I also like that this is one of the episodes where they show how exactly law enforcement would try to deal with a totally anomalous suspect. It is fun when they show examples of the evidence not being covered up etc but of the FBI having to deal with the bizarre reality of, say, Eugene Tooms.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764670)

They nail the “horror and wonder” bit with the abductions and UFO sightings, and there’s a lot going on here: very good character work, good photography, and i always liked the bit with the kid cracking the NSA algorithm (I wonder if this episode influenced Mercury Rising). Intelligent and tasteful.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764685)

They are in Bloody Birthday too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764799)

Mystery is good and Brad Dourif is in fine form doing white trash Hannibal

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764728)

I get the point but it doesn’t always work for me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764780)

This is a lot of fun, and also quite creepy—the very ending actually creeped me out, and I was looking with suspicion at ubiquitous digital displays for quite some time. This also does a good job of capturing the way that more rural places look—the way that they’re still five years or so behind.

It does lose points for convolution (why the pesticide AND the subliminal messages? Why doesn’t Mulder get more strongly affected? Is it because he doesn’t have a phobia? Isn’t he deathly afraid of fire per last season? Etc.) but whatever.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764818)

I do like the ending where Mulder is all “my evidence is the ashtray in the guys car” and it actually paid off for him. Skinner is probably the high point of this episode for me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764853)

Good grisly special effects though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764886)

This is run of the mill. I think my problem is that the mystery is pretty good but the epigenetic overlay they use is the most nonsensical way to address the scenario.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44764921)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44766724)

It’s goofy—like a very edgy Goosebumps book—and campy. There’s never anything close to a sense of dread or paranoia—it’s closer to Hocus Pocus than Rosemary’s Baby—but it’s a fun Satanic Panic riff.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44768299)

It’s iconic and fun although it never really feels like an X-Files episode as much as a watered down King version of “It’s a Good Life” (as opposed The Regulators, which is a more intense King riff on the same); Scully doesn’t really do all that much.

Still, it’s fun and violent and the sort of pleasant thrills that get you into this sort of stuff in the first place. The cutaways to Mulder, bored to tears, are really funny too.

Points off for managing to make “picking up a creepy doll floating in the ocean” seem lame, when there’s some crummy Bermuda Triangle Movie from the 1970s that makes the same idea a thing of sublime horror.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44771808)

Idk. I haven’t seen any of the stuff leading up to it, but is this where the show myth arc really starts getting dumb? “Alien Bounty Hunter” is Just such a goofy concept when you say those three words together. X has a cool send off. But this stuff is really silly, and while I guess I appreciate the NWO/WHO stuff they start looping in, it’s just silly.

Amazing cold open though.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44771835)

It’s a gross Texas Chainsaw/Hills Have Eyes riff that actually taps some of the intensity of those films by putting us into it right away—a lot of times after the cold open we are back in DC and insulated from the horror for a while, but here we go right into it, with the agents just a few hundred yards from the creepy house.

The night driving sequences are great and do prefigure some of the Vince Gilliganisms of Breaking Bad.

Oh you travel tp, you should look up “Horror We? How’s Bayou!” which is probably the scariest story from the old 1950s EC horror comics. This reminds me a lot of that.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44771862)

As I remember, the bifurcation of this plot (first half being the hostage situation and the second being Mulder’s own paranoia) works well, and it’s both creepy and funny. I am looking forward to revisiting this one in a few weeks when I get to it.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44792000)

Best MOTW Episode: Eve

Best Overall Episode: EBE

Scariest Episode: Squeeze

Worst Episode: Space

Hottest Chick: Phoebe Byers

Best Monster: Eugene Tooms

Best Cold Open: Conduit

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44771889)

This is a Triumph of writing; there’s enough stuff in here for two episodes (even after making this a two parter) and there’s a constant feeling of paranoia that is nice. One thing I will say for the myth episodes is that they’re often much better paced than the monsters of the week; this is efficient story telling that still finds time to give us a nice throwaway bit of scenery chewing with the red herring preacher. It’s also worth noting that what a lesser kooky conspiracy show could have as a plot line (someone is killing cloned Russian sleeper agents in the medical establishment) is just a very thin cover story here.

I do wish they’d just call him an alien assassin, since bounty hunter suggests a whole economy and stuff that boggles the mind to think about. But this is nuts and twisty and turny and fun.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44774733)

It’s crap though, and feels poorly timed right after two intense episodes. It fizzles out really quickly and turns into 90s environmental stuff. Which is amusing but not good to watch. Pulled the plug on this halfway through and doesn’t sound like I missed much.

This btw is the difference between good filler & bad filler: Fresh Bones is good filler—it doesn’t do much overall but at least it has memorable moments and energy. This is just slack flaccid padding.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44775460)

Update: Wow this is really great; these Darin Morgan scripts are gems. I like that it’s funny and also moving; I like that it treats the circus performers with dignity and that that includes the dignity to be made fun of just like everyone else. Very funny, very gross, just a great love letter to weirdness and fun. Or is it a tabernacle of terror?

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44775848)

I really like the sense of humor and the ethos underlying Humbug

I have seen War of the Coprophages, which I liked, and one of the ones he did for the revival (Were-Monster) which I really liked too.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44779471)

The makeup is scary and the vagueness around whatever is causing the anomaly is good; reminds me of something Charles Fort would write about.

It’s so well shot and has a horror comic feel to it; that’s underscored by some of the nasty and ironic twists (the dude hoarding the clean water and then drowning; Mulder and Scully arguing over who gets the last water and then it all spills)

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44775764)

I also like the idea that Mulder winds up making some of the same choices The Syndicate does in terms of suppressing the truth during the manhunt for the sake of control. I don’t think it’s a total classic but it is definitely a cut above

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44779496)

Also for a grim episode it has a great line where Mulder tells the bald asshole marshal that the gas station clerk probably survived the blow thanks to his hair.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44779526)

The notion of the town trying to deal with the practical effects of its own weird practices is a decent one although it feels like a rehash of Die Hand Die Verletzt. Mainly this reminded me that there is a Sean Hutson novel about vampirism and mutation at a meat packing town that I never finished and need to dig out tomorrow.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44780373)

Scully is great breaking bad in this episode. Love that Frohike likes J&B!

The scene where they gas the aliens was a little too goofy for me.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44780746)

I love love love CSM in this episode; it’s especially interesting to see this character who has generally been part of an omnipotent obstructive force get stymied and even desperate—like the scene when he’s facing questions from the rest of the Syndicate.

CSM in general is one of my favorites; I read that the actor built his performance around the notion “I’m the good guy; I need to stop the wicked Mulder and Scully.”

One note—I thought Victor Klemperer sounded familiar so I looked it up and he wasn’t a Nazi—he was a German Jew who kept a diary about the 3rd Reich. Huh/

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44783104)

Best MOTW Episode: Humbug

Best Overall Episode: Humbug

Scariest Episode: Dod Kalm

Worst Episode: 3

Hottest Chick: Scully’s sister

Best Monster: The Flukeman

Best Cold Open: Die Hand Die Verletzt

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44783127)

This is just a great episode—it’s what something like Stranger Things could only dream of because it has that extra nasty kick to it. Reminds me a bunch of various King concepts (bits and pieces of Carrie, Firestarter, Christine, and Maximum Overdrive), but also of something like a Richard Laymon novel like Resurrection Dreams or Beware, given that the antagonist is a venal, scuzzy adolescent boy. I like that some of the stuff is more implied than anything else (like that he’s been frying everyone who gets a high score), and there are little grace notes like the antagonist (Ribisi! Who really does seem to play a bunch of “slow” characters!) trying to sneak a peek up hot lady teacher’s skirt. I also enjoy Sheriff Exposition, who clearly has a chip on his shoulder and enjoys showing the big city FBI agents that he isn’t stupid and is scientifically minded too.

The ending almost doesn’t do it for me—of all the monsters of the week they throw in a cell and forget about, DPO seems particularly likely to escape (I assumed that he’d lose his powers again after the final lightning strikes), but then they do the channel surfing gag and it’s really incredibly good. I wonder if Darin Morgan punched up any of the script with stuff about TV, since the meta gags about freaks on television (and the general disdain for that medium) seem like something he’d do.

Testament to how great this episode is that I can write all this and not even get around to mentioning Jack Black, who is perfect here.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5142423&forum_id=2#44783369)