Is X-Files really sci-fi?

[CharlesPhipps]

I don't really know what else I'd classify it as, as it is full of glorious '90s pseudoscience, alien conspiracy theories, and monsters of the week (oh my!). Fantasy, maybe?

It inspired the Deus Ex games, so we must be grateful for that.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It was touching on the Men in Black tropes before Men in Black the movie came out.

[PerrySimm]

Willing to give it the benefit of the doubt, considering that many situations Mulder and Scully get into could with tweaking fit into a sci-fi anthology show like The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits. If not sci-fi then it certainly still counts as speculative fiction.

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

They made somewhat of an effort in the first season or two for Scully to miss out on some of the big events or more obvious reveals, but it didn't take too long before she had seen too much to really rationally explain away. One of the major recurring themes of the series is demonstrating that the dynamic between Mulder and Scully isn't belief vs. skepticism, it's belief vs. belief. Scully is a believer in natural law, the scientific process, and a rational world. She has the integrity to back up Mulder and follow leads when they call for investigation, but she doesn't want a chaotic, unscientific explanation that she can't fathom to be true.

Half the time Scully knows there's something crazy going on, and she knows it looks like some sort of supernatural or preternatural happening, but she'd rather believe that there's a scientific explanation she can't see than to subscribe to Mulder's view. So, the "I want to believe" tagline could apply equally well to Scully.

The basic plot of the mytharc falls pretty neatly under the "sci-fi" label. Some of the Monster of the Week episodes do not, but they aren't all that dissimilar from a story you might see on The Twilight Zone. Of course one of The X-File's greatest strengths was it's flexibility and ability to tell stories in multiple genres and moods. A lot of episodes are simple folklore translated to modern audiences as a 90s cop procedural.

[AllanO]

SFDebris reviews X-files and if I understand correctly he only reviews works if science fiction, fantasy or horror. So it is clearly one of those three.

Some x-files eps are fantasy if urban fantasy (voodoo priests, ghosts etc.) or horror (all the scary gory stuff, supernatural or scientific). But some eps are more just mystery or suspense with a scientific element (perhaps fantastical scientific element like aliens). So I would say it is not just sci-fi, but among other things it is sci-fi...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

They made somewhat of an effort in the first season or two for Scully to miss out on some of the big events or more obvious reveals, but it didn't take too long before she had seen too much to really rationally explain away. One of the major recurring themes of the series is demonstrating that the dynamic between Mulder and Scully isn't belief vs. skepticism, it's belief vs. belief. Scully is a believer in natural law, the scientific process, and a rational world. She has the integrity to back up Mulder and follow leads when they call for investigation, but she doesn't want a chaotic, unscientific explanation that she can't fathom to be true.

Half the time Scully knows there's something crazy going on, and she knows it looks like some sort of supernatural or preternatural happening, but she'd rather believe that there's a scientific explanation she can't see than to subscribe to Mulder's view. So, the "I want to believe" tagline could apply equally well to Scully.

The basic plot of the mytharc falls pretty neatly under the "sci-fi" label. Some of the Monster of the Week episodes do not, but they aren't all that dissimilar from a story you might see on The Twilight Zone. Of course one of The X-File's greatest strengths was it's flexibility and ability to tell stories in multiple genres and moods. A lot of episodes are simple folklore translated to modern audiences as a 90s cop procedural.

I didn't get the impression that she was going out of her way to rationalize, or that it was a belief system so to speak.

She just needed something to put in her report without Mulder spilling his alien theories into it.

SFDebris reviews X-files and if I understand correctly he only reviews works if science fiction, fantasy or horror. So it is clearly one of those three.

Hmm I never really considered this...

[ChiggyvonRichthofen]

I didn't get the impression that she was going out of her way to rationalize, or that it was a belief system so to speak.

She just needed something to put in her report without Mulder spilling his alien theories into it.

They put it explicitly a few times. For example, at the end of Beyond the Sea, one of the best episodes and one of the first Scully-centric ones-

MULDER: Dana. After all you've seen, after all the evidence, why can't you believe?
SCULLY: I'm afraid. I'm afraid to believe.

Although you're also right that she was trying to protect Mulder from himself somewhat. Debunking Mulder's work was her job, she was able to do that while still supporting his work and adding a needed balance.

And realistically, different writers have different takes on the character and what motivates her. Beyond the Sea is how Morgan and Wong see it, but that doesn't mean Cris Carter, Darin Morgan, Vince Gilligan, etc. all see her the same way.

[CharlesPhipps]

There's also a subtle bit of subtext beyond the surface.

While Mulder is always right that SOMETHING weird is going on, he's not actually right the majority of the time. They encountered exactly 1# Scooby Doo mystery (i.e. a Serial killer rather than a supernatural monster of some kind) in their entire history but Mulder is actually wrong as often as Scully is.

Basically a typical episode goes like this:

*A murder happens*
Mulder: I believe there's a werewolf here in central park.
Scully: That's ridiculous, werewolves don't exist.
*more murders happen*
Mulder: Well, it's not a werewolf. It turns out it was actually a ghost-possessed pack of wild dogs.

Usually, Scully is needed to get Mulder off his usually insane theory to find the truth: which is equally insane.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Yeah they're kind of a Sherlock & Watson.

[Koshundheit]

And realistically, different writers have different takes on the character and what motivates her. Beyond the Sea is how Morgan and Wong see it, but that doesn't mean Cris Carter, Darin Morgan, Vince Gilligan, etc. all see her the same way.

It always seemed to me that more than anything, she was trying to follow the scientific method. And particularly when working with someone who always sees the fantastical, trying to keep herself grounded in the theme of "think horses, not zebras". Sometimes when she is responding to him, I hear in my head, "Please, Mr. Scott, restrain your leaps of illogic".

Watching her cover an invisible dead body with fingerprint powder, in the episode with the Jinn, was priceless. What, after all, would be the grounded explanation for an invisible man? Gillian Anderson did her usual quality work, and conveyed bewilderment well during that scene, even though the episode was to a large extent about the comedy and her serious reactions added to the humor.

When she was trying to reconcile the inexplicable, her faith sometimes naturally factored into it as well. Ultimately, they made clear she was only continuing to work the X-Files because of Mulder. What would have motivated her if she'd left the FBI and gone back to a more regular medical job? I'm not sure.