Aww, I was a huge fan, and those were about my least favorite episodes. I liked the plot-arc ones best.
Please, let’s not confuse Jose Chung’s Doomsday Defense, which was an episode of the series Millenium with Jose Chung’s From Outer Space.
The latter is what I call a cilantro episode. People either seem to love it or hate it with nothing in between. I’m one of the lovers. As soon as the “aliens” spoke to each other in the opening segment I said, I don’t know where we’re going, but I’m strapped in and ready to roll.
I feel the opposite. The plot-arc episodes were fun for a while until it became painfully clear that the writers had no more clue where the story was going than I did. This was confirmed by the first X-Files movie.
I swore that I wouldn’t let Lost play me the same way, but I did and I hated myself for it. If Breaking Bad hadn’t ended so well I probably would have sworn off story-arc based television entirely by now.
What, you didn’t like the last season of LOST?
AFAICT the whole reason guns were invented was to close off dangling plot elements.
Ooh, that one still makes me angry. From episode 1 of the series the most common fan theory about The Island was that the castaways had all died and were actually in purgatory. J.J. Abrams flat-out denied this. The producers denied this. The writers denied this.
Then Abrams left the show and claimed he had no idea how the it would end since it was now in the hands of others. If true, that would be like writing the first half of a murder mystery without having any idea who the killer was then asking someone else to finish it.
The writers’ solution for wrapping up the final season: the castaways had all died and were actually in purgatory.
I quite agree.
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He may have had an original plot line ending, that may or may not have been adhered to by the writers now in charge.
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AH - SPOILERS! WHAT if I decided I wanted to go back and finally watch the show “lost” interest in 3 seasons in?
What about Gillian Anderson? She’s no slouch in the handsome/pretty department.
And she holds a spot in my heart for her work on Neurofibromitotis fund raising (which I suffer from and her brother died from).
If you go back to watch LOST, skip the last season. You’ll be a happier person.
I hooked my wife on both LOST and The Prisoner and she forgives me for neither the last season of the first, nor the last 3 episodes of the latter.
I remain delighted that I baled on Lost after 3 or 4 episodes of series 1.
But I suck at serial television. Watched the first episode of 24, never went back. Still haven’t watched any of The Wire, Battlestar Galactica, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Walking Dead…you name it, I haven’t watched it.
X-Files I was done with before the first film came out.
Huh, and I had assumed they were just stuck on Gilligan’s Island.
Sorry, I thought beginning that last sentence with “The writers’ solution for wrapping up the final season:” was adequate warning. I’ve added spoiler tags.
Could be worse.
He never indicated that he’d planned any different ending or that anyone changed the show from his original vision. Neither did Chris Carter for that matter. In retrospect I think that both show creators just enjoyed setting up mysteries without any regard for whether any of those mysteries had actual resolutions, and you can only play that game for so long before leaving everyone disappointed.
That’s why I consider the X-Files’ original tagline a cruel tease.
Ironic to mention Duchovny’s hotness,as I view Gilliam Anderson as the knock out, drop dead, hot one in that pair. Among actresses and actors alike, I find her remarkable and quite high up that ladder. Few of any shows or movies I have watched have I found myself going, “That is one hot person”. She is one of the few.
David Duchovony, I do not see this way, though he does have some “star” quality charisma as an actor.
In the episode before, Kumail interviews Jack Black about his role in “D.P.O.” and Jack has pretty much no recollection of his character, the episode, the show or the ongoing mythology (or the fact that there even was one).
Darin has all sorts of interesting stuff to say. Jack… is Jack.
But Mulder was supposed to be the one who was a social outcast. He was a porn-addicted weirdo with no social life who was nicknamed “Spooky” by his coworkers. Scully may not have gotten out much either, but she clearly could have if she’d wanted to.
X Files is why we hooked up our TV to the cable, instead of just using it to play videos.
And back when Obama was elected, I thought he really should take five minutes to announce something about UFOs, because as Commander in Chief he has authority to access that stuff. Wouldn’t have mattered if he announced it was all true, or all a hoax, it’s something you get to have fun with as President.
Agatha Christie wrote her mysteries without having any idea who the killer was, deciding just before writing the final scene where the killer is revealed (and, one might assume, testing multiple versions).
She was able to do that utterly brilliantly because of how she set up the stories, and that’s why they’re so compelling. You really don’t know who the killer is among the suspects, and you’re made a fool if you fall into the trap of assuming anything about any of the characters.
Of course, a couple of things to point out.
First, this can be frustrating in some of her stuff, as you’d imagine. Part of the fun is indeed trying to guess who did it and in cases where majorly crucial information is only revealed in the final reveal, you can feel cheated. Lots of obvious equivalents to this type of TV arc writing.
Second, she also would go back through the text after deciding who the killer was to edit details and insert subtle clues where appropriate, which you can’t do for previously aired TV episodes. So if you don’t want to cheat the audience you have to work exclusively from what was already aired, or introduce new stuff in a reasonable manner. Breaking Bad did this brilliantly, and Better Call Saul is showing even more ways that you can do that.
On that note, it’s interesting to consider Vince Gilligan’s influence on The X-Files once he came on. The show did a much better job with the story arc before that!
