The X-Files.

[Admin]

OK, who watched it, who liked it?

My wife has bought a box set of the first one or two series and I've been watching it.

I love it!! :D ??? :P

Of course I see it purely as fiction and entertainment.

An interesting point, which I read by someone on the JREF forum, is that if anyone is a Skeptic in the show it's Mulder and not Scully.

He actually sees the evidence (as do we as viewers to bias us in Mulder's favour) and follows it (most of the time). Scully also sees the evidence but always denies it.

Of course that may be catering to the stereotype that believers would love us to be; people who will not change their minds even when presented with evidence. Of course it's wrong. Evidence is what skepticism is all about. 8)

[tkingdoll]

I was totally obsessed with the first 3 or 4 seasons, I even had the trading cards!

It got a bit lame after a while though, a bit like '24 'with aliens. The earlier episodes with one story each were great!

[Admin]

Not just me then! ;D

It's my wife who really loves it, but I think that's something to with fancying Fox Mulder as much as anything. ;)

I agree, the later series was too much cloak & dagger conspiracy theory stuff and it lost its impact.

[Nettles]

The show was brilliant originally, and continued to produce occasional cool episodes right through to the end. The show made a big mistake when they relocated shooting from BC to the States. The budget priorities had to change, and the show turned into a sort of Oliver Stone movie turned TV show. The show jumped the shark when Cancer Man started to appear as a recurring character and (as others have noted) when it turned into a serial rather than a series. Or it jumped the shark when Mulder's sister's abduction became a running sore ... sore? Did I say sore? Running theme.

Fox Mulder as a character was great fun, and that's largely because Duchovny brought so much to the role. It could so easily have become humourless over the course of a few long seasons, but he kept some sparkle in it. Whoever was dressing Gillian Anderson deserves tremendous credit. I think, perfectly seriously, that trouser suits became acceptable office wear in conservative work environments in part because Scully wore them on X-Files.

The role of Scully was a really good version of Clarice Starling, and managed to combine the idea of multidisciplinary stuff (oh yeah, she's qualified in forensic medicine) which the FBI does in real life, and the idea of the intellectual woman as action hero. She may not have been written or acted as brilliantly as Mulder, but by gawd she was a departure.

And if anyone suggests I changed my hairstyle from Counsellor Troi to Dana Scully because of the show, she's lying. Even though she is my sister.

[Admin]

I think you've hit the nail on the head there Nettles. It changed from a series to a serial.

Although there were themes running from the beginning, most of the episodes were self-contained stories dealing with different paranormal topics.

I'm still watching them when I can and thouroughly enjoying them.

[Mojo]

It's one of Mrs. Mojo's favourite programmes, to a large extent because she likes the characters of Mulder and Scully, so I get to see quite a lot of it (she has seasons 1-6 on DVD so far). The later ones weren't such a high priority for purchase though. I think she would agree that it went off the boil somewhat, partly because of the shift from series to serial, but also because they simply started to run out of ideas.

I enjoy suspending my disbelief and watching it. I have a slight problem with the portrayal of Scully as a skeptic though, especially in the early series; every week she sees evidence for all this wierd stuff, but then starts the following episode not believing it again - exactly how woos like to present skeptics.