Things Are Getting Strange

Startlingly the first episode this week Scully actually suggests Spontaneous Human Combustion as a possible cause of death. Which if we're honest shouldn't be a huge surprise after the events of, say, Fire back in season 1. Trevor is a curious monster of the week episode suggesting tornadoes can give you super-powers. But what really floored us this week was the comments from director Ro...

Content Warning: multiple dog deaths Arcadia is satire with a capital S. Perfect community built on top of a landfill. Oh and enforced by a trash golem! Or tulpa maybe. Mulder does do a lot of conjecture in this episode... We discuss the alien nature (to us anyway) of there gated communities and the conformity therein and also the state of Mulder and Scully's fake marriage on display. There&a...

Back to the monster of the week(s)! Well, monster of the week anyway. Agua Mala is a comedic bottle episode with a unnerving monster, some amusing character moments and a lot of water. Oh so much water just all the time. We discuss the somewhat odd implications about how Mulder talks about Arthur Dales in this episode and depictions of entomologists on film. Back to the monster of the week(s)! Wel...

Could this be the end of the conspiracy? Is the planned for day here (about a decade early)? We discuss much of the conspiracy's tangles in Two Fathers . And also make a weird Xenogears connection for kicks. We try to make sense of the episode's new claims while not being thrilled about CSM point blank talking to the audience through so much of the episode. And get amused by the rubber m...

SR819 features nano machines and a decidedly confusing plot about Skinner! Until it stops being about Skinner with extreme rapidity and we wonder how Mulder and Scully get to go on this adventure without Kersh throwing yet another book at the pair. We discuss a certain returning character's career trajectory in The X-Files and his somewhat bewildering actions of late. At least we have Mulder&...

Content warning: child death, forced abortions, animal abuse After a run of comedic episodes, season 6 swerves hard into perhaps the darkest plotline The X-Files has ever had. But somehow any description of what happens in Terms of Endearment paints a picture of a bleak and thoroughly depressing episode which is somehow really fun to watch. Some of it is probably Bruce Campbell, but the episode pe...

Dreamland II continues with some possible stake-raising. Can Mulder and Fletcher get back to their original bodies? And what might be the fallout if they can? Not that Mulder learns a huge amount during his somewhat brief visits to Areas 51. Meanwhile Fletcher sets his sights on Scully... We discuss the weirdness of extending the joke episode out this long and how a fair amount of it doesn't...

Triangle is the second X-Files time-travel episode! Maybe. It could be the first Wizard of Oz X-Files episode which does make everything a lot weirder. And if we're honest, its a bit more likely. It doesn't help that the ship is less than accurate, the German is less than accurate and even the code names are inaccurate. Still this is a popular episode from Chris Carter himself. It feels...

The X-Files returns to TV with season 6. And a new locale. One these first two episodes are not remotely subtle about... For The Beginning , we talk about apparent Grey alien lifecycles and Chris Cater's pettiness. And where is Krycek even now? Its so hard not to contrast the black oil as it exists back to Piper Maru and how different everything was. We just don't talk about bees. Drive...

We're off to the movies! The X-Files film (or Fight the Future - however rightly or wrongly it is so named) still holds up really well all these years later. Actual concrete details about the whole conspiracy are unveiled! Backstory! The threat! The slim hope of salvation! Just... We get into how much the Black Oil has changed since its introduction in Piper Maru . And how the Syndicate have...

The inevitable episode where Mulder gets himself committed. Folie a Deux is a great creepy episode that is almost a black comedy, but remains a fine creature-feature for the tail-end of season 5. There's some Philip K Dick in this episode - as well as a touch of Lovecraft. We are admittedly in danger of just praising Vince Gilligan all the time, but this is a really good penultimate episode t...

It feels a lot like All Souls forgets all about the events of Revelations from season 2 - that time it heavily implied Scully was set to be the next Messiah's guardian in some future conflict. Instead Scully has an opportunity to come to terms with the events of Emily - but also encounter a Seraph (maybe) and the Devil (maybe). All we really know is that the CGI is terrible. And its oddly eas...

...as final words instead of a guy shot by a cop blurting out 'Mulder'. Well, I suppose he had to get involved in this flashback into the 1950s for Travellers somehow. Into a world of red-scares and transplantation with a mind to... We never quite get what the whole spider in the throat thing is supposed to achieve in this episode. Presumably something but that deal evades the plot as it...

Patient X asks the question of "What would The X-Files be like if Mulder was an absolute jerk" and reveals that it makes us really want to strangle him in this episode. We get into how odd his characterisation has been across this season and how his vehement denial of alien abductions feels a little out of the blue in this episode. But otherwise we're very keen on both of these epis...

We're heading back to the 80s for some serious cyberpunk action in the first episode this week with Kill Switch! But somewhat disappointed. Invisigoth has a cool name and a cool look, but ultimately the episode feels a bit unsatisfying. We discuss William Gibson's writing outside of The X-Files and the vision of AI back here in the 90s and how it contrasts to any current discussion. Also...

Content warning - Schizogeny - discussion/depictions of child abuse Content warning - Chinga - above average violence Schizogeny often ranks amongst the least favourite of all The X-Files , and its really hard not to see it in that kind of light. How the plot fits together, what even is Man with Axe's deal, and how do the villain's powers remotely work are all questions left unanswered b...

Content warning for Emily - Child death and discussions of sexual assault While Christmas Carol hinted at some conspiratorial follow-ups, we weren't really prepared for this the latest entrant in the Scully abduction subplot. Toxic alien blood! Shapeshifters! Mulder flipping out over a three-year old he met two hours ago! Not wholly sure why Mulder didn't get fired over his actions in th...

Content warning for The Post-Modern Prometheus - discussion of sexual assault Content warning for Christmas Carol - discussion of suicide It's The X-Files Christmas special! Sort of. First off, we have to go read a well-regarded comic we are... less than happy with. The Post-Modern Prometheus is often cited as one of the series' best episodes, but we can't really get past the centra...

The X-Files takes a trip back to 1989 and the formation of the Lone Gunmen. Also plausibly how Mulder's interest in aliens originated too. We talk the big questions. Like who's Kung fu is best and how does Suzanne find that hotel room? But in all seriousness, the Usual Suspects acts as a great pilot for a Lone Gunmen spin-off that does eventually happen. But as we rapidly figure out, thi...

The answer of how Mulder's dead body can be identified in Gethsemane and this not be David Duchovny leaving the series turns out to involve literal murder. And both Redux and Redux II don't spend much time at all grappling with the little detail of Mulder totally killing someone (which is not the first time) and then blasting said someone's face off with a shotgun. But hey, what&apo...

Content warning - depictions and discussions of suicide Ketamine is a very different substance to whatever Herbert West uses in Re-Animator . But The X-Files seems to quite look how Dr. West's stuff looks so Mulder gets injected with it in this episode. Revelations of a sort from Mulder's past! Can we trust anything we see given the peculiar way the memory is uncovered and how it kind of...

Content warning for Elegy - depictions of autism Welcome to the Skinner show! In this week's episode - Zero Sum - Skinner is embroiled in the shadowy cover-up while Mulder is almost one step ahead of him in a surprising twist to the norm. There's some good and bad insect accuracy in this episode and we get into Marita's nature as Mulder's contact once again. Also why are the Sy...

Content warning for Small Potatoes - discussions of sexual assault A glimpse of the future! Or at least there was a future for the time-travel episode of The X-Files for the character to arrive back from. We get into how Scully doesn't seem to be right given the episode clearly has the future not being static. So maybe we can avoid the dystopian lack of hope that apparently has now gripped th...

Is this Scully's  worst birthday ever? A surprise rendition of Happy Birthday, an Apollo 11 key-chain, Mulder suggesting a plane crash is due to a UFO and then a visit to the actual crash site to look for survivors. Far be in from me to suggest this is not her ideal way to spend her birthday, but Scully doesn't looked entirely thrilled in Tempus Fugit . Not that her birthday really facto...

Content Warning: discussions of anti-semitism Come to New York! See none of the famous landmarks! I guess Kaddish is set in Queens, but still... We talk about how one dresses golems (and Umbrella-corporation projects) and how Scully's ongoing storyline doesn't seem to impact this episode at all. And that's it for this week. Next week- Oh wait. Unrequited . Always forget this one. It...