The X-Files: New Season

Finished up Season 7 last week.  Still some good stuff here.  The wrap-up of the Samantha storyline was legitimately moving, the episode Hungry from the POV of the Monster of the Week was really strong, the episode in the style of Cops was a lot of fun, as was the one about the guy with extremely good luck, the genie episode was a blast, I enjoyed David Duchovny's second written and directed episode, plus the season finale was excellent.  Buuuut I would still say that this is probably the weakest of the first seven seasons, at the same time.  Because there's still some duds in here.  Such as Gillian Anderson's writing/directing debut, which came off as pretentious to me, Fight Club has got to be one of the worst episodes of the series so far, First Person Shooter was very meh to me, as well as a few others that felt kind of tired-out to a degree.  I still enjoyed the season overall, but it did feel like there was some complacency settling in at times.  Oh, and all the Christ parallels with Mulder in the two-part season opener felt heavyhanded.

Now, I'm aware that Seasons 8 and 9 aren't as well-regarded as 1-7, but with 8 at least, I'm still legitimately curious if the absence of Mulder gives it a new jolt of any kind.  I'll get to that after another little break, though.

Got some other shows I want to give a go in the meantime.  Shogun, Gen V, Fallout, Sugar...don't think I'm forgetting anything... 

Not counting the new season, Fight Club is the worst episode. Its awful.  But yeah, there's lots of great stuff too, especially the Cops ep. 

Which one did Duchovney direct?

And 8 still manages to be a pretty solid season, despite the changes.

Oh, by the way, I finished Season 8 last week.

So, I'm aware that Seasons 8 and 9 don't have the best reputation, partly because of David Duchovny stepping back from full-time duty as Mulder, but I gotta say..I really liked it!  Pretty damn underappreciated, if you ask me, based off my ititial run-through of the season.  Mostly because I think Mulder's abduction -- and eventual return -- give the season a really solid story engine that gives the season overall a strong sense of purpose and momentum.  To that end, the mythology of the season perhaps feels more streamlined than it ever has, which is a good thing, because it allows the emotional storytelling, the introduction and integration of Doggett and the serialized mythology aspects to all work in tandem pretty great.  On that note, Season 8 feels like it might be the most serialized so far, especially in the second half, and again -- the strong sense of a driving force to each half helps it out there.  And then there's Dogget, whom I think the show did a great job of establishing and making him a character well worth liking, to the point where I never actually missed Mulder.  Also. I enjoyed how this season really brought back the horror aspects in full-force.  Yeah, there was more grotesque stuff, but overall, I really dug the tone of the season.

In terms of individual episodes...Within/Without started off the season great, Roadrunners is a grotesque yet compelling episode, Redrum makes great use of Joe Morton, Via Negativa is fantastic and one of the creepiest and most atmospheric episodes of the series by far, This Is Not Happening/Deadalive were very compelling, the two-part season ender exciting and a strong end to the Mulder and Scully era.  On the other hand, though, there was Badlaa, which...hey, at least it's not worse than Season 7's Fight Club.

But yeah, I thought Season 8 was really good!  I'd even say better than Season 7.