Exactly when did X-Files start going down hill? [Archive]

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EvaUnit02

10-03-2006, 03:32

I've only seen the film and seasons 7-9 of The X-Files, those seasons that I did watch were quite dumb - especially S9 with all that super soldier junk. The writers couldn't make up their bloody minds if they were meant to be aliens or government-enhanced humans. I did like the Robert Patrick's John Doggett character introduced in S8 though.

Could someone please tell me around exactly which season did the show start going down hill? Thanks.

LouBarlow

10-03-2006, 06:19

It didn't.

Dan

10-03-2006, 08:12

Willow

10-03-2006, 08:13

It didn't go downhill as such. I think viewers just got fed up with the constant conspiracies, more questions, no resolutions, that sort of thing.

There are great stories and terrible stories in every season. I personally think it worked very well with a couple of new characters, and reckon it could have continued with the new agents if they'd gone back to the 'wierdness of the week' stories.

It was never a chore for me to watch The X Files, I always enjoyed it. The writers just didn't seem like they knew where they were going with it sometimes. The whole thing became such a phenomenon, it got too big for itself.

I still say it remains as one of the best long running shows ever made, and I am thoroughly enjoying reliving it through the dvds right from the start.

danjaq2004

10-03-2006, 08:40

I still say it remains as one of the best long running shows ever made, and I am thoroughly enjoying reliving it through the dvds right from the start.

I agree, totally. Class series.

new

10-03-2006, 09:10

On the whole I agree with danjaq2004, Willow, & LouBarlow.

Over its 9 seasons it was top draw TV, the like of which had never been seen before. It is very rare that an adult sci-fi show to cross over into a mainstream audience (especially at that time) so well as the X-Files did, and if anything this may have been its downfall in the end. When it finished it still had a very strong audience for an adult sci-fi show, but not quite as good for a channels main stream drama show, which was how it was marketed at the time.

Over its 9 year run of course there were a few bad episodes, of course some seasons were better than others, but there was no where near the drop that happened in some shows such as Alias & to a certain extent Buffy.

Always thought it was a shame that when Mulder left they did not have Dogett & Reaves break away from the X-Files altogether & investigate FBI cases that could be paranormal base but were sometime not, rather than up the "Super Solider" to the main story arch. As Dan said Dogett was quite a strong character & I really think he added a lot to the series. As a result I rank his first season (season 8) very highly. However the "Super Solider" story arch that dominated Season 9 was not really that good & the stand alone episodes were way better.

Would really like to see this brought back at some point as the "to be made SOON(?) film" or as a TV series (although a continuation, rather than a re-boot). I’m sure Fox must be looking around at programmes like LOST, 4400, & Invasion & thinking that perhaps there is a market out there for the X-Files again. Add to this that a large part of the American people now believe the government is knee deep in conspiracies again, which would also crate interest in what was always basically a conspiracy lead show,

Unfortunaly Chris Charter & Fox dot see eye to eye at the moment & there are some arguments about money being owed, so unless this gets sorted it seams unlikely anything will get done.

Squirrel God

10-03-2006, 09:20

It didn't.

^ What he said.

unrealnils

10-03-2006, 09:29

On the whole I agree with danjaq2004, Willow, & LouBarlow.

same here and the large post by New.

I would say however that if you in it for the cheap then pick up seasons 1-4

nwgarratt

10-03-2006, 09:50

I am so glad to hear from people who like this show in its entire run. There is always people who have to post that the show is crap from season 7 onwards. I do a have tip. Watch it on DVD. It is a much better experience than watching it once a week on TV (and sometimes switching channels half way through seasons). It was treated a bit badly by BBC 1 and BBC 2.

I love all nine seasons and the conspiracy storylines does make sense if you follow it properly. You can't expect to get into it and understand it if you leave it too long between episodes.

It is bargain now at the cheap prices. I paid £70 for Seasons 1 - 4 and £20 for the rest. It has been a bargain even at those prices. I was paying £70 for the VHS sets.

Goblin

10-03-2006, 09:59

S9 went downhill, lots of bad episodes and a terrible finale, just stop at S8 and you'll have a better ending to a fantastic series.

unrealnils

10-03-2006, 10:00

jesus i remember paying 12 each for the first 4 vids with 2 eps a vid :eek:

i had to save a week and 1/2s dinner money :D

RDNZL

10-03-2006, 11:09

When the first series came on I thought this is great, a modern day Kolchak, but I thought it lost it's way during Season 2 when they had to rework whatever story arc had been planned around Gillian Anderson getting pregnant.

I'm sure fans will disagree with me but after that there was then the distinct air of things being made up as they went along & by the end of season 4 I'd had enough & have never watched it since :shrug:

illusion_81

10-03-2006, 11:35

tpr007

10-03-2006, 11:40

I love the entire series.
However, if one has to be a weak link it is probably 7.
When Doggett arrives, it feels quite fresh IMO, and he is a very watchable character who could have carried the show for even longer.

nwgarratt

10-03-2006, 11:47

I like the Doggett character a lot and liked how became the sceptic and Scully was now the believer. I also liked the episode where they take the mickey out of his T2 appearance.

Some of the best "non conspiracy" episodes are later in the series. A couple of my favourites is Monday and the Djinn episode. There were also some excellent ones with the Lone Gunmen.

JonLaidlow

10-03-2006, 12:50

I think there was a major dip when Duchovny left, but they recovered well and Doggett was a great character. For me, and this is entirely personal, the mythology episodes (the conspiracies) just didn't seem to work from about season 7 onward. I didn't like the whole Mulder-Messiah stuff, the Scully baby and the super-soldiers. I also didn't like the season 7 explanation of Mulder's sister.

There were still some good episodes, but it stopped being compulsive viewing like seasons 1-6

Graham01

10-03-2006, 12:55

Yeah, I'd say Season 7 was the worst, some episodes like First Person Shooter and the wrestling one with the twins were beyond awful, and as said above the final revelation about Mulder's sister was very limp - I described it to someone who'd stopped watching in series 6 and he looked at me like I was mad. Season 8 is very strong indeed, Doggett is a great character and the series looked very energised with him in it. I think I'd agree that had it ended with Season 8 it would have probably been for the best, but Season 9 does still have some good ones in it.

Goragio

10-03-2006, 13:00

Been re-watching all these on DVD atm.
Having got to the third disc of S7 I can understand why people gave up at this point. After a fantastic S6 you are given a poor season finale followed up by the utter gash 'starlight children' two parter, the lowest point so far.

Still at least that's over and the quality can increase again (x-cops!).

corkbouy

10-03-2006, 15:05

Ironically, i only gave into curiosity and started watching it in Season 7. Have to say i got hooked pretty quickly.

And i don't get how people can pretend some seasons 'don't exist'. thats just childish and silly, seems to me.

IndianaJones00

10-03-2006, 15:10

I stopped watching it on the BBC after the feature film was released and only ever caught the odd episode from the last few seasons but after buying the Complete 1-9 Boxset in October I went through all 9 seasons in less than 2 weeks and it really does make a difference watching them where you can go straight onto another episode instead of having to wait a week.

Hernster

10-03-2006, 15:38

I stuck with it until an episode called 'closure' in the 7th season where the 'truth' about Mulder's sister is revealed. Mulder's search for his sister drove the show in the early seasons but they wrote themselves into a corner with it - the 'closure' was a load of rubbish in my opinion! I have seasons 1-6 sat on my shelf and in my mind the last 3 don't exist :)

Though I agree that the x-files was always consistently fantastic, I too hated this episode. I had it in my mind from very early on watching the series that Mulder would finally meet up with his Sister in the last ever episode, that, to me was what the whole series was about, aliens, government, sod em, it was all about finding his Sister. That episode was like WTF!! :(

JonLaidlow

10-03-2006, 16:18

In fact the series was always about NOT finding his sister. It was the motivating force, and each season he seemed to try on a different explanation. I don't think they ever thought as far ahead as what had actually happened to her, and it shows...

Of course my dream X-files ending would have been very downbeat: Mulder eventually discovers the "truth" but it is so terrible, so horrific, that he cannot reveal it to the world. He ends up bitter, alone, smoking - the new cigarette smoking man - working to encourage and thwart a new generation of agents...

Hernster

10-03-2006, 16:20

His Sister is the reason he got into the x-files in the first place though. :)

nwgarratt

10-03-2006, 16:30

I didn't see anything wrong with Closure. It just confirms what I was thinking all along.

She was chosen to be experimented on to try and become a alien hydbrid to survive the apocalpyse. However, she ends dead because of the experiments on her. I didn't want Mulder to find her alive as that would have been a copout and predictable ending.

Joober

10-03-2006, 16:58

I was a huge fan of The X Files through seasons 1-6, I need to get round to collecting the boxsets now that they're more affordable. I started to lose track once Mulder had 'gone missing' through work and other responsibilities, but I still enjoyed the episodes I did see from the last couple of seasons.

BillyShears

10-03-2006, 19:01

Can't really understand all the flak Season 7 gets. It's one of my fave seasons and thought the wrapping-up of the Samantha storyline in "Sein Und Zeit/Closure" was excellent.

I agree generally that some seasons were better than others and there are some weak episodes, but The X-Files remains one of the greatest TV shows ever made - FACT

sleep4ever

10-03-2006, 23:33

When Duchovny left

ascender

10-03-2006, 23:47

Fantastic series, all are worth watching, especially now that they're a lot cheaper to buy. I wouldn't say the series went downhill, in fact some of the later seasons were extremely fresh and went in new directions from the older ones. The new characters helped in this respect, expecially when Mulder took a break from the series, but its one of the few shows that I never tire of watching repeats of.

tonytol

11-03-2006, 03:29

Stood alone, each series is quality television, but each also has some excellent and some less than good episodes. Personally, I got a little bored with the story arc around series 4 to 5, preferring 'monster of the week' episodes and good old investigation. Having watched all 9 seasons in the last few months, I can say that it's really not dated much and still has the 'edge of the seat' factor.

Martin Ball

11-03-2006, 12:43

Pretty much agree with most people here - all 9 seasons are very good TV. You can't expect a show to run that long and not go through some poor phases which X-Files did around s7, but it did pick up again for seasons 8 & 9.

The problem is in any long runing show that it's bound to become less popular. If it remained as a "freak of the week" show then it would have finished a lot earlier as people would soon get bored with it and critise it for becoming too repetative, yet when it changes to try and keep it fresh - it gets critises for changing. Sure the mythology episodes soon become far too silly, but the show had to change and the characters also had to change over 9 years. Some people liked the change and some didn't, but at the end of the day it still remained a very good show. Hopefully CC & Fox can work out their differences and we can get a second film.

unrealnils

11-03-2006, 13:14

i would happily watch a spin off with agent Dogget and Reyes i liked them as a pair

Spooksta

11-03-2006, 14:02

It didn't go downhill as such. I think viewers just got fed up with the constant conspiracies, more questions, no resolutions, that sort of thing.

I hope Lost does not follow this route :(

douglasb

11-03-2006, 15:07

I watched it up to about season 6 - or whenever it disappeared from terrestrial.

I would be wary about praising it too highly though. When a storyline is made up on the hoof, it shows a disdain for the audience. Long before the series ended the show was consistently contradicting itself regarding plot points and only made sense in the very loosest manner. It's not up to viewers and fans to try and 'explain' a show - that should be the writer's job.

Great stories have to be internally consistent. Scully was the 'sceptic' but she was kidnapped, experimented upon, saw aliens and all kinds of other weird stuff week after week. But she stayed a 'sceptic' because the show demanded it. This plot device was more important than making the show (and characters) truly great by letting the characters grow and develop in a realistic manner. Why care about a character who undergoes great trauma and then has apparently forgotten about it a week later?

XF had some great episodes but that's all.

D.

JonLaidlow

11-03-2006, 15:20

nwgarratt

11-03-2006, 16:39

I think douglasb hit the nail on the head really. The point for me where it stopped being must-see tv was when it became clear that they really had just been making it up all along, and they didn't care about the audience.

Strongly disagree about that. They certainly didn't made it up as they went. It does make sense as long as you watch every episode. It was soon made clear that you cannot keep track what was going on if you missed a episode.

I watched it up to about season 6 - or whenever it disappeared from terrestrial.

What do you mean disappear? Although it shifted from BBC 2 to BBC 1 then back to BBC 2. Every episode was shown up to the series final (except for one which they skipped).

It was the episode where Skinner gets infected by the nano technology by Alex Krycek

EvaUnit02

12-03-2006, 03:24

Squirrel God

12-03-2006, 03:34

Thanks, I'll get the season boxsets at some point then. Hopefully Fox will release an uber-cheap complete series uber-boxset at some point like they did with Buffy last year (the R1 Chosen Collection - a lovely set).

Like this you mean?

Complete X-Files Box (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AAF9Q0/thedvdforums-21)

EvaUnit02

12-03-2006, 06:26

Like this you mean?

Complete X-Files Box (http://www.thedvdforums.com/jump2.php?url=http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000AAF9Q0/thedvdforums-21)Nah, Fox's UK boxsets are WAY over-priced for me. (GBP>NZD exchange is quite high). Something released by Fox USA would be affordable, like aforementioned R1 Buffy set. Thanks anyway.

cjanderson

12-03-2006, 18:50

am now in the mood for this again, sky one is showing later shows from 1999 and fx from 1997, no idea which seasons - fx is showing redux 1/2 and sky 1/2 showing Three of a kind

Edit: sky 1 is on season 6 and fx start of season 5.

So am tivoing sky1/2 episodes now. :) hopefully they will got through to season 9 but i doubt it.

banus

12-03-2006, 22:44

for those wondering when exactly TV programmes went bad - you might enjoy

JUMP THE SHARK (http://www.jumptheshark.com/)

Squirrel God

12-03-2006, 22:53

for those wondering when exactly TV programmes went bad - you might enjoy

JUMP THE SHARK (http://www.jumptheshark.com/)

Most people voted that it never did :clap: