Things Are Getting Strange

Is it ever possible to have a story wherein a character is granted three wishes and for them to not screw up immediately? Je Souhaite certainly paints none of the would be wishees in especially good light.

Despite the inherent issues with humanity, the episode is a lot of fun. Scully gets to be giddy about autopsying an invisible man, while Mulder tries to rules-lawyer his way out of unwanted side-effects. As the penultimate episode of the season (and at one stage, possibly ever) its a fun time.

Requiem feels like an episode went missing somewhere. A lot has happened since we last checked in with Krycek and Marita apparently. We do get somewhat concerned about CSM's intention to rebuild his shadow syndicate with Krychek, Marita, Greta (his nurse), and a crashed UFO.

That no one can find. Despite this being relatively simple in, say, Fallen Angel or Nisei or Memoirs of a Cigarette Smoking Man... There's some inconsistencies shall we say. And despite what looks a lot like a crash, the accident was incredibly fortuitous for rounding up abductees...

We discuss the difference between Geiger and Giger counters, sum up the season, get into the best and worst episodes and look ahead to the strange new phase of the series.

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Not sure if the first episode to receive the treatment, but it turns out Mythbusters specifically took down one of the central premises of this episode as being effectively impossible. So, no you can't listen to the Aramaic version of I am the Walrus on that pot your aunt made...

Hollywood AD is a weird episode. Part religious struggle and part Hollywood wrecking the premise of The X-Files itself and reducing a Cardinal who cracks joke into a bizarre version of Cigarette Smoking Man in the form of the Cigarette Smoking Pontiff. We talk about Borges and Gary Shandling and how 20th Century Fox apparently liked making films on top of graveyards.

By the rules that bind us, we are not allowed to talk about Fight Club. At all.

Not that we especially want to. Kim strives to find a highlight in amongst one of the most universally derided entrants into the series and finds little. We talk inconsistent phenomenon, so many jokes not taken, and a theory about why this episode is like this.

But really, you're better off watching the film of the same name that has nothing to do with this mess.

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The enduring question we were left with all things was what happened? The answer seemingly was Carter and Spotnitz who did things to the episode and fundamentally changed a few things about the directorial debut of Gillian Anderson.

It is a shame as we would really like to like this episode but even now the details drift away. Except for a ship-baity start and deeply unsettling statues. And crop circles feels a really weird thing for Mulder to fixate on when he has actively talked to multiple aliens at this point and never thought to ask if they actually had anything to do with them.

(but given even nominally trust-worthy instances like the Alien Bounty Hunter lied to Mulder's face - for no reason - with regard to Samantha's whereabouts, not sure Mulder could have gotten a straight answer).

Brand X is clearly the superior product here. Even Jigsaw agrees. Tobin Bell is quite amazing in this episode coming well before astonishing success with a certain barbed wire infested series. Shame the stuff about insect eggs, the beetles in general are not... great for realism or coherency.

But who cares? Body horror and we get a supernatural excuse for the nastiness. And a... slightly confused smoking PSA.

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We are very much ignoring the future of En Ami. We know and we will get to it. Later.

For now, we have questions about extraneous other angels and the complete lack of Lord Kinbote. And that man really does not live up to the code-name 'Cobra'. Still, the CSM and Scully road-trip has its moments though we are bewildered by the end as to what the point of any of it was - and speculate things might have been quite different on the first draft.

Not quite an episode about nothing, but also not really the heist episode it could have been.

Chimera is one of those episodes we flat out did not remember before hand. Except for the ravens. As with First Person Shooter we are kind of left with a lot of questions as to why the supernatural stuff happened and why the monster is so inconsistent across the episode.

Also Scully does appear to have forgotten what an actual job at the FBI entails versus hanging around with Mulder. In any case, she's not in this one much. Sort of a reverse Chinga.

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If you are at all convinced by the advertising, the promotional gimmicks, the press interviews for First Person Shooter, we are here to tell you in no uncertain terms how bad this game is. That said, you likely already played it during the press embargo and know of its absurd difficulty spike, its complete lack of cohesion and rumoured risk of permanent physical injury, death or removal from this plane of existence.

We are not ultimately sure who is responsible for this mess. While William Gibson and Tom Maddox's names are on the episode, Chris Carter is listed as director and some of the... "choices" in this one are definitely because of him. We get into how bizarre the game is, how terrible it would be to play (especially in contrast to what was actively available at the time), and how the episode seems to spool out without really even a token explanation of how any of this is possible.

Theef is an episode we spend a long time speculating how it might have fulfilled its original brief if things had been different. So much so we have to keep insisting we really did enjoy this episode. It just has some weirdness and again, the stated intent doesn't come across.

At least its one of the grisliest episodes and boasts one of the scariest villains the series has had in ages. Shame its whole stance on folk medicine is hopelessly muddled.

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And thus we learn the final fate of Samantha Mulder!

Is it satisfying? No. Closure is very touching and quite beautiful and well acted. But as a capstone to a question that first appeared in the very first episode this is not what anyone wanted. We get into how this fails to make much sense with seven years of other conspiracy (we know the aliens habitually lie, but why bother to claim Samantha was alive back in End Game?) and why this is basically just Redux's solution with some extra steps.

Still, that's one answer down. For those keeping score: aliens are real, CSM fathered all the Mulder children, and Samantha was dead the entire time.

Not even sure if there is anything left to go. Other than whatever CSM was up to in The Sixth Extinction Part 2.

X-Cops on the other hand is the bizarre The X-Files/Cops mash-up and it works far better than it should. We get into how much it reminds us of Ghostwatch and how The Blair Witch Project near certainly had some influence on its presentation.

Also implies Mulder deals with the reveals of the previous episode by hunting werewolves in downtown LA.

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Content warning: mentions of animal abuse, implied incest, child death

Signs and Wonders is somewhat diminished when we learned about the various animal cruelties on set during the filming of this episode.

Getting past that, we are left with a succession of questions about what and why this episode happened. Its pretty fun though and we learn about how auditions were done for the episode and which members of the cast and crew were more than three blocks away whenever the snakes entered proceedings.

Some despairing at the theme of the episode but at least we had more fun than...

Sein und Zeit sounds like it should have something to do with Signs and Wonders. At a quick enough glance, you could be forgiven for thinking its the same title just in German. But no!

Sein und Zeit is hard to talk about for a number of reasons. Not least is the similarity to a real life murder case - and how much of it will hinge on next week's Closure given its hard to get away from the reveal that this episode serves to finally resolve what happened to Samantha.

We get hung up on all the other Samantha's variously pinballing through the series and what the implications of this episode seem to be leaning into. Kim offers the thoroughly entertaining idea that the episode is in fact a follow up to Folie a Deux and thus offers a much weirder take on procceedings.

Ultimately, its Paper Hearts again - an issue that doesn't initially hinder it too bad - aside from we've seen this already Chris, but then rapidly spirals into weird decisions as it sets up a cliffhanger.

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It is hard to watch Orison without immediately concluding that Scully is totally getting fired right after the climax of the episode. And yet - based on The Amazing Maleeni - somehow shooting an unarmed man, pointblank while he is being arrested by her partner is not enough.

Weird how it was Scully who'd finally wind up killing someone like this. Mulder kept trying but never managed it. Still, we are supposed to have some empathy given the man in question is Donnie Pfaster, once again determined to murder Scully. Just... None of this got setup or even hinted at as some deep psychological scarring for Scully.

We inevitably get into how this wasn't meant to be about Donnie Pfaster in the slightest, and the original (Millennium-esque) episode was changed into an unnecessary follow-up to Irresistible. At least there won't be another...

The Amazing Maleeni is a lot more fun, even if Kim does reveal a rather gaping plot-hole that renders the whole episode a little moot in the end. At least some of the magic is real - or at least performed by actual stage magicians.

We discuss other fictional magicians and implausible bank heists. And how Scully should wear a top-hat from now on.

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At this point, it is quite impossible to talk about Rush without also mentioning Chronicle. And we can't! We get into how similar the two instances are and how they diverge quite wildly.

We talk about the villain's lack of imagination, the welcome reappearance of Chuck, and how Mulder doesn't get really obsessed with the impossible shot pulled off in the climax. Definitely puts the JFK conspiracy to shame.

Also how network censorship makes things nastier.

Imagine if you will, reading this post. You go to click the link and knock over your coffee, right onto your keyboard. You stand up abruptly and knock your chair backwards and it collides with the bookshelf. It sways and a box on top topples over and lands heavily on the ground.

The thump dislodges the plaster in the ceiling of the room below you and kills the armed gunman coming to murder you.

Implausible? Maybe. But that's the Rube Goldberg-ness of this episode where we discover weirdness like how scratchcard payouts work and Shia LeBeouf's early career.

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Mulder may often feel like a jerk, but Hungry kinda paints him as a predator playing with his food as he takes his sweet time doing anything about poor old Rob in this episode. If Mulder was a bit quicker than likely three people might still be alive...

Still, this is a monster-eyed view of The X-Files and pretty good. We get into the contrast to Terms of Endearment and how Rob might be a proto-Walter White all things considered. Not sure why people quibbled about finding out who the killer was so fast with this one...

Millennium is the second actual (if you count The Unusual Suspects) but intended third crossover into The X-Files. And comes courtesy of Chris Carter's other show that outside of one nod to The X-Files and an appearance by Jose Chung had trundled on quite happily without intersecting. It doesn't entirely work here and we get hung up on crossovers as a concept for quite some time.

But Sculder shippers win out! Here (after cuts, parallel universes/dreams and Mulder's inexplicable dream-marriage to Fowley) is the first kiss the pair get onscreen. At least Mulder wasn't cock-blocked by a bee this time.

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