Phantom Galaxy: The X-Files Season 1 Round Table

you Detective? Thrill me. Scream! Scream for your lives! You're going out there to destroy them, right? Not to study, not to bring back. I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. Oh, I know this creature of yours. When the dragon gets this old, it knows nothing but pain. Scientists are saying the future is going to be far more futuristic than they originally predicted. Welcome to Sound Care Board, gentlemen. Open the pod bay doors, pal. I'm sorry, Dave.

I'm afraid I can't do that. Some celestial event. No words. You really shook the pillars of heaven, didn't you? What's the boogeyman? As a matter of fact... It was. Hello everyone and welcome back to the Phantom Galaxy podcast. The crossroads are science fiction, fantasy and horror meat. I'm your host Nathan Bartlebaugh and tonight I am not joined by Bill VanVegel.

That would not be a regular occurrence, but for tonight, I actually have three guests that I want to bring in, and then I'll let everyone know what our topic is, kind of a special episode that we're hoping will become a series. Tonight I have Dave Roy, who is also from Canada, like Bill, and he is the host of the Great Fright North podcast. And Dave, how are you doing tonight? I'm doing great.

My other co-host for tonight is Victor Rodriguez, who's also been on the show before. He's the author of the anthology collection, The Sound of Fear. And you actually have a podcast that you also narrate some of your stories and talk about them. That's 100% right. Yeah. My friend Josh and I are doing a podcast called Inside the Sound of Fear. Every episode, I do a reading of one of my stories in the book, and then Josh interviews me about the story.

what my inspirational sources were, stuff like that. And yeah, episodes are up on Spotify, Apple podcasts, wherever you download stuff. And we've got the final six coming probably in the next month or two. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun. Subbing in for Bill tonight, I was told to let this person know that they have been dubbed his Jay Leno, or actually he then downgraded and said no, Andy Richter. But we have Tommy Wood from The Real Talk.

podcast is joining us tonight and uh bill said that the only spec the only stipulation is that you have to according to our imaginary to be agreement mentioned to be at least seven times during this episode the same way that bill would if you were here I'm so glad to be here. Thanks so much, Nathan. Appreciate having me on. Yeah, I am going to talk about Tubi a whole lot.

It's in my contract with you guys. And, you know, talking with Bill a lot, I'm really starting to warm up to Tubi. So I might be becoming a Tubi guy. But so happy to join everybody. It's great to be on with Victor and Dave. Nice to meet you guys. Yes. And then so, yeah, so tonight's episode is the X-Files. We're going to discuss season one of the X-Files. And it's funny because this is we were just talking about how this has been sort of a developing thing over the summer. I was talking to Dave.

we were talking about, oh, we should do an episode for the X-Files, which we planned. And then due to schedules and stuff, we didn't quite get a chance to do it. And then Victor approached me and said, oh, you know, it'd be cool.

Should we do the X-Files? I was like, well, I have Dave over here. Let's do it together. And then we posted this on Facebook that this was going on about an hour or so ago. And then Tommy contacted me about within that time frame and was like, oh, have you ever do another X-Files episode?

Let me know. And I said, well, you know, there's still time to get in on this one. So he was very diligent because I believe he's watched about three quarters of the pilot. But from what I understand, Tommy has already seen. all of these episodes multiple times in the past. So I, everybody who's involved, I think is a big fan of the show as am I. So tonight we're going to talk about season one. I do want to say up front, we are probably going to go into.

extraordinary detail where we spoil every element, but this is going to be a spoiler episode. So if you are really looking to kind of watch these episodes fresh, I would say do that before you listen. Again, we're not probably going to go. beat by beat but as we talk about some of these episodes and as we talk about the overarching storyline of the x-files there will be big events that happen even in this first season that would affect your

viewing if you're somebody who wants to go into it cold. So I just want to put that up front. But then the way we're going to handle this is we're going to go around and give our... our feeling general feelings about the show when it first came out specifically season one and what it was like when it entered the sort of

TV landscape at the time. And then we're going to go around and talk about each of us picked three episodes. Tommy just joined. So Tommy's going to share the pilot, but then he will also share his thoughts on the episodes that we've all picked.

And we're going to share our three favorite. We kind of, so that we weren't all doing the same one. We tried to make sure that we had nine different episodes, but I think these represent for the most part, the ones that we think are some of the strongest episodes of the season. And then.

uh after that we'll discuss our general thoughts about the story arc for season one and share a couple things like maybe some of our least favorite episodes or favorite appearances in the show things like that so Just to kind of get this started.

So my my very basic general thoughts and give you an idea for the show when it first came out, it's it's hard to believe how long it's been. You know, I mean, first off, it's been off the air for several years. In fact, even the reboot from a few years ago, it's now been.

couple years since that aired 1993 in in september of 93 was when the show actually aired now i find i'm finding different dates for when the pilot aired uh do you guys do you guys know anything about that when the i feel like i saw the pilot September 10th. September 10th. Was that the first time? Because I feel like I saw the pilot before the show really started running. And I know back in the day, particularly with things like with...

Fox and other stations, sometimes they would develop a pilot for a show and air it, and then you might not see anything from it again for a little bit of time. So I wasn't certain if this happened like that or that it did air pretty close to the release date. I wonder if that is possible. IMDB trivia is not gospel, but I did notice in the trivia for the second episode that...

apparently it was filmed a year later. So is it possible that maybe the pilot was floating out there and they played it a couple times? Yeah, it may be something like that. And I don't remember exactly. I do know that when it finally did become a show, it was, I remember the summer of 1993 leading up to that.

which was a really fun summer because you had Jurassic Park and other things like that coming out at the time. And it was a, you know, it was a pretty good summer for movies. I think Surf Ninjas, I'm just kidding. But, you know, it was, there was a lot of...

sci-fi stuff and on television there really hadn't been a at that point in time really outside of like Deep Space Nine Babylon 5 you had those science fiction shows but you didn't have First off, you had no that I can think of during that time frame, any really long running. horror themed television show unless you guys get there maybe was friday the 13th the series but yeah like yeah man other other shows that were on at the same time were premiered like the nanny

Lois and Clark, Sequest. You could watch Kung Fu, The Legend Continues. Yeah, that's why I remember that. Same quality stuff, you know? UPN had a whole batch of them because you got kind of excited, like, oh, they're doing Kung Fu The Legend Continues and Mantis and, you know, time tracks. And you're right, they were all kind of somewhat subpar. Earth 2 was later, but yeah. I mean, Seinfeld was on, but yeah.

Not the same quality at all. Remember the show Briscoe County Jr.? Yeah, that was on there right after the X-Files. And I remember reading this that that was the show Fox thought would be the hit that year. Like I thought that was going to be the hit and X-Files was going to be a bomb because like you guys said, there hasn't been any, there hadn't been anything like that, that was successful in like many years.

And so they put all their eggs in the Briscoe basket. And Fox being new, I wonder if this show started on a different network, would they have given it a second season? Fox was pretty new. They didn't have a ton of content. So maybe it had time to breathe, you know? Yeah, I think you're right. And I mean, for the record, I think that Briscoe County Junior was an awesome show. I remember being most.

into watching that on, I guess it started maybe Sundays or Fridays. I forget which, but I know it switched to the other after a while. But because X-Files was... You know, back to back with Briscoe, I got into X-Files. Yes, that's exactly right. In fact, I had never seen actually the the Evil Dead movies when I was younger. So I had gone with my.

dad to the theater like in the fall in the winter i guess of 93 and we went to like a discount theater and saw army of darkness and i was like this is amazing and over the summer i'd found evil dead and so then i'm like I'm hearing about this Briscoe County junior show, not aware that Bruce Campbell's in it, or, you know, I have a basic idea that Bruce Campbell's done these movies, but not.

Not a lot else. I know I've seen him in other things. And then to turn this show on, and that's the one I was excited for. You're right. They put all the money into Briscoe. It was kind of like a throwback to the Wild Wild West, the old TV series. And then watching it...

that's the one i tuned in for because it did air first it was on at eight and they started running it on friday nights i think they did they aired the pilot a couple times victor like you said like on sundays and other places and then they moved it to uh or it might have been a deal you know

Back then, I forget that they kind of did the syndicated thing a little bit where it would air once on like one night and then air again a little later to give the show some exposure, you know. So I think they were airing it sometimes on Sundays and sometimes on Fridays. It ultimately ended up on Friday. And...

Then X-Files came right after it, and that was the same way. I was mostly tuning in for Briscoe, but then I saw the X-Files, and it took a little bit to get into it. Sadly, Briscoe County Junior did get kind of canceled after a year. I don't know if it would have had legs. I would have loved to seen it go further because there's some interesting sci-fi stuff happening on that show too, even though largely it was comedy. Yeah. Well, I think the cool thing about Briscoe is, I mean...

Yeah, the high production values, great guest stars, and excellent writing. I think one of the guys that wrote and created Briscoe went on to do Lost and a bunch of other stuff. And yeah, a Western with Bruce Campbell perfectly cast as the lead. really kind of a self-aware is almost like an early Buffy, the vampire slayer, except with a bigger budget almost and a Western. Yeah. And Julius Carey was great on that show. Yes. Yes. Julius Carey was awesome.

Yeah, I'm like, it's John Astin from Adam's Family and Julius Carey from The Last Dragon. But then so the X-Files, you've got the pilot episode, which we'll talk about. But the other thing that had happened just that summer before for me was we had just gotten the sci-fi channel.

on cable for the first time and now when people say sci-fi channel you think of giant cgi snakes and maybe you think of a battle star galactic or things like that but when it first popped up it had almost none of its own content i don't know if you guys remember that like It was mostly just playing back episodes of all the old science fiction TV shows, which was actually kind of cool because you could turn it on and see The Incredible Hawk and you could see...

Thunderbirds and Space 1999 and all of these things. And then they also ran, and I had seen the old TV movie years ago, but I had never seen Kolchak the Night Stalker. So it was kind of fortuitous that I saw that Summer had got hooked into Kolchak the Night Stalker, unaware that the X-Files was coming, and then to know that Chris Carter...

His kind of primary inspiration or his template even, and you can kind of see that, was Kolchak the Night Stalker when he goes into the X-Files. So I think I was kind of perfectly primed for it. I just didn't even know it was really coming. So my initial thoughts were, wow.

it was hitting all these little boxes like all the alien stuff all the like cryptozoological stuff that goes on and the paranormal stuff it was i felt like we had only seen this stuff like tinkered with a little bit on television You hardly ever saw this. I don't remember how I hooked on. I feel like I saw the pilot first, but you know how it starts. I think it says something about this being based on true events.

uh that's kind of what hooked me like like you say you didn't see this stuff the closest you could get you know i was the kind of kid that was trying to order those time life books the paranormal books because there was no internet you if you were into aliens Where were you finding research? How were you talking to people? You were kind of an obscure nerd. My mom didn't know what Area 51 was.

when the show came out. So it was just, I thought it was for me, you know, it was just feeding right, right into the things I was into big time as a, as a, I was 17 when this came out. Yeah, man. Same. I wasn't much older. I had just moved out of my parents' house and had my own apartment. My roommate was also into sci-fi. And I wasn't particularly into UFOs, but I was willing to give the show a chance.

I really got into it. I think that, you know, when we talk about the pilot, I'll tell you why. But yeah, I think that they really they really nailed the. the feel of where people that like nerdy stuff like myself could go every week to see some fiction based on it. Yeah, when really nerdy stuff, that was, you were kind of in the minority back then as a nerd. I was just thinking when the date of the show came up, 93, that's almost 30 years ago now.

Yeah, it's a little crazy to think. And I was just a little bit younger. I was actually probably, I guess I was probably like... 13, 14. I was just going into high school, actually, the year that the X-Files came out. Yeah, I was in high school. Yeah, and so...

Uh, but that's the time life thing you mentioned is funny because that's what I remember too, is I had those, or you go to the library and you would get these books out and like, I had like, yeah, like LPD of monsters or the guide to UFOs and stuff like that. Yeah. Hang out in the paranormal section of the bookstore.

too to kind of read for free you know before chapters yeah you'd get that and i think victor's gonna hear me say this again but you get those books and the main thing i remembered is they the smell of the old aging glue in the books oh yeah i think i have a problem i don't know i must have gone

high a lot uh off those books but uh in every sense but so you're right and the two places i if fox though if you remember fox was sort of like in the years before this they would flirt with that a little with like alien autopsy do you remember that and like or they'd have

Yeah, I think Fox. And that actually might have been after the X-Files aired. But I remember they would do stuff like that. Or you'd have those videos with the person. Their entire face would be blurred out or they'd be in the shadows. And they would make their voice sound like the teacher from Peanuts, you know, to protect their identity. Yeah. That or coast to coast. Do you guys remember on the radio they had? Oh, Art Bell. Yes. I used to, that.

I used to stay up late just to listen to Art Bell. So Art Bell was probably the primary source of that at around the same time or maybe a little before that would talk about all these things because Art Bell basically in his mind lived the X-Files. Yeah, yeah.

That was just him in real life. He was running from the shadow people. He's still running from the shadow people. West of the Rockies. So I think I'm kind of like the youngest of the group then because this show was, I think it came out when I was nine. And it was like the first show that like, I remembered like just being so like drawn to as a kid. And it was like, like just sucked me in from the very first season. And it was like.

ever since then i just was like obsessed with it and it kind of grew me into loving sci-fi so this show really kind of got me into that world i think so i think that's why it's so formative for me and why i still love it to this day It very quickly became a water cooler show. I mean, with the people I knew. I certainly remember being in class one time, and the girl sitting next to me asked what I was up to.

It's Friday night. What are you up to this weekend? Oh, I'm probably going to watch The X-Files tonight. She looked at me like I had just farted and said, The X-Files? Ew. So it probably took a while to grow. I think by the end of season two, it was, it was, it was hot. You know, we were, people were talking about it on Monday at school. Yeah. And I think that's also, that, that was like one of the.

one of the, the, the layers of, of, of filters that you go through when you mentioned, I'm going to watch the X-Files this weekend. If the girl said, cool, I'm into it. Then you're like, Hmm, maybe I'll go out with her. Yeah. This show also, looking at the date, I was just looking at stuff that was or wasn't around when it came out, and it's... It's also very pre, you know, like there's so many fans of it, but the way we're fans of stuff today, people just obsess binge.

Buy t-shirts, Funko Pop, McFarlane figure. None of that stuff was around when the X-Files came out. You couldn't even find a Duchovny t-shirt. There was no... nothing for the fans out there except to get together and talk. And then maybe at the end of the season, you know, they released those, it's like an episode guide. I mainly remember them for The Simpsons, but I know there were X-Files ones as well.

Yeah, I remember that. I remember there was like an Entertainment Weekly that had like the best. It was like a collector's edition, like halfway through the series run. It was like greatest X-Files episodes. It was just like the whole magazine. Oh, yeah. Just loving that, collecting that. Because they didn't have anything. You couldn't go to the forums yet. No, no. Was there a forum? I mean, I don't even remember if I had a computer in 93. Right, no.

If they did, it would have just been starting around that time. It's weird because this is pretty much the last TV show where there was no internet on the show. Yeah, no cell phones either at first, or not really. But the fans had maybe some access to a really primitive internet. And yeah, you guys are absolutely right. Like they were all over, like Scully and Mulder were all over Entertainment Weekly.

So even when the show wasn't as strongly rated as other shows, they were still on the cover because, you know, they look awesome and, you know, everybody was gorgeous. Yeah. Into the show. Actually, probably everybody's got a note, like, how they were on every magazine and stuff. I didn't realize, it's funny, when I was watching it as a child, they seemed like... put together adults and uh it was very easy to take them seriously but i watched it

They look like babies. They do now, yes. How is he already an FBI agent that's been up and on his way down? And they say Gillian Anderson is a medical doctor teaching at the FBI Academy. She's 25. in that episode.

Yeah. And also like David Duchovny has like, he went to Oxford and like you said, he's considered the best in the behavioral crime or forensics. You know, I'm like, well, what? And plus I don't ever remember them like talking about that ever again. Like, no, I don't remember it coming up either. Walter being like an Oxford-trained psychiatrist. That's what they say. You're a psychologist. Yeah, you feel like some of that just kind of got...

dumped after the fact. But yeah, those early days of the burgeoning internet, like you said, there's maybe a couple of message boards. Most of the people who were probably getting together and able to talk about it were a lot like the lone gunmen themselves. Totally. Yeah. But it's a funny thing now because I was thinking of all the things that are different now. Like you look at the fact that when the show comes out nowadays.

Every website that's around does a write-up of every episode of a show that comes out. There's no episode where people are literally just most of the time recounting the plot. But if I'm to be honest, I probably the first show I ever remember seeing on the Internet or even seeking because sometimes, you know, maybe you didn't miss the episode, but the episode was so labyrinthian. You were sort of curious what someone else thought about it. The X-Files, the first show I ever remember.

seeing people actually write a in-depth write-up of a single episode you know and that person not being say the entertainment weekly writer the person running their own probably GeoCities website or something, you know, and you could be sure that someone was putting a lot of thought. That's the first time I really remember that. level of analysis coming from the audience where they could share it for a show like that.

Yeah, I don't think it had ever been done before because there hadn't been those types of shows that were so serialized and had such an interconnected plot. that kind of became like its own story as it continued on, which let the fans really kind of continue on. Because most shows were kind of just like one episode and it's done with that plot. Well...

This does that, but not as much as you think. I mean, there's quite a few Monster of the Week episodes where they don't pursue the Mulder's alien conspiracy. Right.

It certainly does have serialized tendencies, but it's nothing like today's TV where you can't miss an episode. It was almost like they had to kind of... baby step us into that like they couldn't go all the way into the interconnected of the plot like they only did it like partly like you said yeah i i actually honestly kind of prefer not having to watch every episode but

I know TV is not going back to this. So yeah, it is definitely a hybrid. And Tommy, you're right. Eventually, I think when we get to things like Lost and stuff like that, where the X-Files was serialized is in the sense that when you had those mythology episodes. They got kind of crazy and goofy as time went on, but they were tightly knit enough that if you were to only watch the mythology episodes...

they did feel more like that compact serialized story, you know, but you had the flavor of the monster of the weeks and the shows that still kind of do this. I know because with my kids, I watch like, uh some of the cw superhero shows like the flash which i think is actually pretty good and is it's it's uh style is probably closer to something like

Buffy the Vampire Slayer or the X-Files. It still has that thing. And I'm realizing how much I appreciate that. You still have 20 some episodes. And in between this main storyline, you have all these. as you call them monster of the week episodes. So I still really think there's a lot of value in that sort of format. Yeah, I think so too. Plus like those, if I remember correctly, those were the episodes of pathology episodes that were like the big deal.

Those were the ones that everybody were really focused on and got a lot of the publicity from the media on. Certainly up until the first movie. We were all dying to figure out this mystery, right? people people were oh i i remember it was a movie that people were you know we it wasn't just like star wars but but people lined up early bought tickets early were there you know didn't want to miss anything about it when that first movie came out

Yes, I remember. That's kind of where the mythology wraps up, doesn't it? It should have been. Right. Yes. We pretend like it is. Okay. It was more of a kick the pan sort of scenario, if I remember correctly. Because in the new season, the newest season, which was what, season 11. Chris Carter still comes up with new mythologies and backtracking his mythology. I haven't seen the newest one.

Yeah, I was just reading about it. We can get into that in a later episode. Chris Carter is very well known for that of creating mythology and then backtracking on it. Yes. So what I thought would be good to do now is we can go ahead.

and discuss that pilot episode which does air first and it does feel having re-watched it it does feel like and i think you're right dave that you can kind of see how it was filmed a little bit uh ahead of the other one, because it's not that they look a lot different, but it does feel just a little bit separate of a piece, I feel like, because when you get to the Deep Throat episode, it almost feels like a, now we're going to start the...

the series again in a sense like you know they they feel of a piece but i feel like either one could be the pilot episode if that makes sense and um yes But I guess I'll turn it over to Tommy because you had seen it before, but you did just watch it, and I know you didn't get to see all of it. But do you sort of want to set up the first episode for us, and we can all kind of talk about that, the pilot episode?

Yeah, definitely. So the pilot episode, I literally just watched really most of it. And of course, it introduces our two main characters, which are Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Of course, it even features the cigarette smoking man in there and some of the reoccurring characters there. And it really kind of sets up who these characters are and the main plot of the show in that.

Fox Mueller, like we've talked about, is a trained psychologist, which I still don't think they ever talk about that again. But he has been relegated to the basement of the FBI. And because he wants to pursue kind of this off the book. X-Files cases that's really not in the mainstream of the FBI. And then Dana Scully has been assigned to basically, as he says, to spy on Fox Mulder.

Does she really believe in this stuff? Yes or no? We don't quite know yet. And one thing I really like what they did in the beginning of the episode is they used Dana Scully as kind of the surrogate audience character.

to like bring you into this world that fox motor has already been part of of course they do that in a lot of shows and movies but i think it works really well in this and From there, it starts off with the plot of the movie or the show where they go into, I believe it's Oregon, where they go where these teenagers, have they been abducted?

We're not quite sure what's going on. It kind of gets into the plot from there. So, Nathan, anything else you want to talk about when it comes to the plot? Do you think that covers it pretty well? Well, you saw the, seeing the first episode, do you want to set up that?

like the the mystery or the nature of the mystery they're investigating because i feel like that's where for the for the kid or the person who read the ufo stories you were getting kind of excited because they were hitting all the earmarks you know they were hitting all the like basic points of what you remember hearing about, quote unquote, abductions.

Yeah, so basically the two characters, so you've got these two, I guess you can say teenagers, and in the opening, you know, it opens with the girl who's kind of like running around screaming, and that's always kind of the well-known.

trope of the alien abduction it's like you know you got the wind everything of that and then you see a kind of a blurry character walk up so you're not quite sure what's going on and within that um they find that one of the characters has these two, I guess, like bumps on the back.

Is that basically kind of what they're showing there, which kind of basically is going, okay, has there been an abduction or not? And so that's what brings in Mulder and Scully to really kind of figure out what's going on with these characters. you know what's going on i don't want to give too much away but it's basically them trying to figure out has there been an alien abduction or not that type of thing

Yeah, that's good. That works. And everybody kind of open it up. Anybody's thoughts about that first episode? What you're after seeing it, how you felt about or thoughts in general? I couldn't believe how. Another show from this time that I really love is Seinfeld. Season one of Seinfeld is not worth watching again. This show, right from the jump, it's almost fully formed.

Other than Skinner, what's missing? He's already eating sunflower seeds. Right from the beginning, they're really good partners. They respect and kind of trust each other by the end of the episode. I really like how they're very friendly with each other. They're not cynical and snippy. I feel like if the show was made today, they might... spend a couple of episodes hating each other or she would resent being partnered with him and have really quippy comments all the time.

Dave, that's what I was going to say is like, that's what I really just noticed about the episode because I hadn't seen in a long time is that how fully formed the show is right from the get off, like right from the intro introduction.

and right from the beginning episode a lot of shows kind of take a while to kind of get their feet set totally is right there like they've got the music they've got the setting and I just kind of laughed re-watching it because I kind of noticed it was like, well, of course, they film in Vancouver. So, of course, they go into Oregon the very first episode because they got to use the Vancouver setting. So it's obvious that they're out there, but...

The music, the setting, and kind of just the spookiness of the direction, I think, fits really well. And it's just amazing how fully formed the show is from the beginning. Yeah, absolutely. Totally agree with David. I mean, they got so much right in episode one. Clearly, Chris Carter, the creator and showrunner, was thinking about these characters for years before the show ever became reality.

because you got, yeah, the sunflower seeds. You can see the little crucifix on, you know... scully's uh around scully's neck like all the stuff that comes into the show as important much later they already knew they already knew they were going to have it and i think it's mostly a testament to the to the two

The two actors, I mean, they had such great chemistry from the very start and they really nail it. Yeah, they do. I love the when she goes down to the basement. I rewatched it. I was saying online there yesterday. She knocks on the door and Mulder's first line is, sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted. And she kind of smiled and walks in. Does he have a witty line for every time somebody knocks on them? The janitor comes to the door and he's got something funny to say, yeah.

No, it's all right. I'm just checking your garbage, dude. Well, the genius of that person. Go ahead, Victor. You're fine. Oh, no, I was just going to say, no, I just I thought that Silence of the Lambs probably was a style guide for these characters coming in, like the dynamic between I mean, the haircut and the dynamic of. Scully.

coming in to see Mulder is kind of like Clarice, you know, being overmatched by Lecter. And like Lecter's got like all these weird details and she wants to know them. And the dynamic between the two characters starts that way. quickly become absolute partners uh in this uh but you know anyway just an observation well and certainly in her look too and again the imdb trivia for this one yeah is it real i don't know but

One of the quotes is that the producers and the executives wanted the female character to be sexified a little. Could she be blonder? boobier and leggier. And Chris Carter says he really had to fight for his vision of an honest woman. She's a real person. She's not a doll.

Well, Dave, they still had to throw in the underwear scene. I noted that, yes. I think it kind of earns it. I guess she didn't need to be in her underwear. You know the studio was like, this is going good, guys, but we really need that underwear scene. Can we get the Cinemax scene in here? Right, what they needed. Come on, we can't pull David Duchovny from Red Shoe Diaries if he doesn't get to stand with a lady in her underwear.

Oh, yeah, yeah. But the funny thing being that the last time anyone had seen David Duchovny, he was wearing the heels and the miniskirt in Twin Peaks, but also an FBI agent. I don't remember him. Yeah, well, I didn't either. And I was watching it. And all of a sudden, this female agent kicks the door down and walks in. And then they zoom in on it. And it's David Duchovny.

At that point, he's not the female agent, but he's – yeah. And they don't – in the classic Lynch fashion, it's odd for a second, but he stays that. He comes in and out of scenes and it's no big deal. It's just that that's it. But it's actually an interesting character. And you can see there is a lot of Twin Peaks that sort of makes its way, I think, into the X-Files as well. At least that flavor, you know, because towards the end...

Twin Peaks, as it got into its second season, it started to get a little more abstract. It almost started to introduce UFOs and things like that. And in one episode, we'll talk about a little bit Don Davis from... uh from twin peaks ends up in the x-files yes yes but uh that's well yeah if you if you he worked in vancouver a lot he was on stargate also yeah yeah i liked don davis a lot but

There's that scene when she first comes in, like when you mentioned she knocks on the door and he comes in, and it's like she's walking into the magic cave. He's down there with all these posters, and it's almost – it is that character from the rational world visiting this character who's in this – Like, you know...

already this fantastical universe so even though it's not a fantastical setting it's supposed to look drab and it's you get the idea that they are just buried him down there with all these files it feels a little bit like a magical place you know he's all ready to turn on the slide projector

like almost instantly and start, you know, he finally gets a chance to show someone his slides. He's so excited to have a friend, right? Tommy was saying about the fact that they don't make that. And you were saying to Dave that they. They allow them to be partners without a lot of the snippy back forth. There's a little bit of that, but it's very playful. And I think that it's little scenes like that last scene where he makes a statement, something about, go, we're going to fly out to the...

the not-so-fantastical state of Oregon or something, whatever his comment is, she turns and she looks at him. He's no longer looking at her, but she looks at him and smiles. It's kind of like a moment of... of relief like i can work with this guy you know you don't really see that kind of small thing which is signaling okay you know

She understands he's probably a good guy. You know what I mean? And I think that other shows would have had them sparring the whole time or tried to play up that scene that happens later, which seems like it's just so they could play in the ads where he's checking out her back. Oh, no, it's mosquito bites. Don't worry.

about it guarantee you they played that in the ad for sure yeah no and i also think that how cool um you know, Mulder is after Scully gets freaked out and has him check out her back, like that's the beginning of that wonderful will they or won't they, you know, feel that. goes for the whole show it pretty much the whole show uh you know this was a big shipping show right people wanted them to get together so badly yeah it's like i mean they do have great chemistry but um

from episode one, like he's clearly, uh, you know, treating, treating her with respect and like a friend first and, you know, and then we'll see what happens. And that's what made it so cool. Yeah. Yeah, just two employees that earned their way there. I mean, she wouldn't be there if, you know, it's the FBI. Jeez, she must have some skills, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. She's a doctor at 25.

Yeah. And I think, yeah. Oh, sorry. No, I was just saying, yeah, she's a doctor about 25. So I mean, she's doing something right. But I think another thing that really shows in the show is like the amazing chemistry that they have. Like right off the bat, like it's just kind of like the sparks are there right off. Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that the little exposition that we get before they meet kind of qualifies.

them to be good judges of each other. And they both obviously pass with flying colors. Duchovny's this behavioral science expert, and Scully's this genius of medical science. And clearly, they like each other almost immediately. So that kind of puts the audience at ease that, yeah, maybe these two are good people. You know, they're good judges of character. So, you know, let's see what happens. Yeah. And he never he never overwhelms her at first.

I'm almost positive they kind of ease their way into the mystery. And by the time they get to the autopsy part, he's super excited, but she's still actually. investigating real clues. She's looking at it from the scientific end, but he's not pushing the paranormal or the UFO in her face yet. Although he is really excited in that autopsy scene with the camera. Well, and I think one of the things that's interesting when I rewatch this, it's how good this...

this episode is even just as a standalone thing, you know what I mean? Which is to say, let's say they had only ever made this pilot and for whatever reason, nothing else was ever made. Even though this pilot doesn't answer all the questions and it's clearly trying to set up this long.

end game with a mythology that's just being hinted at it still manages to give you a solid mystery story it gives you solid characters it covers the horror thriller elements as well as it covers the sci-fi elements and i feel like if this was almost like you know how um when there was just a Night Stalker movie with Darren McGavin, which is a really strong piece of TV movie. This isn't even the full length of a TV movie, but I feel like it would still...

We would still be talking about this maybe just as a sort of like, you know, as a curiosity. But I still think this would hold up if there was never any more X-Files. And I think that's what's kind of amazing because most pilots aren't like that. It goes back to the fully formed part. It is kind of a, is microcosm the right word?

You have the alien conspiracy. They get super close. They have proof in their hand. By the end of the episode, they've lost the proof and nobody can believe them. You know, that's the whole show. That's the whole series. And nowadays... Yeah. And nowadays when you see, you're absolutely right. Nowadays, when you see a show, usually people are quick to say, well, you know, it's more of a character driven thing or it's more of a thriller. And here it's just such a nice.

balance because we've talked for several minutes now about this episode and we have and maybe it's also because of the sort of almost vague arcane nature of every mystery on the x-files but we've talked almost nothing about the central mystery that's driving this and all about the interaction between Mulder and Scully in this episode. And I think that's, that's kind of the genius I think of the show because you didn't have to be totally invested.

in the solution that comes about because sometimes there was no solution even here i think the mystery story is fine in the moment but Do I really remember it much unless I've watched this episode? Not really. It touches, but watching it was so fun to see all those touchstones, like the marks on the back and the little pieces of...

UFO lore, but also the fact that it just wasn't straight up a UFO story because you have that pushback from Scully and the pushback from the details of the story itself where it's quite clear that this could go the other way. You know, this doesn't have to be explained. by ufos entirely you know but there is always an unexplained element it was fun to see cliff the young to show up there uh as well oh yeah eerily like chris carter

Which character was that? He's the father of the young girl, but he's also, who is he? Is he the... Oh, yes. He was so familiar. yeah the original yes yeah yeah he comes up there while they're out in the woods and i've seen him in a ton of stuff before but i think he had just been in the tommy knockers miniseries in that same summer before this came out oh okay okay This X-Files always had great guest stars.

Yeah, and I forgot that William B. Davis was right there in the first two or three minutes. Once you get beyond that opening, there he is. And he's just there. He's just hanging around. He had auditioned for the speaking role and didn't get it. So he must have been really memorable, though, because he doesn't say hardly a word.

And he, he's the agent that stays for the whole series. Not, not the guy at the desk. Right. That's the thing. And I wonder, I, I don't know. And I haven't read enough to know, was that a thing that happened later or was that. planned from the beginning that he because it's kind of genius to just have him there and then really later realize who he is to the whole the whole series well with the it kind of looks like with the the Raiders of the Lost Ark ending there that he

probably was intended to be the boss but but as i said that in the trivia it says he auditioned for the he thought he would you know you want the speaking role i think you get paid if you talk right you get paid more um but but it worked out for him i think Yeah, I don't know if he says anything in the whole first season. Maybe correct me if I'm wrong, guys. I don't know about the season, but not that episode.

Not that episode, certainly. He's like the dude in Apocalypse Now, like the CIA guy who's at the table when Martin Sheen gets the mission and he says nothing. He's just watching reactions the whole time. And just at the end, he finally says, terminate with extreme prejudice. Yes. That's awesome. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Any other thoughts? Because it's like 45 minutes we've talked about.

I've talked about the pilot. Any other thoughts that you guys had about the pilot before we move on? Okay, and so that episode airs, and then... So now we're going to start talking about the episodes that we picked and we'll come back at the end and kind of talk about how this overarching mythology happens. Certainly the pilot sets up this idea that we're going to be dealing with aliens and we're going to be dealing with that government.

uh, deception, which was a huge thing. I do want to stop and say, I meant to mention this, we were talking about the pilot. It's kind of funny and almost refreshing to think back to that time. I was thinking, remember when.

the biggest things we worried about was whether the government was hiding aliens from us. You know, well, we had this idea that the government was a, competent enough to have that level of subterfuge and that that would be the biggest thing you know and i i'm just looking at the headlines at the same time as i'm as i'm googling some of the episodes i'm looking at the real headlines and i'm thinking

Man, I wish we were just learning that this was all an alien invasion colonization plot. Oh, my God. Yeah, you guys have a lot going on down there. Not that everybody doesn't, but there is... Yeah, you guys are making headlines. It ain't us guys. Can we go back to the aliens? Well, sorry, the U.S. It's kind of weird. I was thinking about that also watching the show, you know, when it came out.

I don't even remember who the president was, but this is a lot of the whole basis of the show. Oh, Clinton. Okay, cool. The crux of the show is to distrust the government and the people in charge, right? Well, then... Then there was a big period there where that kind of ended after 9-11 and ask the Dixie Chicks, but being against the government is not a good idea.

But now you guys have come back again, and you're in a stage where the X-Files came back because the government seemed a little untrustworthy again, right? Yes. Yeah. It's a great point. It always depends on which political party you're in, I think. The X-Files is always in vogue with somebody. That's right. That's a good point. So the man's always trying to get you, no matter who the man ends up being, or if it's a man. I suppose there's always a faction like that.

exactly we appeal to everybody yeah no yeah no i think you guys are right though it was a time in the united states where um the sociological need for the other was turned inward at the government, not outward at other societies. It was a time of... of checking out and traveling and you know adapting to new cultures and you know sort of trying to

be assimilated by them. But when you looked inward at what our own government was doing, we were still kind of reeling from the Nixon years at, you know, that sort of betrayal and like, yeah, what are those government guys up to? And, you know, that they're really... they have their shit together enough to, to be planning things, you know, behind, behind curtains from us and, and revealing it, you know, slowly. Over the course of decades, decades, decades.

Yes. That's a pretty well-run bureaucracy. Once I started working for the government and I realized how I told people, it ain't like the X-Files. We can't even get a new toilet seat. Anyway, so I guess... Can you at least get caps for your pen? If you watch 30 Rock, can you get caps for your pen? That all is much closer. 30 Rock and you get to Parks and Rec. That kind of stuff is probably a little closer. But anyway, let's move on to episode two.

which Dave, you had picked as one of the episodes you wanted to talk about. Do you want to go ahead and set that episode up? It is certainly one that's very pivotal, I think, to particularly this first season, but to the X-Files mythology as it moves forward. Oh, yeah. Yeah, so Deep Throat, I got September 17th of 93 as an air date, and this one's directed by Daniel Sackheim, and I didn't see his name come up a ton in the rest of the series.

So after being warned not to investigate a certain avenue that Boulder is interested in, he obviously decides he wants to investigate this situation where... In an Air Force town, the base and town kind of run together. Pilots are coming home, and they're not exactly the same, or they seem maybe... struck by PTSD, their behavior is odd, and one of the pilot's wives has called the FBI to have something done about it. She doesn't think it's actually her husband that's home with her.

So when the agents get to this town, they're basically starting to investigate UFOs. Well, I guess they did sort of that in the pilot as well. This one is right up front. As soon as they get into the diner, there's pictures of UFOs taken by some of the patrons and townsfolk. And it's kind of like Area 51 without saying it's Area 51.

So the guest in this episode, Jerry Hardin, he's Deep Throat, who turns out to be a friend of Mulder's, an informant. At this point, you assume that he's on Mulder's side. I'm not sure. how it ends up by the very final episode, but we'll get there. And this one, I thought it was really neat how it's obviously supposed to be Area 51. I forget what the town is actually called, but...

There's all kinds of these super high-tech aircraft that may or may not have been built with alien technology. A couple times during the episode, you see pictures of them or them flying around at night. A neat guest star, Seth Green, playing a typical teenager of the time. Actually, he looked a lot like I did. Yeah, that's right. He kind of tips them off. He tips them off.

Well, yeah, they were out basically getting high and watching all the air show go by, and he's the character that tells Mulder how to get inside the base so he can get a better look at what's going on. Oh, yeah. They start investigating and find out that it's possibly the use of these high...

The high-tech aircraft that's causing these guys, I don't know if it's intended the force of the Gs is making them crack or something, but they're coming back completely changed with no memory of what they were doing. And it's possible that the government is even taking some of their memories away. The more they start to investigate, they run up against what might be what, the men in black?

They're not all necessarily dressed in black, but they constantly come up against forces trying to get them to stop investigating. At one time, they're pulled over. Two cars kind of rush up on them. They drag them out of the car, pull the film out of their cameras, and take all their notes. There's actually a really cool line here. They punch Mulder in the gut and tell him,

They better leave town or they will assume the consequences of intense indiscretion. I don't even know what that means, but it's a good threat. Geez, I watched this a little while ago now. During the investigation, somehow Mulder ends up getting captured by the government. He sneaks into the base on his own at night, and he actually gets captured by the government.

And these guys are way above the FBI, so they don't really care what he's up to. And he sort of has a few hours of his memory taken away. But this is also an interesting scene because... Scully basically almost risks her life and her career to help get Mulder back. So she's obviously formed a bond with him. They really trust each other. And by the end of this episode, they actually don't have any answers. I think what's interesting about this is we talked about how it's almost –

I feel like it really could be an alternative pilot in a sense, right? The thing about the first pilot is it was more focused on the alien mystery aspect, right? There's enough left in that show that there's the possibility of aliens. We do have some... human conspiracy going on, but that government level of the government controlling everything, it just seems more like the government sort of...

pushed Mulder down there because he's kind of nutty, right? The first episode is kind of leaving it up to that. And so we get to focus on the potential of the extraterrestrial mystery. There's a little bit of awe and wonder and close encounters. to it you know or even like communion so there's all that and that first episode is sort of like here's the show where you get to

think about the aliens and about what would happen in the mysteries of the universe. And then episode two is the, well, here's the guys that think it's all about the government, that the government's the one who's built these planes. The government's the one who's trying to keep this down. And they make the case that, hey,

This show could be just as interesting if it's only about the government, clandestine groups, and the subterfuge. And of course, the show turns out to be about both. But you could have a pilot for shows that could be very specifically about one thing or the other. It's interesting that it's like...

Here's your alien mystery. And here's the, here's the version where it is the government. And of course, X-Files signs a way to have its cake and eat it too with, with that as it goes on. That is how it ends, right? Yeah. Some of these episodes, sorry, I watched a couple of months ago, but in my notes, I did have that.

It seemed like the government was running the show because the wife that initially calls them in to help, she's kind of scared off by the end of the episode and doesn't even want to let them in the house, right? And then I do have written down too that Deep Throat, Mulder asks him questions about what was going on or, oh yeah, if they're working with the government maybe to help build these aircraft. And he says to him,

Mr. Mulder, they have been here for a long, long time. Both of the conspiracies must be in this episode. Sorry, the pilot and Deep Throat, the first two episodes, I think are almost like a complete... I think that they have to be seen together because, like you guys were saying, they introduce sort of the basic dynamic between the two main characters and how they deal with going to a remote location and dealing with the local law.

enforcement. And they are, you know, as FBI agents, they have more clout than those guys. But then in the second episode, they meet government agents above them. And that's pretty much the dynamic of that. They have to, you know, that. Mulder and Scully have to deal with for the entire series is there are government parts below and above them, and they have to kind of manage that inner space to get their work done.

Um, but yeah, I, I loved in deep throat. I love the, I love the name of the first dude that is returned to his wife. Um, and you know, Mrs. Buddha Haas, like they keep saying it and I'm just like, Yeah, and last comment, I just wanted to say that this episode kind of reminded me, now I know I'm going into left field here, but it kind of reminded me of an episode from Speed Racer, the cartoon from 1967. called The Fastest Car on Earth. And it was basically the basic...

gist of that episode was that there was this car that was so insanely fast that race drivers that would get in it would be driven insane by the speed. And that's kind of what the government's doing with these. reassembled ufos it's like they're putting pilots like regular earth pilots in them and they're kind of going nuts So really cool idea. And yeah, obviously it's a great setup for the rest of the series. Let's just make that a fact from here on out. Just as Chris Carter was inspired by.

Colchick the Night Stugger, he was also inspired by Speed Racer for this specific episode. It's now canon. Yeah. Hashtag Speed Racer X-Files. I think... And I think just one comment I wanted to make, Dave, I think you mentioned it earlier, was about how at the end they didn't really solve the case. And I feel like, you know...

that's kind of like an X-Files hallmark. Like they almost never solve the cases. Get ready to be frustrated. Yes. Right. They never like, there's always like the bad guys always out there. The lost are still out there. Are they, you know, but I kind of always liked that about it. It was like the mystery's still out there to solve. So I thought that was a great point.

Yeah. And it kind of makes you wonder, like after several seasons, is it just because that's the show or is it because the bosses of the two main characters? like it that way. They just want to know what's out there. They don't want these cases really solved. And these are the two best people to do it. Yeah, you do kind of get that. The other interesting thing, though, is it is a lot...

And I was noting that in these episodes, a lot of these episodes do deal with Mulder and or Scully getting captured, stuck somewhere for a while, eventually being released and the government just disavowing it. And that's kind of the arc, you know, for the episode. Mulder spends as much time.

like locked away in a facility trying to get his phone call as he does almost anything else. Well, he's like a dog with a bone then because he's just single-minded. He never, you know, after all his, they're not failures. I mean, he does. technically succeed he knows the truth he just never has the proof he never you know it's like oh no miss snuffleupagus was right here you just missed him

He's always so close. Yeah, and you do see that in some of the more humorous episodes sometimes. So he'll be talking about something and then the lake monster resurfaces like four feet from him after he leaves. Yeah, that's a good one. But, yeah, so Tommy or anyone else, did you guys have any other thoughts about Deep Throat, this episode specifically? Okay, and then move on to what I guess really...

Because as you pointed out, I think it was a great point, Victor. I never really thought about it because I guess I – watching them, I always kind of viewed it as, oh, this is almost two shots at the pilot. But I do like the idea that it is almost like a – Two like a two part movie in a sense that you kind of need to see both of these to get the sort of not just the yin yang of Mulder and Scully, but the yin yang of the government control.

versus the mysterious events, you know? And it's... Well, and I wanted to... Go ahead, you're fine. I wanted to talk about it because... Deep Throat, that is his first appearance, and he is so kind of important to Mulder and the show. I thought it was worth talking about. But I didn't actually, until Victor pointed it out, it is basically like episode 1 and 1A, right? Yeah, I think in a sense it is, and it sets up. But at the end of those two episodes, you feel like you now have the basic...

set up for what ends up being that main story. We talked about that mythology and with that mythology set up, then you jump right into episode three. which is the one I'm going to talk about, Squeeze. And it's funny how strong these first, like, you know, we talked about the pilot strong, and it's self-contained, and then we have Deep Throat, and it...

It furthers the world that they exist in and it furthers their relationship. And then you get to squeeze. And I think this is where if you're anyone who has seen. um the dan curtis like the night stalker and the night strangler and then the eventual kolchak show this is the episode that probably is building most off of that concept this episode called squeeze where it is the first really monster of the week episode that you get and um it's crazy how two things strike me how entirely weird it is

as a concept and then uh not just how weird it is effective and memorable it is as a as a thriller just as like a horror story it's really good harry longstreet's the director here And then, you know, you've got Chris Carter's a writer here. Glenn Morgan is credited as a writer here. He goes on to write a lot of the episodes. I do think he writes some of the better ones. And you still have a lot of great, like, interplay.

with Mulder and Scully, and you get to see their characters defined, but it really is a kind of monster episode. It's scary, and it's also kind of silly when you think about it, but the basics... But it's one of the most memorable ones. Like, Tombs is, this is episode three, and Tombs is one of the most remembered villains of the run. And if you think, if you're just describing it, it's completely kind of ludicrous, you know? They're called out into... like Baltimore to where this

You've got a guy in an office building who is found dead in his office, and there's this opening scene. And of course, that's that very 90s shabby looking office building, which is really what a lot of, you know, a lot of even the government buildings look like down in Baltimore.

and... you see him he's inside and then you see those screws turning on the vent and you see the eyes through the vent and just that imagery and that concept of here's a predator but it looks like a person and why is he in the vent i mean that stuff is so incredibly creepy and

You can see early on this show doesn't have a – it's got a decent budget. But like you said, if you look at money on screen, that was happening more on Briscoe County Jr. at that point. So they had to do a lot with kind of very little. And it's again – where you can see the same kind of things that they did with the Night Stalker. It was a little less successful on the television when it became just a TV series.

but trying to film this creature in such a way that it's going to freak you out, but knowing that we can only show you so much. So you've got this idea that there's a dead body and... There's pieces of this body missing and... Mulder is looking into this and Scully's looking into it with him as they start to peel back what's going on with this mystery. It goes all the way, you know, it goes 30 years ago and they find that there are similar murders. And OK, that's a 30 year.

between us and how does this killer get into a room that's completely locked and we're already getting a feeling for that because we know that something sort of sinister and out of the ordinary is going on and then 30 years before that and you go all the way back one of the interesting things

that I want to mention. I remember seeing this episode for the first time and it was freaky because I do live, I didn't live in Baltimore at the time the X-Files was first on. And even now I live sort of in the suburbs outside of Baltimore. So I'm not in Baltimore City.

proper where some of this takes place. But the area of the Woodlawn area where this... building is and the and honestly the government buildings that are there still look like that inside that shabby sort of 90s you know the the ambiance in there looks about the same and

Powhat and Mill, if you've watched this episode recently, you know they're talking that the murders go all the way back to this point when that town area was not there and the mill was there and the murders were happening in that area. That's exactly where my...

where I work is located, where Powhat and Mill used to be in an office building like the one that Toombs infiltrates early on. So when I went back and did my rewatch of this, uh you know several several years ago after my wife and i got married i was working in that building and it was incredibly freaky particularly if you ended up being working there after everybody had left

And all you imagine is tombs crawling through the vent. So interesting trivia aside, that added some creepiness to me. But they eventually do realize that this is, in some senses, this is what's interesting about the episode. He is, A, a... seemingly like a human being but he's been living all this time eating these organs he has what amounts to one of the grossest looking quote-unquote nests i've ever seen when they finally sort of find his layer it's really

And then the idea that he can twist and contort and move his body in a very snake-like transforming way through the vents is extremely creepy. And all of this could be silly. But for a couple things, we talked about the performances of Mulder and Scully. Doug Hutchinson is incredibly creepy. He seems like he could be incredibly creepy in real life, honestly. But he's incredibly creepy in this.

This episode and another one later on in the same season. And he also doesn't have a lot of dialogue. Does he even have much of any dialogue in this episode? It's been a couple months. He talks a bit during the polygraph test. Yeah, not a lot.

So his performance here is what's really creepy. And those shots, again, you can't, you don't have the special effects and it's probably better that you don't to show him, you know, you get a couple of funny shots where they're trying to do some camera trickery to make it look like his arm is stretching out there. But the eyes, just those eyes staring through the grate and his...

his inflections throughout the episode are what make it really creepy. And then Donald Logue shows up too, you know, looking trim and fit actually. And it's funny, like, but it helps tie in that here's a guy that knew Mulder back in the day and you have some of that. So you're building these character histories. But the way that Mulder and Scully work in this episode, this is really where you've got something...

that's almost more concrete than they've had the two episodes of this is supernatural, but it's outside this. You know, he talks about aliens all the time, but here's something that is. both it's supernatural but is it just paranatural you know is it just is it just an element of science that they don't completely understand and that's kind of where scully has her like inroad in that episode but it's one of my favorites it's so creepy but it's a compelling story

It's a great one. You're right. Yeah, supernatural is not the right word, but... It's funny the interaction between the two leads and Donald Logue as the other FBI guy. They're presented with facts and or evidence. They sift through the evidence to find clues. and come to conclusions like he's he's just being malder and scully are just being honest about the evidence and and coming to their conclusions but it is just you know left of normal donald

He can't even hear it. There's no way Spooky Mulder is going to catch a killer that I'm on the trail for. He just won't look at the facts. Yeah, it's great. I mean, I think how much they pack into 60 minutes or 45 minutes or whatever, however long the episodes are. is just amazing. It fills it out perfectly. Like just hunting tombs is not quite enough to make...

the whole episode exciting. But with, you know, Logue in there sort of maneuvering against Mulder for his own good, that just makes it exciting and, you know, makes the final act. Really interesting. But yeah, I love this episode, too. I'm so glad you chose it, Nathan. You know, I love mystery fiction and. I think that the initial idea for this episode probably was the the old murder in the locked room.

you know scenario that you know you've seen like uh you know gaston larue the mystery of the yellow room or agatha christie's and then there were none um or poe you know the merge in the room or it gets like well there's a dead body in this room and there's no way anybody could have gotten in so how the hell did this happen except of course it's the x-files so you know it's absolutely the most ridiculous possibility available yeah

Well, that's the great part for the writing team, right? They get to, oh, you want to try that Agatha Christie one? Okay, well, how could we get in the room? Let's do whatever we want. Exactly. But the way the way they kind of get to the next step is, you know, Mulder obviously is so astute to all these weird phenomena that he decides to dust the vent and he comes up with that really creepy long.

fingerprint, which is so insane. It's a classic episode just for that moment. Then they use that great computer technology to... uh, compress and stretch the fingerprint so that it matches. That's a pretty good. Yes. Yes. So Tommy is a nine year old. What did you think about this episode when you first saw it?

Oh, geez, man. This one horrified me to that date. So I know we're going to talk about another episode soon. So I don't know. I don't think I saw this in the first season because I didn't start X-Files until a couple episodes later. But I watched it in reruns.

as I got a little bit older. And it's still like, I remember it to this day. I didn't get to rewatch it, but I've seen it many times. I remember specifically a couple of things you guys said about the eyes staring out of the vent specifically. And I don't know if it's this episode or the one that comes in later where Tombs is like stretching out of either a vent maybe or something. Is that this episode?

Or is that the one that comes later in the season? I think it happens in this. I think maybe he does it like multiple times probably. But like I remember it specifically because it's so like horrifying. that i think you guys nailed it right on the head like it's so cool how like right off the bat the x-files is not afraid to just go super weird like

how weird is this episode where like they got this guy who could stretch and like murders people and he does it every 30 years. And it's like the third episode in the series. So it's not like they were afraid of like, it was almost like Chris Carter was like, you know, guys. this is our show. Let's just let our freak flag show. And like, they did it. And yeah, sorry. I was going to say, I think, yeah, the, the luxury of being on Fox, a newish network with not a lot of hits.

Yeah, they were like, whatever you guys want, let's just do it. We don't even think you're going to survive because we got, you know, Bruce Campbell. He's going to be big. Bruce, Bruce. But, you know, this episode is, like you guys said, it's one of the great episodes, I think, in the entire series run. And it's truly one of the best monster of the week because it has such a great... monster in it. And I feel like what was so important that they do, because they're dealing with this

tried and true UFO lore, right? So what happens in the first episode with the abductions and then the marks and then the second episode with the lights in the sky and the possible like... government, stealth planes. All of that is based off a very obvious and well, even at that point, well-trod existing lore and mythology. And here this...

This creature and what he does is kind of a wholly original invention. His murders and these reappearing murders, they're things that we've kind of seen in the world of urban legends and stuff. But he's... And so it kind of reinforces the idea that, yeah, we're going to give you some of the stuff, you know, but we're not afraid to, we haven't just given you a vampire or a werewolf right off the bat. Well, we'll save those a few episodes, you know, but we're going to give you this.

which is a merger of those things. It does the same. It fills the same spot the werewolf or the vampire would have. And that was kind of one of the, honestly, the issues. with the Kolchak series was that he ended up fighting some very by the number. You could say, oh, here's the witch. Here's the werewolf. You know, it was not unlike Scooby-Doo in that sense. The other thing is the weirdest thing. Here's what this reminded me of when I first saw it.

And again, I'm just going into high school. When I saw this years ago, many, many years ago, when I was in elementary school, I remember reading, I think Beverly Cleary wrote a series of books about Ramona, you know, a little girl, and she has a big imagination. I know it's just so weird and such a deep cut, but she...

She would have these random moments where she would be afraid of a boneless gorilla that would crawl through her vents and come out into her room. And it was supposed to be something silly in this little... book about a little girl that you know then i'm reading it and i'm freaked out because i'm imagining this boneless gorilla and then later on to see tombs i'm like it's the same it's the same concept see it's that's disturbing

Yeah, that's pretty scary. I'm just picturing this black furry mass of muscle crawling towards me kind of angrily. Right, yeah, exactly. So we can move on. Victor, you're next. Oh, well, I wanted to talk about one of my favorite episodes from the first season, Fallen Angel. It's episode 10. It aired in 1993. It was written by Howard Gordon, who went on to do 24 Homeland. And I think he did Buffy the Vampire Slayer also. But anyway, this guy knows genre fiction.

This is a UFO mythology episode where there is a crash of what is revealed to the viewer to be an alien spacecraft, or at least the military thinks it is. And this dude is... I didn't write down his name, but oh, Marshall Bell. Marshall Bell co-stars in this. One of the many great stars, co-stars that you mentioned, who was in Good vs. Evil and Total Recall and a bunch of other. great projects, but he is the sort of...

bad slash neutral general who is working for the military and just wants to recover the alien crash parts so the government can do whatever they do with it. And of course, Mulder wants to find out the truth and publicize it. So he goes to personally investigate the site. And once again, he is captured. And I'm not going to spoil everything about the episode, but he is basically, Mulder is thrown into a cage with another dude named Max Fennig.

who is sort of a conspiracy nut, and he's kind of similar to Mulder in that he believes a lot of the same things and has been following Mulder's career, like Mulder's some sort of... uh you know cult rock star um of of the of the you know on of undiscovered phenomena and um And so he's a bit Max is sort of a groupie almost of Mulder. And, you know, the interplay between Max, which is sort of it seems like he's an early experiment of the lone gunman, you know, is.

Yeah, he's sort of, you know, sort of shabbily dressed. Like he basically looks like I looked like, like when I was watching the show. And. And and basically together, they're like, yeah, maybe there is something here. And there is, you know. a creature that is brilliantly shot in an evil dead cam, you know, with like the point of view of a low, a creature that's low to the ground, kind of running around.

you know, the astronaut of the downed alien aircraft, right? And the military is trying to corral it. And eventually this all comes to a head where, you know, Scully comes to the rescue. and it's revealed that there is a government cover-up with a downed Libyan fighter jet. And and basically they start to piece together that, yeah, there is a cover up and there is a second cover up on top of that, because this is so important. And they finally get all their heads together and try to.

try to solve the crime. But yeah, very, very cool episode. It moves. really well all the way through. And yeah, all I can say is it kind of reminded me of the movie Gorgo from 1961. We have the best comparisons to things on the show. Yeah, I mean, I think that the writers may have seen Gorgo and it was at least in their unconscious mind because the basic, basic...

plot is the same. An alien spacecraft with an alien astronaut crashes. In Gorgo, it's not revealed until the last act that this creature that's been menacing the city is actually a baby. And then the mother comes and it's really pissed off. And that's kind of what happens at the end of this episode is the.

other aliens come to collect the original astronaut with, you know, mixed results. But in any case, you have to watch the episode to get the whole story. It's kind of complicated. Sorry I went on for a while. But anyway, really, really cool stuff. I always like just to imagine that this is what would happen if E.T. had crashed near a military base, and that underneath that low-to-the-ground camera, it's just E.T. running around through the underbrush.

Yes, totally. ET and Close Encounters of the Third Kind were definitely style guides for this one. This one felt a lot to me like an Outer Limits episode almost. Like if you were to remove the Mulder and Scully elements. And like you said, I had that older style of science fiction story that I really appreciate.

X-Files would do that. They would take an older slice of science fiction and mix it with the tabloid stuff that they would do from time to time. Yeah. This one really shows how... how caring and sympathetic Mulder is too, because this is, I can't remember if he dies or if he's having a seizure, but Mulder comes into the trailer or something at some point and finds Max.

kind of shaking or something and he like he sticks around he holds him he takes care of him for a second he you know I don't know that I don't know that a scene like that would even be included in a lot of shows, but especially back then, it wasn't super manly to behave that way. Heroes didn't do that a lot in the 90s. I thought it was really sweet.

Yeah, no, one of the things that's so cool about Mulder is that he is cynical and, you know, sort of hard edged against the government, but they keep showing you in episodes like this, like you just described. that he does have a heart and that he's really in this to help people. And that's important.

So one thing about the episode that I was just looking up, because I didn't get a chance to rewatch this one either, but I was kind of thinking to myself, I was laughing, I was looking at the plot and it talks about how Dana Scully comes in and talks about how they're going to shut down the X-Files.

I guess they're going to do that in the beginning of the episode where she talks about it. And it kind of makes me think, like, how many times do they do that in the show? Like, they're about to shut down the X-Files because of something going on. And they're like, well, all right, guys, we're not going to shut it down. We're going to keep it open, but we might shut it down.

Yeah, I think you're right, Tommy. This might be the first time they threaten that. Although, yeah, it becomes more of a thing later, even this season. I think that's usually like a season finale. It's like, well, it's done. It's shut down. I think it was a season finale once. I was going to say, that happened more than once. Right.

Oh, and I just wanted to say, last thing about Fallen Angel, I just wanted to say, yeah, the composer really played this card close to his vest, but there is a musical theme. when the alien astronaut point of view is running around. which sounds kind of like a submarine sonar. It's like, bing, bing. And he uses that again and again in the series, at least in season one, whenever aliens are afoot. So I love that.

That's Mark Snow who does the composing for this series. He did Millennium and The Lone Gunman as well. And he has such a unique sound. It's almost like I've never heard anybody recreate his sound.

for a show or movie. And it's still, it's always think back to that. He's kind of one of the important elements to the show, I think. Yeah, it's subdued. It's quiet. It's not... it's not an overpowering soundtrack that although man that the opening score is he was really gold good at that because that score is amazing but then so is the millennium theme is really great too like i like millennium but even if you didn't like it

It's good too. At least look up the score, like the intro on YouTube. It's a very like violin. I feel like later they kind of did the theme for the TV show Angel sort of took us some cues from that. Oh. Yeah, yeah. Nice. Yeah, Millennium's like a darker... Oh my gosh. Actually, much darker, if you can believe that. Very dark.

Yeah, it gets like dark, dark. Yeah, it's good actually. And Terry O'Quinn was on several of the episodes too, yeah. That's when Fox gave Chris Carter like carte blanche because he had that show. Then he created another show. Is it Harsh Realm, I think, he created, which actually wasn't that bad either. Yeah. So yeah, a fun episode. So where are we now? Are we back to you, Dave, I believe? Sure, that's fine. Okay, my next episode I picked is Ice, and it happens to air on November 5th, 1993.

I only bring that up because that's my birthday and I turned 18. That's awesome. So I'm going to assume that since in Quebec, that's legal drinking age, I probably didn't see this episode the first time it aired. So in reruns, this is, this is, I love this one. It's a great, this is the X-Files does the thing or sorry, Nathan or Victor. What are the, the original book is called.

Who goes there? Yeah, this is kind of that story. With some great, great guest stars. This one has... Oh, also, I wanted to mention, you guys have brought them up a couple times. This one's written by Glenn Morgan and James Wong. And they... They did a lot of the great episodes. They even go on to do Final Destination. And Willard, I believe. The Willard remake, I think. Oh, yes, yes. Since you brought that up, Glenn Morgan directed the first remake to Black Christmas. I don't like that movie.

Anyways, this one has some great guest stars, Xander Berkeley and Felicity Huffman. Jeff Kober, if you guys don't recognize that name, he was the killer in The First Power. And Kenny Banya, Steve Heitner's in this episode. That's right. They killed. The best. Anyways, I don't know that I have to go through the whole story. Someone contacts Mulder and...

There's some investigating to do up in the Arctic. People have disappeared. There's a great cold open where two characters, you don't know they're in the Arctic necessarily at first, but they're hunting each other through this laboratory set. And they basically kill themselves in the cold open. It's kind of dark and violent. It's a really good one. And then you get into the episode proper. Mulder's tipped off to the investigation.

I think they actually get this one through, through proper channels. Like the, the government wants to know what happened to their people up at their resort or resort research facility. Sorry. And as they get going up there, they have about a three-day window, they're told. And of course, once they get up there, there's a storm coming in. The pilot is the first to go. So now we're all trapped in the Arctic with...

Something that's come out of ice cores. The team that was up there was drilling, I believe, like 240 million years down into the ice looking for whatever we do when we're drilling into the ice for stuff. and they found a parasite instead of, I was going to say instead of an alien, but it is probably still an alien because there's allusions to the drilling site being possibly in a meteor crater.

Anyways, these parasites infect people very quickly. Just like in the thing, there's a dog that kind of starts it off. And this one is tight, it's tense, it's paranoid. All of the actors in this are really good. It's a really good one. It's fun, tense. Yeah, I like it a lot. Yeah, Dave, I just got to jump in here real quick because I know this was actually the very first episode I remember seeing.

Oh, wow. Yeah, on a Friday night. And I remember just kind of coming in and I still remember this day that like it just hooked me because it was so different than like anything that you'd seen on like network TV. it was like scary and you know, it had such mood intention and I've rewatched it so many times. It's really one of my favorite episodes because like you, you know, like you guys said, it has the thing, basic plot structure.

with The X-Files twists onto it. And I was just looking it up. And of course, you mentioned that it has Glenn Morgan and James Wong who wrote it, who are kind of some of the A-team of The X-Files, I consider. And then David Nutter directed it, who, you know.

who's really one of their great directors and, of course, has gone on direct Game of Thrones episodes, and he's a fantastic director now. And I think it would be hard-pressed for anybody to watch this, even if they don't like... science fiction or whatever and not enjoy this episode because it is so tight like you mentioned yeah this one could well I guess television did that a lot I mean these episodes can stand on their own but

Yeah, I think because the structure is kind of familiar, especially to genre fans, you could just pluck this episode out of the season and watch it as a little 45-minute movie without the rest of the series around it. It's kind of funny, too. It's got a lot of humor in it. In the beginning, when they meet, Xander Berkeley is one of the scientists they meet at the airport, and he doesn't trust any. He wants to see everybody's ID. He's got to see the FBI's ID. And then the pilot, I...

I don't remember what he says, but it basically tells him to fuck off. I'm not showing you my ID. And then later on, even, there's a scene where they've got to... Actually, it's funny. This one is a little bit like... There's a scene where they have to check each other, like Mulder checked Scully earlier in the season. The guys are all in a room. It's the Arctic.

So they're getting undressed and Mulder says, I want to remind you, we are in the Arctic here, so no judging. Oh, great. Fox is always funny. He gets lines in there. all the time and then and you think wow they kind of slid that one through i i don't remember many seasons later it cry check one of those guys is fighting him he says i could i could beat you with one hand and molder says i thought that's how you beat yourself

There's another great scene and line combo I really like in this episode. And it is some great acting by... Gillian Anderson, sorry. She's shaking, her lips are trembling, she's sweating. She's got a gun pointed at Mulder. It's in the section where none of them trust each other.

And she keeps repeating to him. I think it's what the guys were saying at the beginning. You might not be who you are. You might not be who you are. And they're locking them up. And he says, in here, I'll be safer than you. I just love that line. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just want to put this in context that...

People didn't think The Thing was the greatest movie of all time back in 1993. Like, it was 10 years old. It was a complete failure at the box office. I think probably by now it was starting to gain traction on home video. But only people that were really into genre stuff were like, yeah, the thing's a masterpiece. So to see this episode on the X-Files, like on broadcast TV was huge. Like it was like, oh.

vindication, like, you know, writers that are working in show business saw the thing and loved it and are doing an homage, you know, it was a big deal. See, that's something that always comes up. I always forget, again, in 93, if the internet was there, I didn't have access to it. But, you know, as a young horror fan and a special effects gore hound, the thing...

how could that not have been a blockbuster? I just always loved it. But that's something I didn't even realize until I got the internet that there was a time when people didn't know this was a classic.

Or that's when you realize other people did love things like the evil dead as much as you did, you know? It's interesting because you're right. Like, and weird thing to remember 93 is like, Even the experience of going to the movies was so different at that point in time, in terms of what was playing in the theaters, because this is essentially like a very tight little B movie, you know, that is obviously homaging the thing.

towards the end of this year and into the next year, because this is 93 to 94, you know, this airs in 93, but season one is 93 to 94. You get a new version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, just called the Body Snatchers, the same year. And then you get Einlein's The Puppet Masters with Donald Sutherland, which are both doing very similar things to this episode. And yet I would argue that this episode's stronger than those two movies. There's things I like about them, but I...

You know, what's interesting is how tight it is. At this time period, you were getting movies like Warlock, The Armageddon, and Tix, and all these things we think of as just straight to DVD things, or video. They were opening in theaters, and so... The gulf oftentimes between what you saw on television and what you would see at a theatrically released movie was a lot bigger than this. And then to see this just airing on television at the same time and be like...

wow, I would pay to go watch that in a theater. This episode, I think, stands, to me, this is probably the strongest episode of season one. If I were to say, even though... It is using a pre-existing source. It's so tense. It's so well-constructed, and it takes all the things you love about the show, and it makes a nice, tight little movie out of it.

Yeah, I think that maybe part of the reason that the movie has been made a few times, like this and the invasion of the body snatchers that you brought up, they are tight, really. scary stories. They're very good and they're easy to redo. The paranoia aspect of both those stories is timeless. You can just keep remaking them.

Yeah, and it takes that paranoia that we've seen with paranoia of the government, paranoia of the world at large, and then the paranoia from within. You know, Victor, you were talking earlier about the fear of the other, and then here's the fear of the other, but also the fear of... the the contamination from within which does

explain why body snatchers and some of those alien stories were so big in the 50s in the heyday of you know the red scare and of communism and things like that and you've got a little bit of that playing out here in a sort of different dynamic but yeah i think it's awesome Yeah, fear of loss of individuality, like foreshadowed by the the ID showing scene. Yes. Oh, yeah, that's great. And also, I don't think like it never.

this kind of plot structure never fails i feel like when you take you know your characters into another setting like the the arctic usually and like isolate them and they can't escape and they've got this creature or whatever it is after them. It's just such a good setup. It's really hard to make that bad. So they've already got such a good setup, and then they've added all these other elements, which makes it such a good episode. Yeah, I agree. And I think it's it's one of the.

I think it best only because in my mind, it's one that pops right into my mind. It was very scary to see when it was first released. So the next episode I have, I'm trying to make sure I have the right... order here will be episode I think it's episode 11 and it was called Eve and this one's

To me, it's an interesting episode because it is not a mythology episode, and yet it manages to... move into all the elements of the government being sort of uh out to get you a little bit but it also really starts to um It really brings in science fiction elements that we see other places later. But when we're seeing it here, it's...

It all feels a little original. And so the plot here, you've got right up front, you've got the whole mystery element. You have two. You start with the death of a man. He's dead in his yard. His daughter is there when it happens.

happens and he's sort of like he's got puncture holes in his neck his blood is drained and yet they immediately eschew any kind of thought of this being a vampire or something you know 11 episodes in we have had uh ice we have had uh the tombs and so we've seen that there are monsters and creatures that exist in this in this universe and they eschew that completely and they take it right to the cattle mutilations which i thought was interesting because

Initially seeing that, his blood drained and the marks, I didn't think cattle mutilation. But then about a minute later, there's Mulder with his – again, he's got his handy-dandy slideshow up and he's talking about the cattle mutilations. The one thing I want to mention I thought was a little odd is –

You know, the fact that Scully seems to not really know that there is this sort of phenomena of the cattle mutilations, or at least it seems that way. She seems like she just learns about it in that moment, like she glances a paper. What says here? I mean, I feel like all the UFO lore that you sort of heard leading up to that...

before the X-Files ever aired, that the cattle mutilations were always sort of a part of it. But maybe not. It just seemed odd that she's seen all these things. She's been hanging with Mulder this long, and she's like, cattle mutilations? Tell me more. But, you know, but then... It becomes apparent there's another person, the same kind of death and happens. And now this is 3000 miles apart. And then the really weird kind of creepy thing.

is that they have identical daughters. Their daughters look exactly the same. And so Mulder and Scully start following these threads and... The story, this is one I don't even want to spoil too much because I think it really is kind of fun to watch because it is an episode. I wouldn't say most of the episodes we've talked about have had anything in the way of a real like...

twist, something that really kind of changes the dynamic of the story. And that does happen here. You get into things that go all the way back to the Cold War. You obviously, you're getting a vibe. that something strange is going on here with the fact that both girls look the same. Then we meet another woman who, you know, there's a point when they kind of get abducted and you're not sure what's happening with that. And where this goes, and you have...

these the characters of the eaves and and who the eaves really are and i will point out too i didn't really real or nothing i realized i think i knew but then had forgotten watching this again and it became clear when they started talking about different eaves and you have a character who shows up

and her name is Eve Six. And then I realized, oh, this is where the band, the rock band got their name, the Eve Six. So that's kind of fun. But I think this is a really strong episode because it's... very creepy i think that you've got you know the kids are creepy but you also have um that harriet harris who plays uh the adult

these these adult women that look identical that the eves and particularly eve six she's really good because she's she's playing one character that you have a lot of sympathy for but then she played the eve six is unhinged to uh To an excessive degree. She's telling something, she's telling Mulder or Scully, one of them, about something she did while she was, you know, in the lock up there. And you're just like, oh my gosh.

This is so dark. And this whole episode is very dark. I feel like it's a lot darker and a little more twisted than the show had been up until this point. And it ends on a note that's a lot more ominous than most of the other episodes. Yeah, and if I remember, this is another one where we as the audience know the solution, but do they solve this officially, or do they just basically...

I don't remember the ending. I might be mixing it up with a different episode where does the government basically steal the doctor back to continue what's going on? The doctor dies.

But what happens is the little girls – you don't – I think that the final kind of twist is that the girls – I don't know that Mulder and Scully learned this. The girls essentially, they are – evil so to speak you know that they are malicious and they are they haven't simply been victims and then one of the eves i believe it is uh

Eve 8 shows up there like you get the impression that she's there to kind of bust them out to take them away and they she says how did you know I was coming and they're just like well we knew or we know. And so there's this creepy feeling that these characters, which again, we're kind of spoiling this at this point. So it mentioned, you know, there's this aspect of these clones that they are linked somehow. And so, uh, yeah, that.

That ending, and I will go back and put a little more defined spoiler here in case people want to see the... episode first. But yes, the ending essentially, which I don't know that Mulder, I can't remember if Mulder and Scully are aware of, is that these little girls aren't simply innocent sort of victims of the situation. Okay. Yeah, maybe do put a spoiler warning there. Because this is, if you don't know what's going on, this is a fun one to watch. Especially not knowing.

Yeah, it's one of my favorite episodes, definitely. Well, I mean, all the episodes that we picked to talk about today were, you know, those are definitely my top. nine of season one. But yeah, I just wanted to say for any fans of Frasier listening to the show, Harriet Harris is Bebe, the agent in Frasier, who's awesome in that show. She is. She gets to chew a lot of scenery and be really big in Frasier, and she does it here again in a different way. So I'm kind of...

I've only ever seen her. The only other thing I've ever seen her in is the Adams family sequel. And that's kind of too bad because she probably could have played a hell of a villain. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. She kind of does here a little bit. So. Well, yeah, basically. But she could have been scary in something. Yeah, definitely. Tommy, do you have any thoughts on this one? Do you remember this one?

Well, you know, I'm trying to think. Actually, I don't know if I've seen this one. So the first season is probably the one that I haven't seen every one. I thought I did, but there's probably a few that I haven't. So I've not seen this one. Yeah, sorry about that. So I appreciate that.

No, no, I'm joking. But it sounds really good, and I'm reading the reviews right now. It says it's really good. So I'm going to go back and watch this one. So I'm really glad you guys picked this because it's one of those that's like...

I don't think I would have thought about picking this one to watch or kind of review, but it's one of those that's kind of like flew under the radar. It sounds really excellent. If you want to check it out, too, and listeners out there, I watched my DVD, obviously, but... The whole series is on Amazon Prime. Oh, is it? And I'm not sure. It's funny. This happens to Bill and I a lot. I'm not sure if it's on Amazon. Yeah, yeah. I think you might be Canada lucky here.

I'm not certain, though, because they were on Amazon Prime for a while. They may be. I do know, though, that they are on Hulu. That's where I was. I think they're on Hulu right now. They definitely are. Yeah, because that's Disney owned and they own Fox now, right? That's why I was disappointed that I didn't get the X-Files on my Disney Plus. That's where they are. They're on Hulu right now.

It was on Netflix for a long time, I remember. I guess that's when they switched to Hulu. I'm checking it out now, for sure. I think it's an episode that doesn't necessarily pop into my mind as one of the penultimate ones.

When I went back and rewatched the first season, I was like, oh, this is really good. It's very well written. It's very creepy. And it does give... Yeah, it looks like here in the... in the states that you kind of have to currently buy it on uh amazon but that it is on i know i just did today on hulu it is on hulu if you have a hulu subscription it's on there so The next episode, Victor, I'll turn it over to you.

Yeah, I was one of my favorite episodes from the season is episode 21, which is just called Tombs. And it's the. sequel to squeeze which was episode three so you have to wait all the way till episode 21 to see the next episode of eugene victor tombs and um Yeah, I think this may be the first episode with Skinner in it. I don't know if maybe you guys can correct me if I'm wrong. I am actually on Wikipedia right now. Yeah, featured Mitch Pelegi's first appearance. That's important.

yeah he's tremendous right out of the box like you know scully is at this point they have gone off book for many adventures and of course as a viewer you're like good you know i want to see the great unknown but this episode is kind of a down-to-earth type thing where Scully gets hauled into upper management and they're like, look, you need to reel in Mulder because he is out there doing crazy stuff.

And you've got to present a scientific perspective. Like we need proof. We need this to be driven by, you know, the regular detective method that we use at the FBI. And, you know, it's like the Twin Peaks, the return. This is what we do in the FBI. But Skinner comes across as a perfect father figure for Scully, and that is developed way more later in the series. And the actor that plays him is just...

perfect at showing that he's under a lot of corporate pressure to rein in these two agents, but he also is interested in what they're doing by his responses. And of course... You know, Scully is a little too smart for him or what he's used to. So he immediately loses control of the dressing down interview and she starts questioning him. And eventually he ends it on, you know, very.

amicable terms and, you know, sort of casts her into the world again. And this is the day that Tombs, who has been in an asylum this entire time since the Squeeze episode, is being released. to the cognizance of this psychiatrist who thinks he knows what's best for tombs and everybody, and of course doesn't believe he's a non-human creature. that feeds on people's livers every 30 years. But in any case, the fun begins when Tombs is released to basically a foster home.

Man, you guys were talking earlier about how Tombs is sort of an amalgam of a werewolf and a vampire that's sort of been reimagined for the modern age. And this is totally the blueprint for Stephen King's outsider. I mean, both of these episodes, but especially because there is an old detective in in tombs. who was hunting the character tombs years ago, but now he's almost dead. He's in a wheelchair. He's 70, 80 years old.

Scully and Mulder talk to him with the evidence they have, and they all come to a consensus that, yeah, this is what's happening. This is an immortal creature that does this every 30 years. And that's exactly what the premise is in The Outsider and the follow-up novella that I just read by Stephen King called If It Bleeds. And that's exactly what happens. from The Outsider.

come into contact with people that have been following the outsider for many years and these guys are at the end of their lives but they're happy to finally come across some young people that believe that this creature exists But in any case, I'm a huge fan of the Stephen King stories and of this X-Files episode. So there's a great line where, you know, there's the tombs.

hearing of whether he should be released again. And of course, Mulder lays all the facts way too soon on the judges. And they basically laugh him out of the courtroom. And he kind of wisecracks to Scully, do you think I should have worn the gray suit? You know, would they have believed me then?

And later in the series, I know there's a point where they are threatening to dismantle the X-Files once again, his bosses, and he actually is wearing the gray suit, proving that this is the most important moment. But in any case, yeah, great, great episode with tombs on the loose and Mulder is sort of... shadowing him like Dirty Harry is following the Scorpio killer in Dirty Harry and just waiting for him to screw up. And of course, eventually...

He does. He goes through a bunch of tombs, goes through a bunch of maneuvers to try to feed on some livers, some tasty livers. And it all comes to a really. creative, gory climax at a mall with an escalator that, you know, anybody who's ridden an escalator as a child knows that those, those teeth, those metal teeth look really dangerous. They're still warning me against them. And they prove why in this episode.

Whoever's on the other side of that escalator, it's basically looking at the Play-Doh Play Factory, you know, when it comes up. Yes, exactly. So, yeah, and this was, you guys mentioned these guys before, but... Yeah, I think this is a... a Glenn Morgan, James Wong joint. And yeah, you can see like where the final destination, you know, creativity in the, in the kills in that, in that movie sort of.

started in these episodes. But in any case, one of the great, great episodes and highly recommend it. Yeah, I would just attest to everything you said there, Victor, that this is another excellent episode in the first season. They brought their 18 once again because David Nutter directed that episode again, I think also. So it really shows that, you know, I just think those are some of the best that they had producing those episodes.

Another really interesting thing about this episode is that, you know, they do something, they do this at least one other time, I believe, is that, you know, you have tombs in the beginning of the season and then they bring them back. at the end towards the end of the season

And I wonder if that was like the plan from the get-go of that character or if they realize in the first episode, you know, with him in it that he was such a good villain, they wanted to bring him back. But they do it again. I don't know if you all remember the episode Pusher. where the villain reads, can manipulate people's minds and pushes them to commit murder or whatever, they do that same thing where they bring him back again into kind of...

You know, they don't kill him off in that episode, but they bring him back in a later episode. So I just think that's a really cool thing they did is, like, when they know they've got a really great villain, don't kill him off. Let's bring him back for another episode.

Yeah, I can't believe how good these scripts are towards the end of season one. I mean, you guys have to keep in mind, you know, there's 24 episodes that were... that all aired in a six month period So where they got these writers that were so good to do this genre, you know, genre teleplays for 24 hours worth in six months is it's completely insane that they were.

able to pull it off as well as they did. I'm sure Chris Carter wrote, yeah, he probably wrote a bunch of them, but a lot of these episodes that we've been talking about were not written by him. They were written by guys they found incredibly in this short time. Well, they had so many great writers, and I think you guys have kind of already said this, that went on to create other amazing shows, whether it's Carlton Cuse that went on to did Loss.

Vince Gilligan hasn't even started with the X-Files yet, who of course goes on to create Breaking Bad. But that was kind of like what X-Files is known for of the many other things. being a incubator of this amazing talent for all of these other shows that they end up doing so it's pretty cool to look back at these shows and be like oh wow this person wrote this or this person wrote that or drank that i mean

It's just amazing. It's funny how Fox had two shows like that. I don't know if you guys are huge fans of The Simpsons or not, but in the early seasons, Conan O'Brien was involved. They just had so many great... highly educated writers involved in the first five seasons. And then they all went on to greatness. Yeah, it's a great point about that. Another one was Seinfeld. Seinfeld kind of had a similar thing. Oh, I just love that show.

Yeah, just one of the greats. And some of their creators went on to create other great shows. So it kind of, I think, goes back to when a show is that great, you've got to have that talent. And you know that talent, of course, because they go on to do it.

other things too yep Yeah, it's great that they do the follow-up and that they bring in, like you were saying, Victor, that kind of reality aspect of, okay, the monster's put away, but now he gets back out and there's all these real-world things.

of why this might actually happen, but it's just as strong or stronger in some ways an episode as the first one. Maybe what I've watched these so closely together, maybe you guys can tell me that older, uh, the like the investigator the older guy who had been chasing him you know back these many years and had remembers the mill and things like that that was he was in the first episode too right in in um

in Squeeze, I believe. And I can't remember, but he has a scene where he talks about that he was there at the mill and saw what happened there. And then from then on, when he would see things like... It happened early enough that he mentions in the 40s when he saw the death camps, and then later when he would see these horrible atrocities that people committed, he's like, I was back there in that room at the mill. That's from the first episode. Oh, okay. Because it almost...

You had mentioned a reference to Twin Peaks The Return, but some of what he says there is like about the human, the inhumanity and the human cruelty possibly manifesting itself in this human monster that's sort of like almost like a tulpa, like it's created is an element.

of comes up in twin peaks the return you know in a very lynchian sort of way but um i thought i i really thought that writing was really strong he when he's talking about that that he sees these things and his mind goes back to that place Yeah. And just one final comment. I think Tombs might be the first time Scully calls Mulder Fox. Huh. Yeah, maybe. It's weird noticing how they kind of go back and forth between, you know, the way they interact with each other.

And when the first times we think they do things that we are kind of familiar with them doing in the show regularly, you know, they all happen for the first time at some point in this season. Yep. Okay, so... Victor, back to you. I think you're the last of your three episodes. Okay. No, no, no, Victor. I'm sorry. Brain. It's getting later here. Back to you, Dave. I'm sorry. The last of your three episodes. So I have Darkness Falls that I picked in...

This is one of my faves, and it's a pretty good one, too. We're actually towards the end of the season now. I think this is episode 20. So we're in 94 now. And this one's directed by Joe Napolitano, who I didn't recognize. It's written by Chris Carter with a couple of great guest stars I wanted to mention up front. You can correct me if I mispronounce this, somebody. The ranger in this episode is played by Jason Begg or Beggy. Anyways, he was the lead in Monkey Shines. If anybody saw Romero's...

Oh, man, yeah. From the mid-'80s. And then one of the eco-terrorists is played by Titus Welliver, and he's in NYPD Blue, Deadwood, Bosch. and a really great episode of The Mandalorian this past season. He was in Lost, too. Oh, was he? I never saw Lost. Yeah, he was one of the, I guess, the big bad, if you want to use the Buffy vernacular. Okay.

My wife loved that show, so cool. I'm glad he's definitely been working for a long time. Anyways, this one was a fun one. I just wrote a quick blurb about it. And loggers unleash a swarm of deadly insects after cutting into the wrong tree. And Mulder and Scully have to travel to a remote part of the Washington forest.

to figure out what's going on and they will uh actually now that i start talking about it this kind of reminds me of the last episode i discussed ice where uh they end up the agents and a couple of people end up getting stuck This time it's a cabin. What's going on in this one basically is the loggers have unleashed a swarm of possibly ancient or thought extinct insects.

Basically, they're kind of the opposite of what goes on now. These bugs are kind of afraid of the light, or at least they stay out of the light. The play on the title there, when darkness falls, you're kind of in trouble. You've got to make sure there's still light, which actually kind of reminds me of a movie. I'm sure a movie has done this more recently. I can't think of the title.

I feel like I recently watched something where... Lights out, maybe? Maybe it was. That could be... You turn the lights off and the creature appears. Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. I did actually, I kind of thought the movie was called darkness falls as well. Is there a movie called that? That's true too. That's what tooth fairy, they can only travel in the darkness. So you have people jumping from pools of light. All right. Maybe that's what's mixing me up here, but.

This one is very good, even though it sounds quite simple. Mulder and Scully trying to basically escape a swarm of bugs. But the setup being simple, still this episode really delivers. And you can kind of see, too, how with this one, the setting really works. Obviously, they're filming in Vancouver. This is not in the US. And the show in the first season doesn't have a huge budget. So setting the whole episode.

in the forest actually makes a lot of sense. The scenery in Vancouver is spectacular, so the show ends up looking very expensive, and the setting fits right in with what they're doing. while kind of skirting the fact that you don't have a ton of money or locations. Coming to the end of the season, they might have been saving money for, I don't know, there's a couple of big episodes towards the end. But I think it works great.

the area that they're filming this episode in is just spectacular. They do come across, maybe it's the old growth tree that the... bugs escape from, but man, they're standing next to it and the trunk of the tree is almost as tall as Mulder. It's just craziness. There's some really great villainy here too. I believe the guy's name is Humphreys. He's the leader of the loggers. He's looking for his men because a whole crew has disappeared. That's what incites Mulder and Scully to head up there.

They're basically looking for a lost crew. And Humphreys, he assumes that the eco-terrorists did something, but they all come to find out that it's... It's something that's going to kill them all. It's the bugs that are getting them. But as they're driving up to the site, he's talking about basically people trying to protect the planet like they're these... I don't know, hippie draft dodgers. He says something like, we pay for the right to take these trees as they're driving through this.

what's left of this gorgeous forest. But I don't know. It just makes me so mad that that kind of attitude is still around today as we lose logging, you know, logging giant old growth forests. It's just funny that 30 years later, some of this stuff is still going on. The attitude that we own those trees and we can just cut down whatever we want. I love how they basically get poetic justice.

Doing the work that they're trying to make money with is what ends up getting them all killed. How about you guys? Yeah, this is another episode that I just love. It's just such a great episode. Kind of very similar to Ice, what you were saying. It has just a similar type feeling to me. I kind of always think of these two.

together since they're both from the first season. And another thing about this episode that I always kind of think about is how strong the X-Files is when the episodes are placed mainly outside. i think a lot of that has to do with what you're saying about how you know the vancouver setting gave them so many great options of filming outside but like i always just feel like these type of episodes whether it's this one They're really not outside, but, you know, they're in that Arctic.

you know, setting, I guess you could say. There's also that really great episode. I believe it's in season four where they're in the Florida Everglades and those creatures. Season five, detour. Season five, where they're like, you can't find them. Just another great episode. So like any episode that's like taking place outside for the most part, I'm all in for the X-Files. Yep. Sorry. No, I was just going to say they go to the Pacific Northwest a lot, don't they?

They have some frequent flower points to the Pacific Northwest for sure. It's the most forested Washington, D.C. I've ever seen sometimes in these episodes. Are their bosses always like, so you're spending a lot of time in Portland. You want to just move to that branch? Like what's going on here? You notice they never, they'd never. go to New York City. They never try to pass Vancouver off as New York City. Friday the 13th, right?

I think Toronto was like Baltimore a few times. At least that has skyscrapers and there's not the giant cliff of insanity in the horizon behind the city. We'll have. Yeah, I'm in Seattle and my wife's from Portland. So every time she sees landmarks from Portland, she's like, it's the big pink building or whatever. Like, no, it's Star Labs from Flash. Star Labs, yeah. Oh, right. Oh, it's funny.

I love Darkness Falls 2. I just want to reiterate what you guys said. I love eco horror. I think that that's a real thing. I think that the deeper we delve into the oceans or the forests, the more likely we are to encounter something really... deadly that we have never encountered before. And I think those two, you know, ice and darkness falls in this season really capture that feel well. Yeah. This one. Yeah. It's.

really neat how they're basically in the same situation but it feels fresh again um yeah i don't know it's just this one this one feels faster you know the more tense for somehow i don't know the there's a couple scenes where they've got Or they think they've got the bugs on them and they're just freaking out. The light is what they need and there is a scene where Dana's freaking out. There's only one bulb in the cabin and she kind of...

She's flailing her arms as she walks back and hits the only bulb there. The two guys jump at the bulb to try to grab it to save it, you know? Just weird stuff. This is one that really feels like, even though, you know, okay, Mulder and Scully are our main characters and we know that...

the show's going to continue. So they're, they're probably going to survive. It really does start to feel pretty futile towards the, you know, you get this feeling that maybe we are not going to make it out of this, you know, and I think. Yeah, they almost don't, but you get this. There is a desolate feeling to it that survival horror kicks in. I agree with everything you guys have said and Victor, what you're saying about the eco horror. And Dave, it's funny when we did a wilderness episode.

earlier in the summer and we did we covered the movie prophecy from 1979 the john frankenheimer movie and the reason i think about that is you have some of those same beautiful old forests a lot of great cinematography in there the monster is much more silly in the prophecy i mean technically the monsters are they look a little underwhelming here but it's what they do and and the threat they pose that creates the tension it's funny the bugs here almost like the matrix

Yeah, that's a good point, right? They look almost like nanobytes or something. But what's interesting, I think, is you guys keep talking about all the like... uh on location photography and how much of the outdoor photography there is and it always it feels very lush and you you would get a little bit of that and stuff like twin peaks but here it always looks wet and damp and you know you get a really

uh earthy feeling like there's an episode later in this called shapes that's kind of deals with the the werewolf mythology and you get the the mists and everything just the ambiance is so great and i think that's interesting because a lot of the internal sets and everything they have, you know, you're going to be people in office buildings or in labs and they have a lot of that, but there was another show. I don't know if you guys ever saw it. I can't remember what.

it aired on it was called the dark skies i think around the same time that the x-files was on you never heard of it you said i have heard of it but i didn't see

Yeah, I don't think I've seen it. It wasn't very good. That's funny because Art Bell actually showed up on that one, Dave. Oh, wow, really? In the show here or there. Yeah, he wasn't like a main star or anything, but he had a little cameo. But the one thing I remember about that show is that so much of it, it felt so... cheap because so much of it was just indoor sets you know they didn't take advantage of sort of this natural

environments here. And I think that's what opens up the X-Files and Noah, pun intended, kind of lets it breathe a little bit. The other thing I want to say, maybe Scully's wardrobe vacillates all over the place in this. first season. There's a lot of shoulder pads. There's some almost like...

Willow from Buffy cat sweater kind of action going on here a few times, I think, in this episode. I remember just being very cognizant of what is she wearing. Is this the one, too, where does nothing fit her in this episode? Everything feels like the sweater is three times too big, and then maybe she finds a jacket in my cabin. Yeah.

I can cut this out if it turns out not to be true, but I think I remember my wife and I noticing that. And I think it might have been that it seems like it's possible that she was pregnant during this time period. Like when this particular episode was shot.

There's clearly a point where a couple of these episodes, and this one particularly, it seems like they're trying to obscure that fact, and so you have her wearing these frumpalicious, like... sweaters and stuff they're like would Dana actually wear that even if you know even if that was the only thing left in the cabin after three days of hiding out that she's not in the first couple of episodes for that reason that might be

And this is pretty close to the end of season. Yeah, exactly. Of the season. Yeah, I bet that is it, honestly, because I think you're right. Beginning of season two when she has her kid. Yeah. Yeah. So I say that probably that timeframe works out, but you can, you can kind of, I don't know that it's, it's visible that she's pregnant, but I think it is definitely visible that they seem to be trying to, you know. She's certainly not wearing the most flattering of clothes in this.

in this episode and maybe a couple surrounding it. But yeah, it's fun because it is basically, it is the same episode in some ways in terms of all the basic beats, even down to the... We're all at odds with each other, but eventually we're going to have to trust each other to some extent that you had in ice. But it just shows the strength of the show that it can make.

Two episodes that take place within the same, you know, within a basic same timeframe as each other, it still works and it still feels effective. And this one too, before we end with this episode or before we finish talking about this episode, the last line in this one, which again also reminds me of. ice and for similar reasons, right? If this escapes, it's the end for us. But Mulder's in the quarantine facility. He's talking to one of the scientists there and he's asking about

basically what's going on. How's the government going to get rid of them? Oh, they have a plan and they're going to enact, they're enacting it right now and they'll be successful. And Mulder says, I think he says, and what if they're not? The doctor turns to him. and says, that is not an option, Mr. Mulder. Very comforting. Yeah, but that's it, right? That's the reality of it right there.

If you had brought that back from the Arctic, or if these bugs escaped this forest, we're done. I will say, in the X-Files world, the government is really efficient. It's very true. Yeah. So the next episode, it's actually, in terms of chronology, it's jumping back a little bit. This is episode 13, and it's called Beyond the Sea.

And this episode's really interesting, I think, because it's one I remember most, or one of the ones I remember the most from the first season. And it's kind of cool because X-Files...

I think everybody breaks the X-Files down into two categories, which would be Monster of the Week and Mythology episode. And technically speaking, this would be the... freak of the week or the monster of the week episode right but in some ways it's not and there's a couple other episodes like that uh young at heart and a couple others in this season and in all the seasons where i think it they're less

Even though they don't focus on the mythology, they're not as centralized to the quote-unquote freak or monster as they are... central to a character like Mulder or Scully. You know, I think that their X-Files kind of has a third option, which is that the Mulder and Scully centric episode that's really about them. And there happens to be a side story that just not that it's not important, but it's so intrinsically tied to them that it's hard to think of it as.

The creature of the week, you know, in this one, you've got a, it's funny because the plot of this is very similar. I don't want to, I guess, minor spoilers. The plot of this in some ways. The basic gist of it is very similar to the second X-Files movie that they make called I Want to Believe, where you have a kind of, in this one, it's a convicted killer who is saying, hey, I have these psychic abilities, and if you can...

Work with me. I can help you solve this murder. You know that there's the Silence of the Lambs template a little bit. But in the second TV movie or the second TV movie, the second movie, you have a. pedophile priest a disgraced priest played by um i think it's uh Billy Connolly, and he's trying to help them solve this mystery and saying he has psychic abilities. And the whole episode sort of turns off of that, the Mulder and Scully dynamic of I'm the believer and you're not.

You see a lot of that in this episode, but the episode, what's interesting is when I was watching X-Files, I kind of forgot, particularly went back and watched it, that Mulder and Scully, they have some of their, their parents are sort of there.

in this first season, but so much of their history and everything, it deals with... them being in the shadow of their parents or in shadow of family tragedies that you sort of forget that they were ever in the picture you know and yet they really are in the first season Don Davis shows up in this episode for a brief period of time as scully's dad and uh you know again minor spoilers here he passes away after showing up to her she's unbeknownst to her you know he shows up at her bedside

And he's talking, but you can't hear him. And that really felt very Twin Peaks-y. You know, Don Davis would often phase in and out on Twin Peaks. And he would appear to characters and say something cryptic. And that kind of happens here. And then she gets a call realizing that he has died.

And her big sort of concern... and and and worry is that he was disapproving of her and didn't approve of her ultimate decision to join the fbi and that's kind of a crux of what's happening with her in this and then you get this story this the the freak of the week thing happens where they have these kids who are have been abducted and the typical mo of this particular uh

Killer is that they are abducted and after a week they are murdered. And so you have set up this idea that there's a race against time. And then they get called in because this guy, Luther Lee Boggs, who was displayed brilliantly by Brad Dourif. Honestly, Brad Dourif, I had...

For whatever reason, I never got around to seeing like Exorcist three for a long time. And so I had just rented it like shortly before this episode played. So I had just seen him in that role where he again, he's a very creepy, incarcerated guy. And of course, you know, child's.

play and all the way back to um you know like all the different performances that duroff has had you he by this point in time he's a body parts too you get this feeling and he's definitely creepy and he's creepy here but you have to be able to uh

He also has to be a little bit human here because he's this killer who's killed, killed like five members of his family after dinner or something, you know, just kind of because they make a point that say, well, he kills because he likes it. Like some people do all these other things, but. He just likes killing people. And at this point, you've got that setup that's almost the Silence of the Lambs dynamic. Mulder and Scully both go there. He's telling them, hey, if you can get me...

so that I don't go back to the electric chair. I've had this experience, and that first time when he goes to the electric chair and he's not killed, but now he says he has these psychic-like abilities. he's if I can help you find this guy then you then you need to get me off so I don't die because that's I want to live as long as possibly can he has a creepy bit of dialogue and the way he performs it where he says look I'm pretty sure that hell it's going to be me

going to that electric chair over and over and over again. So I don't ever want to go to it again while I'm alive. I mean, it was like... wow okay i got you you know and all the way he delivers his lines it's so creepy but the the writing on this is really strong and even the dynamic is strong they get in there and molder gives him a piece of his own like nick shirt that he rips and hands it to him

telling him, oh, this is from the kids. And he goes through this thing where he's pretending like he sees and gets, you know, vibes off of it to use the flash, you know, that he's kind of getting a feeling of what's happening. But then. Some of the other things he says do come to pass. And so this idea is, is he working with this other killer? How does he know this information? And it sets up that dichotomy of...

Scully kind of has to be the believer to a certain degree, and she has to actually choose to be the believer and decide if that's the right choice or not. And some of that's happening because Boggs... At one point, he's saying, I can speak to your father. And he even channels him a little bit. And it's just some of those scenes are extremely creepy. A lot of that's down to Dura's performance, but also the way he's playing off of Anderson.

I think that the side story, the thing he's trying to help them with is it's interesting. But, man, so much of this episode runs off of how strong Durif is. And I don't know if that dichotomy there between the faith. And the belief, because that's the interesting thing about Scully, right? You realize during the show that Scully is far more likely in some episodes to believe things of a spiritual nature than Mulder is. Oh, he doesn't believe in God. Yeah, yeah, he doesn't believe in God.

He'll believe in leprechauns, but God, that's a bridge too far. Right, but it's kind of a brilliant device because what it allows is it allows them to have plenty of episodes where Scully is basically... in a sense, going against her constant line of, well, I need evidence. I need evidence. I need evidence. So, you know, it's, it creates a really fun dichotomy and here you have it on almost every facet. And I think it might be one of the most well done episodes in.

that handles that dichotomy, that faith versus science as far as it replies to Scully. And there is a, I wish it was handled visually better, but there's that creepy scene where... uh boggs is recounting how he's seeing the spirits as he's headed to the electric chair and unfortunately it looks a little silly as it's played but you almost wish it was just him talking and there's a point where they say well

Why did you help us? And he's like, with the hopes that there will be one less ghost standing there when I get to the chair. Yeah, it probably should have been. But yeah, it's I think this Beyond the Sea, one of my favorite of the entire. series of the X-Files. It's just a fantastic episode. That scene where Scully's father appears by her bedside and it's quiet.

Really reminded me of the dream sequence in Rosemary's Baby a little bit, like where it's just everything's real, but it doesn't seem quite right. And then, of course, you immediately clicks into the viewers like, oh, you know, he wasn't there. Like she had a vision of him. And then you realize he just died. That's that one, two, three punch was amazing. First time I saw it.

Yeah, I think that this is really sort of a metaphor for an existential crisis, which is what, I mean, Scully might be a little too young to be having this, but there's sort of a point in our careers where it's like... A parent dies or something happens in the world where you're like, wow, you know, am I really living my best life? Because am I going to be around next week? Like, I think that's that happens to most people. And that's what happens to Dana at this.

point. She's like, should I be in the FBI? My father never really approved of it. And it causes her to re-examine her motivation. And at the end of the episode, she's more determined than ever, I think. I didn't watch this one recently. I think it was probably during the summer when I watched it last, but I would just say the same thing about Brad Dourif.

the main memory or takeaway from this episode is how, how good he is. Like, especially when he starts to foam with the mouth and dial it up to 11 or 12, like in, you mentioned exorcist three or when he's Chucky and he's. you know, at the top of his lungs and screaming and swearing. Like he is scary. He is believable. He's well, I think he was nominated for an Oscar, so maybe not underrated, but man.

He is super strong in this. Yeah, I think he was nominated or won an Oscar for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. So at least being nominated, yeah. So I guess you can't say he's underrated because he's definitely been acknowledged, but man. He is so good as these insane villainous characters. And he actually has, I don't know, there's a little sympathy for him at the end there. That's all him.

So, Tommy, did you have any thoughts about this episode? Yeah, the only thing I was going to mention is that, you know, I think you guys did a great job kind of talking about the different types of episodes that X-Files does. But I think this episode is a good example of how... while the x-files gets kind of pigeonholed into that sci-fi or monster of the week kind of realm it also can do drama you know a drone just a straight dramatic episode or dramatic scenes

at the highest level of television, I think. And I think that was really one of the underrated aspects of it. And Gillian Anderson kind of shows how great of an actress she is. And, of course, she's had a great career. She just showed up on The Crown as Margaret Thatcher and was amazing on that. And I kind of, these episodes really highlight her acting ability and how good she really is in this role. So yeah, just a great episode and really one of the best of this season, in my opinion, also.

Yeah, and I think that's what's great is, again, the first season and you have so many different kinds of episodes and so many different things going on. And yet it does feel a whole of a piece, almost as if you had seen. Something that was just serialized, pushing the story along. Anyway, so then we're going to go to Victor for your last episode, which is very convenient because it's the last episode of the season.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Episode 24, Erlenmeyer flask. And yeah, for those of you that didn't major in science out there, the Erlenmeyer flask is basically that conical. flask that you see in monster movies or labs in real life. Is it the beaker that Dr. Jekyll drinks, I should assume? Yes, I think so. yeah i was actually gonna ask somebody if they knew if that was a real thing yeah it's i don't know why it's called that but i guess it was invented by a guy named erlen meyer um but uh that

type of flask is critical to where this episode turns in its story. So, so anyway, this is, this is a, an alien mythology episode. And it is super written by Chris Carter, I believe, if memory serves. And, um, it's, it, it has Scully and Mulder separately. um pursuing you know to the best of their ability in their own way uh a trail of clues to lead to what may be an alien and the way the episode starts out is there's a man and he runs off a dock into the ocean he is shot

And he falls into the into the sea and never comes back up. But it's revealed a little bit later that the government has been through deep throat. The government has been experimenting with alien DNA and has made human-alien hybrids, which is something that comes back into the show quite a bit. And the dude who ran off the pier has the ability to survive underwater. He has toxic blood and a bunch of other stuff that make him a very dangerous suspect.

This alien-human hybrid is being pursued by both... the the our our main character agents and these mysterious men in black that listen to everything through a directional mic through an unmarked van and it all comes to a head With Mulder getting captured. So this time he's the hostage and Scully has to deal with Deep Throat to try to get a plan together to spring Mulder.

Through this deal, Deep Throat gets Scully inside. This is such a brilliant piece of writing because Mulder is the one that has held close to his heart this belief in extraterrestrials, and yet it's... It's a Scully that is able to, you know, deal with Deep Throat, get an access pass in the secret government facility and actually find the alien.

body that the government has been using. So she gets the proof. And sadly, she gives it to Deep Throat and Deep Throat is betrayed. And the government is once again... to cover all this up. And, uh, the, the episode ends, um, with, uh, just this exactly the same as the Raiders of the Lost Ark ending. in uh in the pilot episode so these make perfect bookends for the season where the cigarette smoking man is delivering the evidence to some

weird room with tons and tons of evidence files in the Pentagon. So we know that there's... some branch of the government that, you know, that is based in the Pentagon that is, that has, you know, feelers into all this. And, and this is what. Our heroes have been fighting the whole time. And yeah, and they I think they end the episode with.

Mulder calling Scully saying, yep, they're going to shut down the X-Files. So anybody that was really into the show is just like, what? They ended the season with... Like, that's it? Like, did they cancel the show? And you have to wait, you know, six months before you start to hear rumors of it starting up again. Yeah. But yeah, literally six months because no internet.

Yeah, exactly. No, but great episode, really well paced. I loved Scully taking the lead as sort of a scientific detective for a while. I just wanted to add one more detail.

when, you know, there's a point where she is dealing with some experts in a lab that she knows at Georgetown University, and they find that the bacteria that she has, which she gathered in an Erlenmeyer flask, I wonder if you guys were wondering if I was ever going to get around to that, was it is like some bacteria that was around before. Humans walked the earth. And the way they frame those scenes, I think, is another homage to a John Carpenter movie called Prince of Darkness. Yes.

Yeah, these scientists are all kind of holed up trying to figure out what this substance in this canister that's been there for hundreds of years really is. And they're coming up with all this weird data. And it's kind of similar. And it turns out that the scientist's name in this X-Files episode is Dr. Carpenter. So I kind of put it together.

That's what they were doing. But yeah, fantastic episode. One of my favorite of the season. And yeah, again, highly recommended. Yeah, there's a scene in this.

I didn't realize that something happened to a character this early in the show. And it also helps you to kind of... You said by the end of this episode, you don't know if it's coming back. Well... that incident i think you guys can figure it out i don't want to spoil it um that also leads to that like you know this show might not be coming back the way it ends it's it's really really well done and i didn't remember

that happening so early in the series. I thought that the scene I'm thinking of happened in season two or three. I didn't realize it was all that early.

This episode is really interesting because as the mythology builds and gets stranger and crazier, there's a feeling that you almost – I remember watching some of it and thinking like, where is all this with the – the ichthy soldiers that could go in the water and and and do all this and their alien hybrids and this ancient like strain of alien dna like

Where did all this weird stuff come from? Is he just pulling out of nowhere? But it's interesting to see how early he did, you know, no pun intended, sort of seeded into the show. Like, and it's... is very compelling here because a lot of those images, like all the tanks and, and even that image that's, uh,

You know, when he goes into the room and you see all these people there and then the image towards the end, it is that kind of Indiana Jones sort of reference. And then all the stuff with Deep Throat. It really is interesting because you start out at the beginning with this kind of vague sense. of things and there's a very clear alien plot set up and i honestly didn't remember it being that pronounced at the end of the first season

Yeah, it's a really cool idea that we just have the technology. We don't have actual alien... uh aliens or alien tech being used by aliens we just have something that we've been trying to reverse engineer or put back together and they kind of started with the deep throat episode um that we talked about and uh you know this is sort of the next level it's like you know we've we've got alien dna and we reverse engineered that to try to make a more a better human or

different human uh and um yeah it's pretty mind-blowing stuff i don't know where it came from i've never encountered it outside this tv show no i'm sure that plausible though I mean, I could totally feel like that's what the government would get up to right away, right? Oh, we definitely need to improve our soldiers. Let's make better ones. Super soldiers. It seems real.

Well, yeah, and what's nice is they do keep it couched in a certain sense of science. You know what I mean? It's that it isn't just... And it isn't just the, we partnered with the little gray aliens. That element does come up in the show as it goes on, and they explain some of that stuff. But it's interesting how, like, Victor, like you're saying, maybe in some of the really arcane corners of the...

of the paranoid conspiracy world at this point in time. I'm sure some of this stuff is out there. You know, the people called in the art bell show all the time reporting this sort of stuff. And then they will be magically whisked away in the middle of a phone call that always left you. wondering what the heck happened. In fact, I think there was an episode of the Art Bell Show. It was probably after X-Files had been on the air. And this guy is freaked out.

saying that he understands that all the cities are going to be taken over very soon and that the government is definitely going to come down on us any minute. And then Bell Satellite literally goes out in the middle of the call. The guy never comes back.

so it's like uh there's very you can listen to that like on youtube it's very interesting but um yeah just it it creates the it's plausible within the world that they've set up and it is just as interesting as the monster of the week stuff because i think that's the it's the difficulty when we have so many stellar episodes that we talked about with these individual stories, you got it that, and that to me, I don't want to get in too much of the.

But as you get later on, that was kind of where the X-Files started to get a little weak. I think eventually the mythology never felt as well constructed as some of the standalones. And I don't think that's the case here. I think it still feels very strong. yeah that's interesting you should mention that because that's exactly when i stopped watching the show which was probably somewhere around season six mid mid season six

Um, that's exactly the feeling I came away from was that the monster of the week episodes were the strongest ones. And you know, the, the. the UFO stuff kind of went off the rails at some point. But if you have just watched season one, the UFO mythology stuff is really strong and it's got tremendous potential. And I think... even through season two, it's really good and really strong as well. So I don't think they start losing ideas for a while. It's funny you guys framed that.

conversation that way i uh i had mentioned earlier i didn't watch lost but my wife loves it so i do know how it ends and what it's about i didn't realize though that there were uh creatives in this show that went on to work on lost because i saw a quote uh from the guys who worked on lost who said oh uh The ending of our show has been planned out for years. We learned from the X-Files how not to end the show. That's not even fair.

But here's the thing. I realized that. What's funny about that, I mean, that's a great point you made because Lost was, you know, I'm a huge Lost fan. Love Lost. Probably my second favorite show after the X-Files. It was also criticized for its ending, which I don't think is fair. I think it actually nailed it. Yeah, it was more mixed. It was pretty mixed.

I was being a little sarcastic. No, I think you make a great point about that. It was pretty mixed, because they did say that all the time, even though they didn't. They kind of made it up as they went along. Yeah, I was going to say, I did. I don't buy that they had the ending in mind all the time because it does feel complete. They might've had the last five minutes in mind as this is the end, but that could have been tacked on to literally anything.

You know, not to give anything away, but it could have been the end of the Bob Newhart show. I'm just saying. That one I do know. Right. Yeah. No, I just want to say to the listeners out there, like if you see these nine episodes, you will come away with the idea that the X-Files was a masterpiece in 1993. Now, there are some other episodes. They're not as good. Yeah. Some of them are pretty good or they're cool ideas that maybe weren't executed.

too great or maybe great executions with kind of not so great an idea. But these nine are great. Like they are super, super solid. And yeah. Victory, you make a great point. The only thing I was going to say on that, I think because X-Files is truly one of the greatest shows ever made, I believe. And I think...

You've got to put it into context a little bit. Take Breaking Bad, for example, which people consider one of the greatest shows ever, and it really is. But how many episodes did it have? Maybe 60? to 70 i think yeah the x-files has over like 220 episodes So like people need to realize that like they were just knocking these out and there are more great X-Files episodes than probably any other show ever made. They may have a few clunkers in there, but when you're making 24 a season.

that's inevitable i i i can't believe the production will you know capacity that these guys were were at and and that it looks as good as it as it does it's it's really incredible not to mention you know mark snow the composer composing 40 minutes of music every week i mean that is completely insane It's it's tremendous. Yeah. I mean, one thing to keep in mind, just tacking on to what Tommy just said. I mean, yeah.

Like an episode of Better Call Saul, a season of Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad, I think they only do 10 to 13 episodes a year for those shows. So it's so luxurious of a production schedule. at least twice that of what the X-Files guys had. And that was in the days before they even knew where all the genre writing talent was. Like Chris Carter is just some guy with a genre show, the only one on TV or one of the only ones.

and he had to find these guys that were good enough. I mean, after the first couple of seasons, I'm sure it hit critical mass and started attracting writers that were like, oh, yeah, I, you know, I'm really into this stuff and I want to write scripts, so I'm going to try out for the X-Files. And, you know, but the first couple of seasons, I can't believe they are as great as they are. Yeah, great point.

But yeah, so anyway, and one of the things you mentioned, Victor, I do want to, any other thoughts that we have about the season in general? I do, there are a couple episodes I want to mention both on the good side and the not so good side. But Conduit is one that we didn't talk about in too much detail. I think it's mostly notable because it really delves into the...

Mulder's sister being abducted mythology that we didn't talk too much about because it didn't come up as prevalently in most of the episodes but this one delves into it it really delves into kind of the abduction elements and that storyline goes a lot of different places over the years but it's important because it does it early on at least it really seems to define the driving force

under Mulder's quest beyond just I want to believe or I want to know that these things are out here. You know, he mentions that in the first episode. We hear him talk about it many times. But Kondo, it's a good episode because you really see how it affects him as a person. It lets Scully see how it affects him. Do you guys remember much about that episode? Yeah. I thought it was a fairly slow, not a super strong episode. It's not good as an episode per se or as a good story.

But yeah, exactly what you just mentioned, Nathan. I mean, it kind of reminds me of that Star Trek first generation, you know, the original generation show obsession where Captain Kirk like becomes obsessed with this. creature that only appears every once in a while that killed one of his old crewmen on his first mission. And he drives the Enterprise into danger to hunt this thing down. It's almost like Moby Dick.

you know uh and and that it's kind of like that side of molder starts showing up where he's just obsessed and uh scully doesn't know what to do with him um but yeah it was pretty cool Yeah, and I feel like, again, that's that episode that doesn't quite fall into the mythology per se or the other. It's that character-driven. How about some of the ones that maybe we didn't feel...

were as successful. And again, as Dave said, I'm not sure we were recording it, but David mentioned earlier that even an episode of the X-Files that is... that's not that great is sometimes still more entertaining than a lot of other stuff. That's all that's there to see. So at least it's full of imagination, right? Like they're, they're, they're certainly trying. And you guys have mentioned.

that you're trying to do 24 episodes a season. The other big show from back then I always watched was Next Generation. They're also doing 24 episodes a season. And I think you're right, Victor. obviously so much harder to come up with 24 episodes than 10. But I think that's why you get the big hits and sometimes the big misses too, because you're kind of left without...

Without the option of, you know, you might not have the option of throwing scripts out. Like, this is all we got, guys. We got to go with it. But, yeah, so speaking of that, I would bring up... Shadows as an episode that, you know, it sounds interesting, but it's not the most entertaining. I think that's the one about the ghost. The secretary who's haunted by the ghost of her boss, and I believe he's getting revenge on his co-workers. Right, right.

Yeah, I do remember that episode, not being one of the best. It's an interesting story. It's certainly interesting, but I just don't think it... comes off as particularly entertaining. Yeah, it's the execution. I feel like... Go ahead. Oh, no, I was just going to say it almost seems like an experiment that they tried again with Born Again later in the season where it's like, you know, somebody is a ghost and he's reaching out through other characters to do something.

But born again is way better. Like it's, it's executed way, way better. Is that the computer programmer one? No, it's the one where there's a kid going around and there's a dead cop and then there's this psychokinetic video made of a deep sea diver. That's so weird, by the way. Yeah, I love that image. And it's a central clue that makes absolutely no sense until Mulder puts it all together, like at the very end. It's like a fish tank ornament.

Is it in this season? Visible, yeah. I do kind of remember that now. I don't remember that one. And that's a good example because that one's a lot more interesting. This one, I mean... It almost feels like at this point in time in the 90s, it would have been almost like an A&E movie or a Lifetime sort of thrill. You know, it has... The way it's directed and the way it's handled, it just feels very pedestrian. It does. Unfortunately, I think the lead actress is not...

Maybe not up to the same quality of all the other guests they bring in. Yeah, and there's also a weird way because the many of the other episodes leading up to this... deal so much with how Mulder and Scully are relating to this phenomena. And there's a pretty wild out there. Okay. How are you going to explain this away phenomena? And it's just sort of like hand waved away.

You know, it's like we're sure to forget this like everybody else. So it's not going to affect our viewpoint. You know, some of the things they see or seem to have proof of here should be right up at the very top of the. I told you Scully or I told you Mulder list. And yet it doesn't seem like it amounts to much, you know, in their overall view of things. Yeah, exactly.

um any other so another episode i felt and around the same time frame and i think it's exactly what you're saying they have so many that it's sort of like okay we'll just take your script okay um we're missing one i got my kid to write something here let's make it and um

Because there's a couple of wild out there ideas that you feel like they probably grabbed them. And then when it came time to develop the story, they just didn't have the story there. There's an episode called Space that is incredibly... weird as a concept you know i feel like around this time frame you could go to any tabloid and if you weren't looking at the bat boy on the cover of that tabloid you were looking at that face on the moon you know look like a screaming and this episode

is literally feature scenes where that screaming moon face looking exactly like it does on the tabloid cover is floating towards people you know on earth and like haunting them and that's not exactly what's happening in the episode but what a half-baked mess that sort of ends up being. Because you're sitting there, this is the same show that made you believe a man could wriggle like a slinky through a vent, and yet you're looking at this being like, oh, come on.

Yeah. I think it's one of the worst as a first season. I was just reading about it. It said that because of the first few episodes. being overrun with their budget, they can see this as a bottle episode. So they use like a lot of NASA footage. Yeah, they did. But then they built the command center and because that actually caused a lot of cost overruns, it actually became one of the most expensive episodes of the first season.

Oh, jeez. So I kind of laughed at that. That's like when you realize that the movie Sphere had like an $80 million price tag, and there's a scene where they're attacked by a giant squid, and all you see is Peter Coyote looking at the grid saying, the squid is attacking, and there's like a... Big blip, and you're like, where did that 80 million go? Where did it go? It's like, wow. The after party. Yeah, exactly. It must have been a good party. Yeah.

Yeah, one episode that really underwhelmed me, like I think the only time they shot below their weight class was the Gender Bender episode. I thought that would come up. Yeah, this is this is like it's an Amish community and the superpower that some of these Amish people have. is to change shapes, and they change from men to women. And the only thing I can think of is, you know, I mean, AIDS was pretty scary at the time this was written, but...

The central idea that the monster is a person that is essentially bisexual is really offensive. I think it really goes against it. One of the things I think is so cool about this show is that it takes outsiders and normalizes them and makes them nice and cool and three-dimensional. And I think they just go in the opposite direction in this one episode. I don't know why it got made, but maybe they were just out of time and they were like, okay, this is the only script that kind of works.

So I'm just reading here. It said, Glenn Morgan, this episode was inspired by Glenn Morgan's desire for an episode with more of a sexy edge. And I would say they failed. in that yeah yeah it didn't age well no yeah this is the one that really has that supermarket like tabloid like amish almost you know sex mutants or something and it's just like it's just about as dumb as what i just said and uh it it seems like it should be intriguing but it's like you said victor

they don't know where they're going with it. And they just, you're right. It's, it's set up to be like, uh you know that all of these elements are bad evil these are you know and it doesn't deal with it in a semi like interesting way you're just looking at it like what am i watching like the most interesting thing would be watching like the average you know, family who's normally watching the X-Files tunes in one night for family night and gets to watch gender bender, you know? Yeah.

which would be which would be unfortunate um there's a couple that underwhelmed me that i actually don't think are bad i think genderbender is the worst of the season um and it's the it's Like you said, it's maybe one of the few that I would say, hey, it's legitimately kind of bad, like bad, like I don't ever need to really watch this again bad. But a couple that disappointed me that I still have some things that are interesting. And I think it was because when I saw them.

that I was really big into like the cryptozoology thing. I think it's interesting to note that... Some of the X-Files episodes that to me are underwhelming are when they take something that has been outside of the alien stuff. When they take something that has been established, it is sort of the real, you know, not a real thing, but has a well... versed mythology on it at least these early days like oh let's tackle

um the jersey devil you know they have an episode about the jersey devil and structurally speaking like where they go with it if i were to tell you like i think that idea is very interesting particularly from someone who might like want to see a reasonable

crypto zoological answer for something like what could this creature really be i think that was in it's interesting in in theory but you know we don't really for all of the x-files as long as it runs there's not many episodes that touch on that like I guess what you would consider the Bigfoot part of the mysterious events, right? Do we ever really get a quote-unquote Bigfoot episode in the X-Files? I feel like this is about the closest we get. Not really.

Yeah. And they only do, they also don't even do, like they do a quasi vampire episode in early season two, but they don't do like Dracula, which you would think maybe they would. Yeah. Well, they, they finally get around to doing something later. I think it's season five. It's actually, they, they handle it more humorously. Oh, that's right. That's a good one too. Yeah. Later on. But.

But the way this one wraps up is really kind of silly. So it disappointed me on that front. What did you guys think about that? I think it is just called Jersey Devil, I think. I kind of like that episode, honestly. It's kind of like one of those, it's kind of like, it's not that good. It's not that great, but it's kind of like, it's pretty good. I think that's the best way I would put it.

I think I was disappointed because, well, I don't know that I knew what the Jersey Devil was back then, but... Just from the name and root, like what I had heard in passing, I think I wanted some sort of creature. I didn't want it to be as straightforward as it ends up being. So it's kind of nitpicky, but... That's how I feel. Yeah, I agree with David. Yeah, the setup is really good. The first two acts are strong, and it...

It set the bar too high for the end of the episode, which is kind of like, oh, really? That's it? Oh, well.

Yeah, I'd say that's the same. It's an episode that's so good to a point that you're disappointed when it sort of doesn't carry itself over the line. I almost feel like some of the episodes of The X-Files that are kind of maybe just... pretty good or average they always kind of have that same issue where you know they start out really strong and even the middle strong but maybe the ending just doesn't quite work because they don't know where to go with it or they've kind of bitten off too much

too much that they could choose i always feel like that's kind of if there is an episode that it doesn't quite reach its potential it's probably because of the ending Another episode that I kind of liked, I liked a lot of the elements, was Lazarus, which is Scully's old partner is possessed. Oh, no, sorry. That's correct. But actually what I meant was young at heart. Young at heart was the next one where there are experiments being done on prisoners.

They make a better human being from a dying prisoner, and now he's got a salamander arm. That is so weird. I like it, though. These episodes are getting wild. I know where you're just like, what? You gave a killer a better arm? What are you thinking? And I just remember scenes of that salamander arm like creeping over the theater seats in like one scene.

Yeah, no, but the dude with the weird arm is a really cool image. So there's some stuff that is worthy in the episode. It's just kind of a strange one. Yeah, and another one where I felt that, like, oh, man, it starts so strong that I was disappointed it wasn't better was Shapes, which is, again...

the established, uh, the, the werewolf episode, you know, you're kind of excited, uh, skinwalkers are kind of the way it's presented in the, in the episode. But this, the, again, The ambiance of the episode, the setting is so strong, and the idea that they're setting it here kind of amidst the Native Americans and the First Nation kind of stuff, that that stuff is so cool.

that you're to me it just feels like wow it doesn't it didn't really go anywhere per se you know it didn't it didn't like cash in on all the richness that it was seemed ready to jump into Yeah, it's a cool idea. If you like that basic idea, there's a book by Stephen Graham Jones that I recommend called Mongrels. It deals with a lot of Native American point of view shapeshifters. you know mixed uh mixed blood so it's you know he's a native american

So, you know, he writes a lot of his stuff from that point of view. As a matter of fact, I'm reading his latest book right now and it's quite good. So I recommend all of his stuff. Yeah, I will have to check that out because that sounds really good. And there were other stories done around the same time with similar themes. And in fact, there's a decent movie. It's very, very 90s.

it's not maybe more mystical than a supernatural but there's a movie called Thunderheart with Val Kilmer um and it's it's actually a pretty decent movie takes place on reservations and stuff and has some of that mystical stuff there were in fact i think there was another movie called skinwalker around the same time that had you know but it just seems like such a

It could be so cool that you end up, particularly when it seems like it's X-Files only jaunt into that mythology. You're just sort of wish that it had gone a little further. Yep. But I don't have, I have a couple of comments here on the face, very, very brief ones on the Facebook page. But I think that's about it for season one. My perspective, I feel like, well, we definitely.

We definitely have an epic episode here. And I kind of figured it would be that way, which I'm cool with, because this was a really strong season. I think when you walk out of this show, you have two... Great performances and great chemistry, but people you're willing to follow through just about anything, which you can see because, you know, you go through 24 episodes and every week you're tuning in and again.

Lots of times it's just for the interactions, even if the story is great. I don't really remember while I was watching the episodes sitting there thinking like, oh, what a bust. You sort of look at it after the fact and maybe think...

Well, that one could have been better. But so many strong, really great episodes. The fact that there's even a couple I view some of the best in the series happened here in the first season. Most shows don't have such a strong first season and particularly not out of the gate. So I'm pretty. I think it's a great first season. I just want to say one more thing. Watching them on Hulu or Amazon Prime or wherever you can get it.

without commercials is so much cooler than when I originally saw these episodes broken up by commercials that totally destroy the atmosphere they're carefully setting up in every episode, every 15 minutes. Yeah, it's so much better without commercials. I hadn't thought of that, but that is totally right. I can remember being creeped out. You've got the lights down. Oh, this Friday I have the living room to myself. I'm going to love this. And then...

it's interrupted by a commercial for cookie crisp or Mustang. Oh, now there's a peppermint patty commercial on. Yeah. Yeah. I'll have some little Caesars. Thanks. um yeah it's just it's yes i totally agree that's true of so many so many of those shows but it's and it's so wonderful when it fades out and it fades immediately back up but because my my kids almost don't have a concept for what commercials are you know

because of growing up in the age of watching everything on streaming. You're like, what just happened? Don't worry. The show's coming back. They think commercials are a separate kind of entertainment because they don't ever see it. So they're like, we're just going to binge watch commercials. Yeah, because you can watch like three hours straight of them on.

YouTube if you want. Right. So they're their own art form as far as they're concerned. But yeah, that's a great point, Victor. Any final thoughts that any of you have on season one? coming out for just season one and to have some of the best episodes that they ever do in a long running

You know, amazingly successful show is a testament to Chris Carter and his team and just kind of the vision they set out to make. And while, you know, even if some of them aren't as strong, you know, they're so crazy and the ideas behind them are so kind of. while that they're still worth watching. So I would recommend starting from episode one and just go and plow through the whole season.

Oh, yeah. And also just wanted to add, I mean, The X-Files gave birth to so many different series and movies after it aired, after the first season aired. I mean... You know, there weren't shows like CSI out with all that stuff. All that stuff comes from the X-Files. Yeah. Yeah. Science fiction on TV, I think it revived that. I think even some of the look of the X-Files came into other series and stuff later.

It was always being compared to when you had a show that had a supernatural edge for the longest time. It was really groundbreaking. I would just say a lot of the same things. It's ahead of its time. It's the innovator. You're totally right. Other shows took its look. Its creators went on to create other insanely popular shows. There's so much talent here. Definitely worth watching if you're into genre fiction at all.

Yeah, I think that's definitely true. And that's the thing to remember that a lot of people don't is that science fiction on both on the big screen and the little screen.

was not in a great place at this point when the x-files comes back in you know in the summer of 93 you basically have jurassic park happens which which reinvigorates a lot of that partially with the special effects and shows hey this is what we can do now and then on television with the x-files because after this this is when you really start to see some of those um

those long dormant uh franchises start to spring back up again you know i mean star trek comes out with another movie uh not too many years from this aliens has another entry you know and independence day comes out and kind of starts to stoke that and

You know, it does start with the aliens, but X-Files is a big reason. And also we alluded to at the beginning, X-Files is a big reason why you have this, the advent of the... of Hollywood beginning to listen to that what begins as a cult audience but now the nerd geek whatever you want to call it a contingent sort of it's the main focus for better or worse that people cater to you know what i mean and i think it's with the x-files that that ties

And it is these niche people that have been watching these things on and on that we're not trying to certainly hit the main. your average American viewer who's looking at these things, X-Files proves that the cult audience can be the winning audience, if you will. Yeah, the mainstream audience in a way. And now it is the mainstream audience, right? Yeah, exactly right, yeah. So, yeah, that's...

unless anyone has anything else, that's what I have. I did want to just, I put this up on Facebook and we got a few responses, including Tommy, who says, let me, let me come on. So thanks. Thanks for joining. It was so much fun to have you. I'm glad we were able. to to get you on and um

But a couple of quick comments. I've asked everybody with their favorite episodes. And it's funny how a lot of the ones we talked about just keep coming up. And Dave Becker just says, Tombs, kind of just screams Tombs comment. And I think that's a lot of times when you talk about people who watch. It's like, yeah, that's that episode comes to mind. And Brandon Schaefer says, man, that's hard. Any of the stuff with Mulder and Deep Throat?

which we talked about. And then, and he mentions, what did you guys think about the tribute to the thing with the episode ice? And, and he says also the episode shapes is a favorite of mine. So the, that werewolf episode we were talking about, that is a favorite of Brandon. So, but.

Yeah. Mentioning ice and all the deep throat stuff, which we talked about. I think that's all like strong stuff that sticks with you from the first season. And the interesting thing about season two is how they deal with that void that's left. with not having the deep throat character there because he's so integral to sort of moving the mythology along you know um and uh let's see what else and then um let's see

James McFedder's mentions, and he says, he said Eugene Thomas. And I realized how he meant was Eugene Tombs. Uh, again, I don't know that you, that's still one of the most iconic and kind of chilling villains, particularly in the monster of the week stuff, but. uh let's see any other comments i think i think that was mostly it but um yeah so that's x-files season one i guess everybody here good for coming back for x-files season two at some point in the future you know it yeah

I'll actually watch the episodes this time. Well, you did pretty well for having like a, like a 45 minute, like heads up. You got most of an episode in and you, you clearly have watched them enough that you were able to hold your own Tommy. So thanks. Thanks for coming on. And next season is really interesting. Cause you do have like, you, you've got. It's weird, I think, to start the season.

When you have a show that's so built upon the chemistry of two people and to start that season without that chemistry sort of, you know, I think here it's less on purpose than maybe some other shows do. And it was more out of necessity, as we mentioned with. with Jillian Anderson being pregnant, but it does set up a very interesting season. So I'm looking forward to that. Anything else that you guys want to add before I I'll pass it around. Everybody can kind of.

Promote anything you want to promote. But other than that, do we have any final thoughts on X-Files? No, just that's a great show. Everybody should check it out. Yeah, I agree. If you haven't seen it, definitely watch it. Yes. Yes, agreed. So let's go around, and Tommy, I'll start with you. Let everybody know where they can find you. Anything else you want to promote or plug, go for it. Yeah, thanks so much, guys. I just appreciate it.

Everybody on here welcoming me onto the show. I know it's kind of last minute, but I had a blast. And hopefully we can do more seasons in the future. Of course, I'm part of Real Talk, a movie podcast. We've been on this show before. We were on the infamous... Christmas Carol episode where I bash Tiny Tim. We interview a lot of people in the industry. So if you haven't checked us out before, please give us a holler. We're over on Twitter at at real, R-E-E-L underscore cast.

awesome awesome uh and yeah check out real uh real talks awesome podcast and we also uh victor uh you want to go ahead and share where they can find you Oh, yeah. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I just wanted to thank you for having me on the show, Nathan. Always a pleasure. And David and Tommy, it was great meeting you guys. I would love to do another episode with you. I had such a good time tonight.

But yeah, I'm Victor H. Rodriguez is my name. If you want to look me up on Amazon, I'm a writer. I've got a book in paperback and digital out there called The Sound of Fear. And... Uh, if you are interested in looking at my mini thumbnail movie reviews and that kind of stuff, just follow me on Twitter. It's, uh, at dime store Caesar. So it's D I M E S T O R E. C-A-E-S-A-R. And yeah, just one last thing I want to promote is I have a nonfiction article that delves deep into...

John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness. And it's in the summer issue of Speculative City magazine. It's completely free to read. Just type in Speculative City on your... browser and uh awesome and i'll have a link also to that article you mentioned uh victor and uh i talk about how you know hp lovecraft ties in with the prince of darkness and dave how about you the sci-fi um identity same for me

I had an amazing time tonight. Thanks for having us. Get into it. And I can't wait to do this again with you guys. It was great to finally meet both of you online. Sorry, meet online, yeah. And if you want to find more of what I'm up to, I've got a podcast called The Great Fright North on Podbean, where I...

try to as often as possible spotlight Canadian horror movies, although I do like horror from around the world. And you can also check us out on Instagram, The Great Fright North on Instagram. And if you want to reach me, the great fright north at gmail.com. And I've also joined a podcast with some local gamers up here. We have a show called forest moon radio also on pod bean.

And that's a podcast about the X-Wing Miniatures game and Star Wars in general. Awesome. That's cool. I definitely need to check that one out. And... that's uh yeah that's about it and of course uh you're at phantom galaxy you find us at phantom casts at gmail.com and you can also find us at phantom galaxy with an f f-a-n-t-o-m galaxy

at twitter and of course we're on facebook as well and uh yeah so anyone who's listening just let us know any uh your thoughts about the episode anything you'd like to see and then i will be um i'll be setting it up so that we can have more early more listener feedback for season two so I'll have a place where you guys can send any messages you want to send and leave feedback as well that we can share on the show again this is the Phantom Galaxy signing out care, everyone.

If you've been enjoying the music here on Phantom Galaxy, the opening theme and the closing theme are both brought to you by synth pop artist Ares Beats. He's done a lot of really cool stuff in the world of synth pop. A lot of very interesting... genre-based retro themes. You can find more of his work over at ariesbeat.bandcamp.com. And until next time, we are the Phantom Galaxy.