The X-Files: 2spooky 4u

[Drasiana]

Your resident ghost-puncher has returned to yell at you about the forefather of ghost-punchers. Or alien-punchers. Or strange anthropomorphic worm man-punchers. Anyways, you may have heard of this one.

 

 

Premiering in 1993, The X-Files quickly cemented itself as one of television's most revolutionary shows. Not only was it a massively-adored science fiction series, a rare success even today, it was known for its iconic protagonists and their reversal of gender role tropes. Dana Scully, the highly intelligent, scientific skeptic, and Fox Mulder, the emotion-driven profiler that just wants to believe...

 

 

The series starts when Scully is assigned to work with FBI pariah Agent "Spooky" Mulder on a laundry list of unexplained cases that the rest of the FBI doesn't care about. While her task was initially to discredit Mulder's work, she begins to see more and more that not even she can explain, and soon has to face the reality that there are unexplainable things at work.

 

While the overarching plot of the series focused around Mulder and Scully working to uncover government conspiracies surrounding extraterrestrials, spurred on by the abduction of Mulder's sister long ago, the series was also known for its standalones. "Monster of the Week" episodes focused on single spooky incidents that the duo would investigate, ranging from genuinely creepy cases like the Flukeman from The Host, to straight-up comedies, like dealing with nerdy vampires in Bad Blood.

 

The series was a pop culture phenomenon and in many ways set the foundations for what fandoms are today, spawning phrases like "shipping", "UST", and oodles upon oodles of fanfiction. Over the years it had spinoffs, two movies, some books, and the most recent (and desperately needed) Season 10 comic series.

 

As iconic as Mulder and Scully are, though, there are plenty of other great characters that fill out the charm of the series.

 

 

Assistant Director Walter Skinner, who seems to moonlight as Mulder and Scully's babysitter. While he's a little on the stern side he legitimately cares about The X-Files and the agents working them and does everything in his power to protect them when he can. He was legitimately the best part of the second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe, and probably the only reason I haven't tried completely wiping that movie from my memory bank. He is pictured here being Completely Done with your antics, Mulder.

 

 

Iconic heroes like Mulder and Scully needed an iconic villain, and boy did they get one in the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Always on the edge of the shadows, lurking and speaking softly like some sort of hellgrandpa, the Smoking Man knew everything we didn't and had a way of making things vanish. He's the living embodiment of the very conspiracies he perpetrates alongside the shady, villainous Syndicate.

 

 

The Lone Gunmen are a trio of goofy nerds comprised of John Fitzgerald Beyers (beard), Melvin Frohike (short one), and Richard "Ringo" Langly (apparent Wayne's World cosplayer). Hardcore conspiracy theorists known for publishing a magazine by the same name, they frequently hooked Mulder up with delicate info, often dubiously-obtained. Their wacky antics also provided some much-needed levity to some of the show's more serious situations, and got their own 13-episode spinoff (called The Lone Gunmen, naturally). They currently have a different spinoff in the form of a comic series called The X-Files: Conspiracy, which is a strange series of crossover stories where the Gunmen hang out with the Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles. I'm...not entirely sure how that happened.

 

 

Sometimes-antagonist, sometimes-anti-hero Alex Krycek is perhaps one of the show's more baffling characters. Introduced as a doofy but well-meaning new agent assigned to The X-Files, it soon turns out that the cute new sidekick is a hardcore turncoat, initially drafted as an assassin for the Syndicate before becoming a volatile wildcard who sometimes helps, mostly hinders Mulder and Scully, all to suit his own mysterious agenda. He gets punched a lot and spends most of the series running from assassins, cultists, aliens, and gay thoughts about Mulder. He's a huge ass with an itchy trigger finger. I love him.

 

 

John Doggett and Monica Reyes are new agents assigned to The X-Files way late in the series to fill in some gaps caused by plot and production weirdness. Don't think ill of them for that, though, because Doggett and Reyes are awesome. The former's a gruff no-nonsense skeptic, the latter is an almost comically spiritual investigator of Satanic crimes. They both bring something new to the X-Files investigations and have moments of both hilarity and heart-wrench.

 

Add these guys, some great and groundbreaking writing, and a delightfully spooky atmosphere together and you get a great and lasting series. For its impact on the genre and ability to hold up even today, you should probably do yourself a favour and watch it on Netflix RIGHT NOW. And don't worry once you get to that, well, worrying series finale. The currently-running, completely canonical Season 10 comic series is doing a good job of fixing the flubs and re-delivering that charm all over again.

 

A lot of you may have watched it growing up, some of you may need to start watching it, but this topic is for all-things X-Files.

 

The Truth is Out There, folks.

 

[Drasiana]

I'm sorry for double-posting in here but I just really needed to find multiple places to post this fanart of the Flukeman soulfully belting into a microphone with the Cigarette-Smoking Man on piano accompaniment:

 

 

by Peter de Seve (as best as I can tell from reverse-GISing through ancient Russian Livejournals, anyway)

[Faisul]

Bumped like a doormat

[ballisticwaffles]

I look at this series, and it makes me sad.

 

It makes me sad that i will never ever be able to write sexual tension between two characters this goddamned good that when they *SPOILERS* it causes people to do backflips 'n shit.

[Drasiana]

Haha, you don't even need to spoil that. When Mulder and Scully look at each other people lose their minds.

 

Unpopular opinion but I don't even really ship them--I absolutely love them as best friend soulmates forever who know each other better than absolutely anyone (and maybe occasionally bang) but I don't see it as romantic somehow? I dunno. Still though, their relationship is iconic and the relationships with all the other characters on the show are incredible too. Whether it's romantic, sexual or anything at all, the show sure knows what it's doing with chemistry.

[Robert Monroe]

This shit was my goddamn jam as a pre-teen. Never could follow the greater narrative that well but I loved the spooks, and it was one of the first adult shows I watched on my personal TV.