive performance here and there though.

And yeah, most fans bemoaned the lack of Mulder in 8-9.
I was a fan of Doggett myself - Robert Patrick is a really strong actor and far more emotive than Duchovny. I actually felt that a lot of Season 8 was the strongest the show had been in a while.

I think I would've struggled to stay interested in the show without Mulder, given it was always his personal mission and his personal stake. Unless they could give Doggett an equivalent emotional stake in wanting to know the truth without making it seem contrived.

Patrick was alright, and season 8 was generally very good (9 was shit though), but his intense severity could get a bit wearying sometimes. I never get people who diss Duchovny, frankly it seems like they've not watched more than 5 minutes - Mulder could be hilarious, both intentionally and unintentionally (characterwise I mean, because while he sometimes genuinely tried to wind people up, he really had no filter as to when it would be best for him to shut the fuck up!), and his irreverence was one of the reasons why he and Scully worked. Chalk and cheese.
With Patrick you basically had two very intense and serious leads, which kind of skewed things. They later tried to make Reyes more like Mulder to balance Doggett, but to be honest she was just bland and boring.