Black Oil and Bee Stings - An X-Files Podcast

Our struggle was getting through the latest episode of the X-Files “My Struggle II” with our sanity intact.  We consider it a historically bad episode of television, and a real disservice to long time X-Philes.  The greatest and most reliable piece of the X-Files machinery was always the chemistry of Mulder and Scully as partners in co-investigators, and the bad parts were its confusing and poorly thought out mythology that never ended with cliffhanger after cliffhanger.  It stands to reason then, that this “season’s” finale kept Mulder and Scully apart the entire time and ended with a massive cliffhanger after a brutally confusing and pointless plot.  Boo, just boooooooo.

That certainly was an episode of the X-Files, directed and written by Chris Carter, and entitled “Babylon”.  Yes, it certainly was.  It also had a lot of unlikely cowboy hats, Mulder sporting giant “MUSH” and “ROOM” blinged out hardware, and some surprise cameos of long beloved characters.  But unfortunately there was a lot of other stuff, which we weren’t fans of.  Abandon all hope, ye who liked this episode and decide to listen anyway.

Jim and A.Ron discuss episode 1004, “Home Again”, which is a perfectly cromulent Monster of the Week type of episode.  Featuring a suitably scary, creepy, monster with a grisly M.O., it also features some fine character work with Scully, but it’s not without it’s share of problems.  We discuss theories and lore around the Band-Aid Nose Man, the plight of the urban homeless, the propriety of serving on a school board sans kids, consider a bit of feedback from our fellow fans, and much more.  See you back next week!

A.Ron and Jim discuss the latest episode of the X-Files, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster”.  While we agree the episode was very funny, and the best of the re-vamped series so far, we are both left a bit wanting for different reasons.  A.Ron wanted more Mulder and Scully, and Jim wants more myth-arc.  Along the way we try to unpack all the fun easter eggs and references, and figure out where we’re going next.

Episode 1002 entitled “Founder’s Mutation” of the X-Files miniseries is better than the premiere, but not by a wide margin, and would be considered a middling episode back in the day.  The boys explore the charms of the episode, and ask what we presume are some of the big questions raised within.  We also discuss ratings so far, where we think the series is going, and our hopes for the future.  See you next week!

X-Files is back, with episode 1001, “My Struggle”.  It was the best of X-Files (cool space ships! Mulder and Scully! Cancer Man!), it was the worst of X-Files (retcons galore, crazy conspiracy word salad monologues, our heroes flip flopping on their skepticism / gullibility).  The key was, we were kind of braced for that, so by and large we enjoyed the introduction to the relaunch / reboot for what it was, and are eager to see what they get up to now that the heavy lifting is out of the way.  What did you think?  We got a wide range of opinions via email and the forums, but we’d love to hear from you using the contact methods below.  We’ll be back for the second episode tomorrow, see you then!

Greetings X-Philes!  Jim and A.Ron begin their coverage of the six episode mini-series version of the X-Files with a bit of a preview podcast, to get the feeds primed and pumping for this weekend’s premiere.  We discuss our history with the X-Files, favorite episodes, and hopes and fears for the weeks ahead.  Our coverage of the first episode airing on Fox the evening of Sunday, January 24th, will be out Tuesday, January 26th!  See you then.