The X-Files: Scully’s Journey (a hiatus, an explanation, a rant)
I had every intention of finishing my coverage of The X-Files (we last left off with my deep and abiding ambivalence for season six), including mini-season 10. They weren’t even intentions as much as fantasies, of looking objectively at the series as a whole, knowing that the show had a chance to come back and tie things up, of thinking how Chris Carter had learned with the years and the distance, and of me exclaiming at the end “My God! It all makes sense now!”
Was that such a silly hope? He had a unique, rarely-given opportunity to revisit and tie things up and I seriously thought he would use it that way and then…
I found myself unable to let it go. He pissed it away. He gambled that chance to tie things up by leaving longtime fans and viewers on a cliffhanger. He George Lucased so hard that I wish someone would come and take The X-Files away from him. Every complaint I had during this mini-season was down to Carter and his poor planning and his ineptitude. He has all the pieces, all the opportunities, and millions of people rooting for him to reward their faith in him and he just still…
BTW, I just want to say that I love Lauren Ambrose and have been a huge fan since Psycho Beach Party…
…then right into Six Feet Under. She is a capable, relatable, kind of adorable actress. But you know what? I thought the same thing of Annabeth Gish after Mystic Pizza and Shag…
…and he made Monica Reyes a quirky quirkmonster.
Chris Carter, you took a warm and approachable actress and turned her into a fanbase-dividing, super annoying, walking QUIRK! TWICE! You turn Annabeth Gish into a cloying joke and Lauren Ambrose into what everyone is describing as a shrill, obnoxious, one-note harridan. Seriously, it’s not like she has to be Scully to be a skeptic. Almost everyone but Mulder (except in rare cases) has pulled skeptic duty on this show and they didn’t come off like dismissive jerks. And you know what? Agent Einstein is a stupid name! And let’s not even start on the non-entity that was Agent Miller.
See, this is why I’m having trouble going forward. I just keep getting angry and bitter because I really wanted to believe Chris Carter had a plan.
And I don’t know why I keep holding onto that hope because he is obviously just pulling every new development or sloppy, half-baked resolution directly out of his ass and adding more random-ass ingredients to the mythology stew until we don’t even know what we’re tasting anymore!
You know, I think him making me dislike a character played by Lauren Ambrose pisses me off the most right now.
Seriously, she’s so much better than this!
I do plan to come back and finish this if Fox or any other entity puts it on the air again, but I sure as hell can’t do it on that half-assed cliffhanger they threw at us… without even a sure renewal or order of more episodes or just anything that signals “place cliffhanger here.” I’m not playing into that manipulation (though I hope Fox does). I’m not wasting my time lamenting over season seven and all that could have been (and ultimately wasn’t), whining over season eight and all the ways it went right and oh-so-wrong, or just screaming “WHY?” at season nine, which basically either shouldn’t exist or should have been a reboot, but they lost their nerve so…
Basically, I don’t want to see myself slip into a possible/probable chardonnay-addled downslide into bitterness until I devolve into the agonized, dusty, dry heave that was mini-season ten.
I mean, I have happier things to write about. Us legendarywomen ladies have lots of goodies in store for Women’s History Month. There are some awesome film festivals coming up that I really want to cover. Game Of Thrones is coming back in April and I am happ… Well, I am oath-bound to recap it.
I will be back if there is a shred of hope, though. I want to believe that Chris Carter can tell a story to completion. I want to believe that Scully’s wig will be much better (it improved throughout the episodes). I want to believe that Darin Morgan will find time to write another episode and bask in my love and adulation and spontaneous marriage proposals.
Basically, I will be back if they order more episodes. I still, after all this time…
…I’m just finding it hard to right now.
*****
All images from The X-Files are property of 20th Century Fox Television and Ten-Thirteen Productions. I can’t even begin to catalog the ways I rabidly hunt down gifs, but the good people of Tumblr are the most prolific giffers there are.
