Damn Fine TV/Film
Twin streams of light cross in a shadowed hallway, illuminating little. Smoke unfurls from a Marlboro cigarette, and hands seek each other out in a dim hospital room. The iconography of The X-Files is minimal to the extreme and steeped in ambiguity: empty spaces, creeping shadows, and answers hidden beyond the next corner, always out …
Continue reading "Negative Space: Truth and Shadows in The X-Files"
Well, this is it. The finale. Was it a finale to end all finales? No. Was it a season finale or a series finale? One can only hope it was the latter, but well, the answer is uncertain. I spent most of the season being unreasonably nervous for the Season 11 Finale “My Struggle IV”, …
This penultimate episode of The X-Files (hopefully that means the series and not just the season, with Gillian’s certain departure one week away), aptly titled “Nothing Lasts Forever” deals with several themes, big and small. Endings, families and love, faith, age, and in a very meta way, television show revival all featured in last night’s …
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Yesterday’s episode of The X-Files was chock full of ammunition: gun violence, police violence, child death and molestation, zealotry, mob justice and good old fashioned witchery among the major themes, “Familiar” is a modern day Salem Witch trials, complete with the infamous spontaneous human combustion that Scully has always liked to so decry. “Familiar” continues …
Continue reading "A Crucible of Hate: The X-Files Season 11 “Familiar”"
I’ll start off this new article with a disclaimer: I am absolutely terrified of sentient technology. I can't even stand to watch iRobot. It was physically nerve wracking for me to watch last night’s episode. As is turning out to be par for the course, “Rm9sbG93ZXJz” deals heavily with the current social problems facing the …
My father is a Vietnam Veteran. I have chosen to begin my analysis of “Kitten” in this manner that anyone reading can be assured I have the utmost respect and support for those who served. Anything which broaches the subject of Vietnam is difficult to write about. I will do my best, as I believe …
Continue reading "Semper Fidelis: The X-Files Season 11, “Kitten”"
“Ghouli” started out like your typical post-Slenderman storyline. As a Wisconsin resident, I’m more than passably familiar with the phenomenon. Internet stories convince scared, superstitious teenagers that a terrifying being really exists and it out to get you and can be literally anyone, etcetera, etcetera. It was such a classic The X-Files opening, that it …
Continue reading "Believing isn’t Seeing, Seeing is Believing: The X-Files Season 11, “Ghouli”"
Last evening’s search for the truth was more on the nose than usual. “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat” was Darin Morgan’s traditionally satirical episode. Classics like “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” (my all time favourite of Morgan’s) and “Jose Chung’s ‘From Outer Space’” (not high on my list of favourites…) to Season 10’s “Mulder and …
This is not a drill. I repeat this is not a drill. Last night’s episode of The X-Files “Plus One” was a double the pleasure, double the fun sort of episode. Penned by Chris Carter the writing had its highs, its very highs, its “afterglows” and its lows. This "Monster of the Week" installment had …
Continue reading "This is (Finally) Happening: The X Files, Season 11 “Plus One”"
Watching Season 11 of The X-Files makes me nostalgic for the early days of this groundbreaking series, perhaps the most successful of the many so-called "Quality TV" programs inspired by the original Twin Peaks (1990-91). In part, this feeling of nostalgia is what keeps folks coming back for these revivals. For some, the nostalgia is …