I Think I'm Having Déjà Vu. The Light, The Forest. As If All Of This Has Already Happened Before. A

He's never happy

“If The X-Files was a 90s anime.”

credit: MabooCraboo on imgur

DEAR ANNE, SINCE WE ARE PARTING WAYS PERHAPS FOREVER, I FEEL I MUST UNBURDEN MY HEART. YOU ARE THE FOND OBJECT OF MY AFFECTION AND DESIRE.

No, because I actually love them interacting more before this. We actually see them being "best friends" and bonding.

But they are friends. Sibling coded. JJ as much as I loved her, she doesn't listen to Spencer, his info dumps and many interests. You just cannot write in that characters like these are in love after 14 SEASONS of evidence that would say otherwise.

Erica Mereditch, I am actually your biggest hater. Even the cast didn't like this, who fucking approved the script??

Then in S15 trying to fix it and Spencer struggling as if he still had those underlying feelings?? Girl i can't. I'm not even in the head space to vent about this properly. Might just skip through some scenes

So I've decided to watch The X-Files for the very first time after doomscrolling on Pinterest and being Intruiged.

I know this much about the show from the Internet:

- Very Important show in the sci-fi genre and cultural zeitgeist

- the MulderxScully ship invented the concept of shipping

- it's about aliens?

- the title sequence music gets used in all the meme videos

- Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny hate each other, except maybe they don't, it's really fucking complicated

Also I've decided to document this journey on Tumblr bc why not?

I kind of hate even asking this question but I’m going to ask it anyway.

Why do you think CC decided to totally retcon the mythology in the revival? Do you think he was bored of it? Did he think it didn’t fit in with “modern times”?

I know the mythology was kind of a mess at the end but I don’t think it was so bad that it was beyond saving.

It’s just, when you watch the struggles and accept the retcon it makes the Orginal Series feel like a waste of time. I’ve also heard theories that the Struggle episodes are told by an “unreliable narrator” for example CSM is an unreliable narrator in MSIII, Jackson is unreliable in MSIV. That just sounds like a cop out. It all just gives me a headache honestly. 🙁

tl;dr: CC is interested in new ideas; and will always be willing to cast off old ones in pursuit of fresher perspectives. His passion for the latter mythology was born from Dr. Simon's and Dr. Fearon's last-minute theory; but when it got fan backlash, he pivoted the focus from his revitalized mythology to the abandoned William arc. However: because he was chasing tantalizing ideas rather than a focused conclusion, Carter completely fumbled in his attempts to close up old threads in order to start afresh.

A couple reasons:

CC and Spotnitz wrapped up the original mythology in Season 6 (One Son), deciding that it had both blossomed out of control and somehow come together. Mythology wrapped up, they then finished off the Samantha arc in Season 7 and began a new mytharc in Season 8. Season 8's Existence, according to Spotnitz, functioned as the end of the original X-Files as a whole--

Spotnitz: "And the series will be different, whoever comes back for it [Season 9]-if there is another year. We’re still working out what that final story is, but there are a couple of elements that we know are going to be in there. And those two elements close the chapter.”

and,

Spotnitz: Whatever I said, what I mean to say is that 8 years of the series will come to a close this May, regardless of whether there is an X-Files next season. I actually believe most of the important questions about the mythology have already been answered, believe it or not, and you will see some new ones asked in upcoming shows.

--leaving room for Season 9 to begin a new chapter for the show (one no longer centered on Mulder and Scully's evolving story, since it had been concluded.)

That... didn't work. So, IWTB's focus, years later, was on a MOTW instead, with the hope that it would succeed and become a stepping stone to a movie-mythology franchise series.

That didn't work, either. But CC never gave up hope for a 3rd movie.

Then 2015 rolled around and FOX approached him for a revival.

Carter: I had one question thrown out to me at a meeting. [Fox Television CEO] Dana Walden asked, “If there were another series, when do you think you could begin work on it?” It wasn’t an overture, more of a practical issue. That was before the show ever aired and they knew what the ratings would be. There’s been no conversation about doing more of these. With the ratings news, it’s hard to imagine that they wouldn’t come back to us.

I would love to do another movie. Especially coming off that second movie, which had such a heavy weight upon it: A summer-release, low-budget movie, with no promotion, in a crowded field of tentpole fare. I was asked to do so much with so little. And I tried! If we were to do another movie, it would need to be akin to the first movie, which I thought was a story worthy of the big screen. That said, I can’t imagine they won’t want to somehow figure out how to do this on TV.

CC didn't know where to take the show, and only signed on after being told the season would be short (and might give him a movie, which is what he really wanted.) It was Dr. Anne Simon that actually got him excited about the mytharc again: as she tells it,

"What was the Conspiracy? This [Struggle I and II] is the conspiracy. Now, did Chris know that this was the conspiracy [since the original show]? Obviously not-- because I told him what the conspiracy was. But he knew that there was a Conspiracy-- he just didn’t know what it was. But when I told him, when I gave him this idea [plot for MSI/II], he was just, ‘This is amazing’-- I mean, he was so happy. ‘I want more, I want more, I want more!’ And every time I sent him these pages, typed pages, he was just, he was extremely happy. I could tell how happy he was.”

(Dr. Anne Simon's an interesting rabbit hole to go down, btw. Gonna do a post on her contributions in the future.)

He redid the focus of the show in Season 10; and his writers and collaborators and even his actors-- David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, both-- thought it was a well-written season (I know....) But the fans did not.

So, CC made a statement after FOX confirmed S11: shippers had been heard-- there would be more MSR and William. So much so, he brought William back purposefully to give his arc a resolution.

And when that didn't work out-- when CC's 'perfect' ending was hated by fans (and famously, Gillian) for feeling more like a cop out than an address-and-move-forward conclusion, he felt slighted and misunderstood.

In short, Carter wasn't invested in his series anymore-- and, to be fair, neither were David and Gillian: all three (and Spotnitz) wanted to do movies instead. FOX said no; so, they took on Season 8 and 9. When the middling traction from S8 flopped in S9, CC deviated from the mytharc and did IWTB. That flubbed; and he let the matter rest for a few years (still hoping for more movies.) When FOX only agreed to do another series, he didn't know what to do with the mytharc. Then Dr. Anne Simon and Margaret Fearon gave him a direction-- and, yes, both worked on (and cosigned) the mytharc episodes-- and got him excited to do something new; and more of it. And we all saw what happened thereafter.

(Dr. Anne Simon also worked on the OG mytharc episodes, and has nothing but good things to say about them and the Revival. Again, a future rabbit hole.)

In conclusion: once CC's interest is engaged, he loses track of all else and devotes his aspirations to that one thing-- to the detriment of not only the whole picture (i.e. mythology) but also other equally important moving parts (i.e. Gillian's desire to move on.)

I could go on, but I think that's it for now.

gillian anderson at the 1998 golden globes save me. save me gillian anderson at the 1998 golden globes

the x files is maybe the funniest show ever cause almost always if they do something crazy to mulder or scully in an episode they do roughly that same thing to the other at some point.

were you disappointed that mulder spent all of unusual suspects messing around with the gunmen but scully didn't get to? three of a kind.

angry that scully keeps getting kidnapped or held hostage like in irresistible and our town? kill switch and drive.

annoyed that mulder went crazy in pusher and pulled a gun on scully instead of the other way around? wetwired.

tired of only mulder's exes showing up in fire and the end and making scully jealous? lazarus and all things.

mad that mulder was the only one to be intensely invested in the cases in conduit and paper hearts? beyond the sea and all souls.

frustrated that mulder got to have an ill-advised affair with a murder suspect in 3 and scully didn't? never again.

wish it had been mulder obsessively calling scully while she ignored him in favour of the case in war of the coprophages? chinga.

feel it's unfair that one of mulder's relatives got shot in anasazi while scully's family were all perfectly healthy? the blessing way.

find it odd that only scully had a brain tumour throughout her cancer arc? the gift.

irritated that in duane barry, ascension, and one breath, only scully got abducted and experimented on by aliens, then returned with little to no explanation and stuck in a weird coma for a while? requiem, this is not happening, and deadalive.

— Ursula K. Le Guin

say what you want about bridgerton I know it's not a Good Show or whatever but nicola coughlan insisting on being 'as naked as possible' in this series as a 'fuck you' to everyone saying she's too fat to be a romantic lead and because 'when I'm 60 I wanna watch it and remember how fucking hot I was' is ICONIC BEHAVIOR