X-Files | Through the Shattered Lens

Tonight’s episode of The X-Files had the unenviable task of following last week’s episode, Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster. As our own Leon the Duke pointed out over on twitter, that episode was not only the best of season 10 but one of the best of the series overall. It was also that episode that convinced me, who up until that point had been a skeptic about The X-Files revival, to stick with this show.

Interestingly enough (and this is something that did not occur to me until about five minutes agp), Mulder & Scully Meet The Weremonster was also the halfway point of this 6-episode revival. I assume that both tonight’s episode and the next week’s episode are meant to set the foundation for the season finale, My Struggle II. A good deal of tonight’s episode consisted of Mulder and Scully just talking. With Scully’s mother dying in the hospital, they talked about the “big” issues of life, death, and family. They also talked about their son, William. This is the son that they gave up for adoption and which they both ususally spend a good deal of time trying not to talk or think about.

So, I’m going to make this prediction right now. It’s not a huge prediction and I’m hardly the first one to make it. You’ve probably already made it yourself. The 6th episode of season 10 — My Struggle II — will be about William. At first, I thought that William would probably be reunited with his parents during this episode but, narratively, that’s short-sighted and way too easy. Instead, I imagine that season 10 will end with either Scully or Mulder announcing that he or she is going to find their son and rescue him from whatever conspiracy has gotten its hands on him.

And that search will lead to Season 11 and perhaps every season after that. It’s a search that will go on until Fox decides to cancel the show for a second time. And I’ll be watching as Mulder and/or Scully search for William because, despite my initial skepticism, The X-Files has captured me. Though I still sometimes strain to understand what they’re saying and I’m starting to get seriously concerned about my hearing, I’ve grown to love the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. That chemistry was on full display in tonight’s episode. If last week’s episode featured Duchovny at his deadpan best, this episode was all about Anderson. It was heart breaking to watch her as she struggled to deal with her mother’s death and the legacy of her fractured family.

As for this week’s monster — well, the Trashman was no Weremonster but he was still scary enough to make me go, “Agck!” whenever he showed up and he helped to turn Downtown into an unlikely but powerful anthem of doom. As well, whenever he popped out of the back of that trash truck, I was reminded of the final scene of Once Upon A Time In America and that’s always a good thing.

(Seriously, Once Upon A Time In America is such a good movie!)

Overall, it was a good episode and I look forward to seeing what happens next week. Also, I’m going to keep referring to William as “Sculder” until that becomes his official nickname. It may not happen tomorrow but give me two years and Sculder will a trending topic.

It’s going to happen!

February 2, 2010 marks the date which begins the final season of one of TV’s biggest pop culture phenomena of the past decade. I will begin by saying that I was never into Lost not because I didn’t like the show or even thought it was bad. I never got into it because I missed the entire first season. While I heard people gradually get into the show by the time season 2 rolled around and it had become the water-cooler show I knew I was too late.

Shows like Lost is the kind of show which is never easy to get behind even from the get-go with it’s over-encompassing mythological story arc not to mention several running subplots which bisects and even joins the main story. I knew that I couldn’t give the show it’s proper due by rushing into watching the first season. It’s the same reason why I hesistate to recommend the best show on TV ever to people who never watched it from the beginning. I speak of HBO’s The Wire. These kinds of shows needs and requires an almost slavish like attention and loyalty from it’s early adopters.

While I may not have adopted and watched Lost I have bought all the DVD sets and will buy the 6th season as well. I do this so I can watch the show once it is done using my own timetable and also giving it the attention it deserve. Some would say that the show will have lost some of it’s mystery since people have been talking about it to me or I have read thing about it on the internet. To be honest I have a knack for tuning out such things if I have to. All I know about the show is that people on a plane crashed on an island with a polar bear and a smoke monster. So yeah, the show hasn’t been spoiled for me.

Now, with this 6th season about to begin I can see the anticipation building amongst people I know who literally love this show. It is all they can talk about. It is this kind of devotion I wish other shows whose run ended too soon would’ve gotten (Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Dollhouse, Firefly, Jericho and many more). I haven’t seen this kind of devotion to a TV show by so many people since Chris Carter’s The X-Files. That was another show which gradually became a pop culture sensation after the first season and just kept building and building until it reached its final season.

I see many similarities between the two shows. Both have labyrinthine mythologies which comprise the bulk of its main story. Both shows have a small core of characters whose motivations are clear but everyone else around them steeped in mystery. Pop culturally both shows have ingrained themselves in the mass audience’s TV watching habits. Both shows have been well-written with some of the best characters on TV of the this generation.

With this final season of Lost I bring up one thing that may distinguish it from Carter’s long-running serialized show. J.J. Abram’s show has a chance to go out swimmingly. It has a chance to deliver on it’s legions of fan expectations. Many are already expecting this final season to be the best of the whole series and will want nothing less than a “big bang” of a series finale. While I think it would be great if Lost went out with a bang and not a whimper the way The X-Files did in its final season, I still caution people to temper their excitement and expectations. A show with this much hype throughout its time on TV almost seemed destined to underwhelm and disappoint a large portion of it’s fans. I use the series finale of Battlestar Galactica as a prime example.

That show from Ron D. Moore was another show which built a loyal and fanatical fanbase with its complex storyline which reached an almost religious myth level. When the finale finally aired there were equal amounts of satisfaction and major disappointment. The ending of that show, for some, just didn’t satisfy their expectations and certainly left questions unanswered.

Will Lost avoid this pitfall? Only the next couple months will answer that question and for Abrams’ and his team of writers they better hope that the ending they have for the show will not sink the series in the end, but let it swim into TV legend.