Why I (Still) Watch The X-Files

So I meant to talk about why I watch Friday Night Lights, but it's 10/13. This is, as any X-Phile knows, both the date of (fictional) Fox Mulder's birthday and (oh so real) Chris Carter's (the guy who created the show in the first place). Therefore, in homage to my show, I have to eschew for the moment the tangibly dusty field of the football stadium at Dillon High and wander instead into the strange and wonderful world of The X-Files.

I started watching the show right as it got terrible, in the summer of 2000. Truly it was horrible timing, and I later did exactly the same thing with The West Wing. I know there are those out there who will say that The X-Files started going downhill after Season Three or Season Five, but I think we can all agree that it was a rough and awful transition from the rather light-hearted but compelling Mulder/Scully dynamic of Season Seven to the Duchovny-less Seasons Eight and Nine. No matter how much you enjoy Robert Patrick's John Doggett and the charming Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes, Duchovny was the anchor. Moody, brooding Mulder was the reason for the show to exist, and it just wasn't the same without him. Regardless, I stuck by The X-Files through the last two long seasons of bizarre plot lines and pointless dead ends (the baby plot, which went nowhere; the last episode, which answered no questions at all; the death of the Lone Gunmen, which was the only episode that ever made me cry).

I don't really watch a lot of television. Which is to say, I watch a healthy number of hours of the few shows I do watch, but I'm never just going to turn the thing on and channel surf. I missed the pop culture explosion: I never saw a tv special or a photoshoot or an article about The X-Files, though I remember seeing a couple of commercials. I didn't see the movie when it came out; I had no idea there was a movie. Because of this not-watching, I had hardly heard of The X-Files before a friend told me about it. Actually, I read a story she'd written that featured the characters; it was my first brush with online fandoms and fanfic. When I met up with her that summer, I told her I'd read it, and she offered to send me some tapes. I still remember getting that box in the mail, with her strange note about the "mytharc" and the "MotW" episodes, and how the mytharc ought to be watched in order. I just took her word for it and popped in a tape, which turned out to be the episode "Duane Barry". This of course means nothing to you if you don't watch the show, but it means quite a lot to the fan: that three-episode story arc was, in my opinion, the twist that really solidified the show's reputation. In that episode, Mulder and Scully (who have been split up) confront an ex-FBI mental patient who is holding people (including his psychiatrist) hostage in a travel agency. Duane Barry believes he has been abducted repeatedly by aliens; he also believes he can escape this by offering the aliens somebody else. Mulder is sent in to negotiate as his slimy new partner Krycek remains with the other agents to throw a wrench in the works. Mulder successfully talks Barry into a compromised position where Barry can be subdued; however, Barry escapes FBI custody and kidnaps Scully, with the aim of exchanging her for his freedom. The other two episodes in the arc deal with Scully's abduction and return, Krycek's deception, and Mulder's despair and loneliness as he tries to bring the powerful men behind Scully's disappearance to justice.

The reasoning behind this story line was writing out a very pregnant Gillian Anderson for a couple of episodes; thank heavens she got knocked up. I was hooked by the end of the episode. The aloof intimacy between the separated partners is magnificent; Mulder casually disregards and manipulates Krycek as he confides in Scully. Barry is played to perfection by Steve Railsback: paranoid, unhappy, sharp-witted, childishly sure of his bargain. He swings from pleading for protection to completely menacing in the space of a moment. Duchovny brings a surprising competence to Mulder's myopic focus, and Gillian Anderson says more with an eyebrow than most actors say with a monologue. Mulder is powerless to stop Scully's abduction or Krycek's defection; though he searches for Scully, none of his contacts accomplish anything, and his self-destructive grief causes him to throw himself into his work even more than before. When Scully is returned, without any answers or memory and with her health compromised, Mulder's powerlessness is even further emphasized, though his relief at having her back overshadows his quest.

Without this arc, I think the show would have faltered. Scully's skepticism or Mulder's fanatic passion for oddities would have driven the partners apart. However, Scully's abduction and subsequent health problems gave her an investiture in the campaign to reveal the shadowy government powers behind the alien abductions. Without a personal stake in Mulder's insane quest, I have no doubt the dynamic of the show would have become stale. Despite the crackle of chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson, Scully's early-season puppyish devotion to Mulder could only have lasted so long without becoming tiresome.

Really, even if every other episode had been awful (and there were some remarkable stinkers during the show's nine-year run), I would have loved The X-Files just for that arc. The longing of the separated partners, whether romantic or platonic, strikes a chord. It's two people against the world, fighting the good but secret fight. They're never going to get a reward for putting themselves in constant danger. Their quest is nearly as pure as the legendary quest for the Grail, but in this case, determination is going to get them a lot farther than purity. Over the course of the show, both agents commit a variety of illegal or questionable acts, but they do more good than bad. Their intentions are good, and they stay good, despite an astounding number of setbacks and attacks. The X-Files, for all its showcasing of twisted and strange individuals, ends up being a testament to the endurance of the human spirit. The world falls apart around Mulder and Scully and they still manage to rely on each other. Though the justice they achieve is only partial, they've made a difference in the world by the end. That's something we'd all like to be able to say.

Fortunately for me, most of the rest of the show is great too. There's the black and white episode, with the Cher-loving mutant just trying to find a friend (even if it's through genetic manipulation and what could probably be called rape). There's the one with the town full of vampires who just want to be good neighbors (my personal favorite). There are creepy ones about government mind control ("Wetwired", "Blood") and silly ones about baseball and Hollywood and local legends like the Jersey Devil. The awful special effects of the first couple of seasons are as charming, in retrospect, as the choppy stop-action alien critters in the original Star Wars trilogy (the original original), and they did get a lot better in later seasons. Even the cringe-worthy episodes usually have a good line or two, or some obscure actor who went on to be famous (Lucy Liu, for example).

There was the landscape of the show, too: from the forests of Florida to the chilly Arctic in the five seasons the show was filmed in Vancouver. The amazingly versatile biomes of British Columbia were put to excellent use. The first five seasons were chilling: Mulder and Scully were in dire danger as often as not, with all manner of supernatural (or not) murderers and forces stalking them. They stuck together through thick and thin, through cancer scares and Bureau censures and the pasts that came back to haunt them. The sixth and seventh seasons, when the show shifted to L.A., were undoubtedly more lighthearted: post-film, the dynamic focused a little more on Mulder and Scully's relationship and the inevitable but deliciously subtle and understated romance.

Funny how watching The X-Files still makes me feel safe and happy, given the eerie to terrifying spectrum of the episodes. It might be the comfort of seeing two people who trust and rely on each other absolutely even through their various spats; Mulder and Scully end up only having each other in all the world, having alienated their friends and witnessed the deaths of their family members. It might be the quirky, funny moments among all the serious ones, like Scully singing Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World" to an injured Mulder as they spend the night stranded in a forest and hunted by mutants. It might be Mulder's earnest ache to believe and Scully's dry skepticism, or the few, illuminating instances of normality in the world-gone-mad they inhabit. It might be the eternal quest for justice. It could be the (slightly ridiculous) writing or the delivery that turned odd lines into extraordinarily quotable dialogue. Or maybe I just enjoy the Mutant of the Week and Mark Snow's well-crafted score. Hard to say. Unlike Mulder and Scully, I don't always have the need to get down to the bones of things. Which is fortunate, really. There are a lot of nasty secrets and truths that might as well stay buried.

So that's my show, the first show I ever planned to watch every week, the gateway that got me into The West Wing, Sports Night, and the handful of other things I now watch, including Friday Night Lights and Pushing Daisies. Thanks, X-Files. Now when's the second movie coming out?