X-Files War of the Coprophages

[planescaped]

I remember coming home from high school and watching this episode. Specifically I remember the cockroach that crawls across the screen part.

It was them first time I had seen something like that and I admit, it got me.

[FaxModem1]

I'll be the dissenting voice here and say that I'm not sure what the point would be to litter the show with Scooby Doo mysteries. Could they have done that a little bit more often to keep Mulder on his toes and make sure he's not always right with his improbable theories? Sure, but doing it regularly would just make those episodes feel like a waste of time.

To me, the one thing that this show really holds over other great tv shows is its versatility. This is especially true in this age of television with 8-13 episode seasons with one continuous arc. Episodes often end up more like chapters. But even those shows that are probably technically better than The X-Files have way more trouble changing tone and genre. Those shows will get criticized for "filler" episodes that don't contribute to the overall story. The X-Files has its mythology and long-term arc, but its more about those kind of experimental episodes. In some ways it's much closer to a show like The Twilight Zone than some of the shows it went on to inspire. If you start reigning in Mulder's (probably supernatural) ability to sniff out cases, you risk damaging that versatility.

To use an analogy-

If you're writing a Sherlock Holmes novel, you don't want Holmes to be solving a murder every chapter. You want challenges, false starts, and Holmes not knowing where to turn to next. You might have a few secondary cases for Holmes to solve, but the novel itself would all be about one thing.

If you're writing a Sherlock Holmes short story, you may want to rarely throw in something mundane, a case of mistaken identity or something where a crime did not occur. But overall, you want catharsis and resolution in that story. If you add the short story collection together, of course it's unbelievable and improbable that one guy should solve all those murders, but it's ultimately about the individual pieces.

The X-Files is more like the latter. It's not chapters, it's episodic. If the show were remade, I have little doubt that it would be more arc-based, and there's no reason that might not work. But it wouldn't be the same show with the same strengths, and it certainly wouldn't work with Carter at the helm.

The major issue is that Holmes uses logic, whether inductive or deductive, supposedly. His facts fit when put together, and gives us an appreciation of Sherlock's mental process. Mulder pulls shit out of his ass that we're supposed to take as valid. It's lazy storytelling, and often uses rather damaging to reason approaches to the real world and what is true and true. This is because we're supposed to take what he's saying about Voodoo, homosexuality, Satanism, the government, science, etc., as gospel. This meant that the X-Files, in season 10, for example, made vaccines something that you really should be afraid of, because there really is a government conspiracy and they really are putting something in the vaccines to hurt you, as opposed to something meant to help public health by preventing outbreaks. The portrayal of whatever minority is being shown didn't help matters either, as the portrayal was often, "These people are scary and weird because they're different from you and we should be glad Mulder is investigating them."

It also makes it ti where Scully has no purpose here than being a female Watson, there to be proven wrong every time they talk about something.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

My point is not at all to make a 1:1 analogy with Holmes. The point is that the bulk of The X-Files is a series of short stories. They're ghost stories, myths, fairy tales, etc.

Mulder being right whilst using faulty logic, I mean sure, his logic could have been a little more sound sometimes, but the mechanics of that is really just the vehicle. A Season 10 Darin Morgan episode (Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster) showcases the impossibility of Mulder being right all this time, seeing all the evidence, and no one else catching on. But that gets back to the point I was making originally- I think many of people's complaints arise from wanting the show to be something it mostly isn't.

As far as The X-Files approach to "otherness." Playing off public fear, suspicion, and distrust is one of the main purposes of this type of storytelling. Darkness encroaching on 90s suburbia, rural displacement, fear of technology overthrowing jobs and society? The X-Files is mythologizing the fears that people already have.

[Beastro]

Specifically I remember the cockroach that crawls across the screen part.

Specifically, I remember Bobbie Philips!

[jstrahan]

For a second, I thought the title was 'War of the Coprophiliacs'.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I guess sometimes a cockroach is just a cockroach.