Hi. I am Neotron and this my first entry. Please bare with me…
In 1993, I was 14 years old and I spent every Friday night in front of a 19 inch television that I was lucky enough to have in my bedroom. I would turn to FOX Channel 45, adjust the bunny ears and attach some tin foil on the tips. At 8pm, I would watch Bruce Campbell in “Brisco County Jr.”. I only watched this show because it would speed up the hour between 8 and 9. Because at 9pm, I forgot about my crazy, oppressive parents, I forgot about Marshall Richardson bullying me at school, and I forgot about my broken heart over Amy Scotten. At 9pm, Mulder and Scully came on. And the rest of the world could go fuck itself.
“The X-Files” was that one thing I held onto throughout highschool whenever shit would hit the fan. And it was brilliant… Mulder, the outcast conspiracy theorist, who claimed aliens had abducted his younger sister when he was only 12. Scully, the skeptic, who had her faith in science shaken with every X-File opened. The first 2 seasons contained a shotgun blast of tension, fear and wonder.
For those of you who watched it, remember Deep Throat’s death? The Fluke Man? Mulder’s wacko alien trip in Puerto Rico? And what about Mr. X? Remember when Cigarette Smoking Man never spoke a word? And, Jesus, the season two finale kicked you in the nuts…
Other than my large collection of Batman and Dark Horse ALIEN comics, my hand-drawn Batman posters, my homemade Indiana Jones costume, my Empire Strikes Back bed sheets, and my memorization of the entire “E.T” script, “The X-Files” was what defined me as a nerd. I would record my favorite episode to audio tape and then play them on my Walkman as I rode the bus to and from school. In 1994, as the internet started to emerge, I begged my parents for an AOL account just so I could join the X-Files Fan Club. At that time, it would take me 2 hours to download a really hot picture of Gillian Anderson. And then, in a culminating orgasm of nerdom, I wrote, directed, and starred in a stage play adaptation of “The X-Files”. It was the first sell-out school play ever at my high school. Max Fischer would have been proud.
And then something happened…
The mythology of the show started to…um…suck a little. Not all at once, just little by little. Cigarette Smoking Man suddenly had a name and a personality and a history. And then he turned out to maybe be Mulder’s dad. And then Mulder discovered that maybe he had a half-brother at the FBI who was also the son of CSM because Mulder’s mom had an affair with CSM who also worked with Mulder dad, but then CSM has Mulder’s dad killed. And then Mulder’s sister just kinda showed up out of no where and got adopted by CSM making Mulder cry. And then Mulder faked his death so he could fight the aliens planning to take over the planet, which kind of looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger clones. The mysteries started falling apart. And they started to disappoint. And it was mostly written by a guy named Frank Spotnitz. A blathering mongoloid of incompetence. More on him later.
The only thing saving seasons 3,4, and 5 for me were the stand-alone episodes. Brilliant ones. Mostly written by Darin Morgan, who sometimes acted in the show also. Episodes like “Humbug”, “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”, “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”, and “Small Potatoes”.
Then the feature film came out and it kicked a lot of ass and Terry O’Quinn from “Lost” was in it and that was cool. It was just a big, fun, action-packed film. So much fun, that my 18-year-old self looked over the fact that Chris Carter ripped off “Alien” in so many ways. Down to alien eggs being planted in people’s chests and then popping out all gory like.
But then it all ended for me when Scully asked Mulder for his sperm. I will repeat that. Scully asked Mulder for his sperm. And not from intercourse. Oh, yes, 7 years of sexual tension ends with Mulder at a sperm donation clinic. And then she gets pregnant and Mulder and Scully hug. And then all this bullshit ends with Mulder on trial for his life (ala Seinfeld) and all the past characters, dead and alive, visit him in his cell. He escapes prison with Scully and they run off in a SUV to visit CSM who has grown his hair out and living in a Mexican adobe with some chick. Then a military helicopter blows CSM up and Mulder and Scully run off to Canada. And then Frank Spotnitz and Chris Carter wrote “The End”.
By that time, I was 23 and I knew better. I knew something I used to love was now officially dead to me. My friend John, who was an equal “X-Files” nerd, and I would find ourselves laughing at the show. We had an ongoing joke that Frank Spotnitz and crew had duct taped Chris Carter to his chair and gagged his mouth. Spotnitz would say something like, “In the next episode, Scully’s going to ask Mulder for his sperm” and Carter would scream in protest and try to break out of his bondage, but to no avail.
And now Spotnitz and Carter have joined forces again to create THE X-FILES 2: I WANT TO BELIEVE.
They couldn’t have picked a better subtitle.