I’m running guest posts while I’m in Chicago at C2E2. I’ll probably be posting anyway, but just in case– heck, as this one is posting, I’m still in town. My friend Natacha Guyot gets the first one.
To say I was looking forward to the new season of the X-Files, my all-time favorite TV show, would be an understatement. I had high hopes for it, as for the most part I enjoyed all seasons and movies, though the most recent one didn’t live up to my expectations.
I liked the first and last episodes of this tenth season most. The four in the middle, I am still wondering why they made them for the most part. I have nothing against the return of the monster of the week approach, but those “middle” episodes didn’t do it for me.
10.02 ‘Founder’s mutation’ and 10.04 ‘Home Again’ were the closest to old school monster of the week kind, but I found them slightly disappointing and visually gore for the sake of it. Now there were similar aspects in older episodes, but not to this point. When I went to see Deadpool, I felt that it was less gory than the new X-Files, which was weird.
10.03 ‘Mulder and Scully Meet the Were Monster’ was beyond disappointing and atrocious to watch. I generally don’t care for “funny” or parodic episodes, but this one tops every other episode of that kind I had to put up with. It felt like wasted time from start to finish. I didn’t find it smart or witty, but simply horrible and poor writing.
10.05 ‘Babylon’ wasn’t much better and the overall case didn’t feel X-Files-ish at all. The doppelgangers new agents seemed very forced as well (though these two eventually grew up on me in the season finale). While these agents being somewhat similar to Mulder and Scully in dynamic, the trait was too forced, and hindered their introduction and early development. As for the whole section of what I dub “Mulder goes Californication style”, I just shook my head. If I wanted to watch Californication, I’d watch it, not X-Files.
10.01 ‘My Struggle’ and 10.06 ‘My Struggle II’ were my favorite and the season finale actually reconciled me with the newest episodes, as I watched it quite reluctantly at first. They did a great job approaching the mythology of the show that has been developed since day one. It also ended with a cliffhanger that makes me hope we get another season (or movie) because I want more answers! It is sad though that they wasted so much episode time in between those episodes, as the finale would have benefited from being a two part instead of a single one.
All the returning actors did a great job (as well as some of the new additions) and I am grateful we got to see Skinner and Reyes again but more screen time for both would have been great. Duchovny and Anderson showed that they can still do an amazing job as Mulder and Scully, though I wish they had had more scenes together. While it made sense to have them do their own thing in most of the finale (as it happened before in earlier seasons), other episodes could have had them interact more, regardless of the status of their personal relationship.
I like how Mulder’s and Scully’s son was brought up in several moments of the narrative and I am curious to see what they may do about him in a next season, as he should prove pivotal. I loved seeing Scully use her medical abilities a lot again, though one element peeved me. I was surprised to see her faith be of so little importance as she loses her mother in 10.04 ‘Home Again’. I understand it is extremely hard for her, but the writers seemed to mostly “forget” about this intricate part of the character, which annoyed me.
Overall, this season has been disappointing, in terms of number of episodes I have like. Yet, I still am hoping for more X-Files and am crossing fingers that the writers get it together and go back to what makes the show fascinating to me.
***
Natacha Guyot is a French author, scholar and public speaker. She works on Science Fiction, Transmedia, Gender Studies, Children Media and Fan Studies. She is a feminist, a fangirl, a bookworm, a vidder, a gamer and a cat lover.
Her released titles include A Galaxy of Possibilities: Representation and Storytelling in Star Wars (New Revised Edition), and Clairvoyance Chronicles – Volume One.
Hello everyone! I realize this is my first time here (thank you for inviting me, Luther) though those of you familiar with 
Old enemies never truly disappear. When they return, peace becomes fragile and clans are on the brink of destruction.
While I have loved creating stories and universes since I was a child, including novellas and novels in my late teens and early twenties, my roleplaying experience on a Star Wars board since 2008 has helped me a lot when it comes to just let the characters come to me, steal the show and make me take notes. Sometimes, I wish fewer characters would just appear out of the blue or that they would take turns and be a little more patient with me. Yet, I have come a long way as an author because of all I learned about crafting and storytelling, and having much more exstensive material to work with thanks to the countless characters showing up (and sometimes – often? – switching universes if they realize they’re not a good fit for a given one) had a significant role to play.
Welcome to infinitefreetime dot com 