Welcome to the Hanspostcard TV Draft. The remaining 7 rounds will be posted here. I hope you will enjoy it! Today’s post was written by Vic from https://cosmic-observation.com/blog-posts/
I’ve stated, before, that I was born and raised in law enforcement. I’ve also worked in law enforcement (non-sworn) at two different agencies, one state and one county (think of me as the blond chick on Criminal Minds, sitting in front of a computer screen…though I am not blond). It can be an interesting job if you’re lucky enough to be employed with an agency that doesn’t take its political self too seriously (virtually impossible these days). I’ve met and worked with a couple of FBI agents. They were nice, everyday guys, back in the late 90s and early 2000s. I’ve seen and heard a lot of things.
The Sci-Fi geek that I am, I’m not presenting this show in that light. This show is, first and foremost, law enforcement. These are the folks, alongside first responders, to arrive at the scene of the accident, the scene of the disaster or the crime scene. In the case of these FBI agents, they investigate the weird shit. That being said, I do have a very full binder of X-Files non-sport cards and chase (special) cards, plus, all of the original series-run DVDs. ~Vic
Created and written by Chris Carter, there were many other writers, including David Duchovny (Agent Fox Mulder), Gillian Anderson (Agent Dana Scully) and Stephen King but, this was Carter’s baby. It starred Duchovny and Anderson as the dynamic duo, investigating all manner of odd, macabre, out-of-this-world or just plain gross happenings. In later years, Duchovny reduced his presence on the show and eventually left. In 2000, Robert Patrick (Agent John Doggett) was brought in as a new partner for Gillian Anderson. In 2001 Annabeth Gish (Agent Monica Reyes) showed up and, with the upcoming departure of Anderson, became Patrick’s partner. There was some chatter that the show would live on with Patrick and Gish but, it never materialized. Gish returned in the series revival but, Patrick did not. Neither of them were in the X-Files feature films.
Other regular cast members were Mitch Pileggi (Asst. Dir. Walter Skinner), William B. Davis (Cigarette Smoking Man), Nicholas Lea (Alex Krycek), Chris Owens (Jeffrey Spender, son of the Cigarette Smoking Man) and James Pickens, Jr. (Asst. Dir./Dep. Dir. Alvin Kersh). Secondary, popular characters were Tom Braidwood, Dean Haglund & Bruce Harwood (The Lone Gunmen), Don. S. Davis (Captain William Scully, Agent Scully’s father), Sheila Larken (Margaret Scully, Agent Scully’s mother), Melinda McGraw (Melissa Scully, Agent Scully’s older sister), Pat Skipper (Bill Scully, Jr., Agent Scully’s older brother), Jerry Hardin (Deep Throat), Steven Williams (Mr. X), Rebecca Toolan (Teena Mulder, Agent Mulder’s mother), Peter Donat (William Mulder, Agent Mulder’s father) and five separate actresses portrayed Samantha Mulder, the agent’s abducted, younger sister. Agent Scully also has a younger brother, Charles but, except for flashbacks, the character is uncredited.
Addendum: Honestly, I was hoping the show would continue on with Agents Doggett & Reyes. They had a lot of really good on-screen chemistry and I liked both actors. After nine years, I had grown weary of Duchovny’s primadonna attitude. When the series was revived, the magic was gone and I wasn’t impressed. Naturally, they turned Agent Reyes into a bad character and killed her off.
Addendum #2: I also have to mention that the theme song changed, just slightly, at some point. The first theme has a solid, continuous echo sound. The second theme is a double-repeating echo sound. Why it changed, I don’t know (it drove me crazy). It is never mentioned but, it did happen. Listen, below.
Trivia Bits:
♦ As stated in my last draft, Mark Snow created the X-Files theme, the Starsky & Hutch theme for Season Three and many others.
♦ Gillian Anderson was nearly replaced when she got pregnant during the first season.
♦ Props from Mulder’s office are preserved at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in LA. The I Want To Believe poster kept disappearing from the set.
♦ The agents badges read “Federal Bureau of Justice, United States Department of Investigation” as making a fake FBI badge is illegal.
♦ Gillian Anderson has stated that she based her approach to the role of Dana Scully on Jodie Foster’s performance as Clarice Starling in The Silence of the Lambs (1991).
♦ Dana Scully was named after the famous sports journalist Vin Scully. Mulder is the maiden name of Chris Carter’s mother.
♦ Chris Carter lists All the President’s Men (1976) as one of his inspirations for the series. There are numerous references to the film, including the shadowy informer Deep Throat, meetings in underground parking garages and hints at conspiracies which stretch all the way to the F.B.I.
X-Files Original Opening
X-Files Second Opening…Can you hear the difference?
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Good pick. Loved this show, especially the earlier episodes.
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The earlier stuff captured the whimsy & the “EEK” factor, well.
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Great series, no doubt.
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It was one that would have ended up on my list, in the lower picks probably. but it’s good you did because you obviously were more of a dedicated fan than I was… because by the time I think season five rolled around , to me it had gotten too convoluted and weird and when Mulder left, I thought ‘what’s the point?’ But the first three, maybe four seasons were brilliant and absolutely much-watch TV for me back then. Interesting your take on it as being first and foremost a law enforcement one; to me it was first a kind of Twilight Zone-y sci fi with the aliens and other mysteries front and center, then secondly a romance. Whichever way you look, it was really good and innovative.
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Heh. When Duchovny left, I was like “oh, well…” I was a bigger Robert Patrick fan. LOL! Plus, Duchovny jacked up the production with the “I have to be with my wife in LA or I will surely die…” routine. Fox Mulder as a character…he played well. Duchovny as a person is a giant pain in the ass. BYE!
My perspective comes from the atmosphere I was raised in. Don’t get me wrong…I love “woo-woo” stuff but, much of my frame of reference comes from LE & military.
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True…I think Duchovny was absolutely perfect for the role but I seldom here great stories about the actor. A lot of Canadians were rather P.O’d when they moved to LA because of him; it was a source of pride and jobs filming in Vancouver. And that city’s gloomy, rainy climate fit the show well.
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Good point. Vancouver has a great, mystical feel to it. A lot of shows are filmed there (Canadian Hollywood?) including the Stargate series? My state of NC has been called the East Coast Hollywood and when I lived in TX, they were constantly filming something in downtown Austin.
Duchovny threw a wrench in everything.
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For awhile, not sure where in the seasons, I was a faithful viewer. Not sure what happened when I stopped, but I really got into this show. It was like The Twilight Zone with the same main characters every week. One of these days I’ll watch it from beginning to end. How many movies were made after the series ended?
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There is only one movie after production of the TV series concluded.
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I loved this show but I around the 5th or 6th I drifted away not because I didn’t like it…it was just life at the time. I would love to binge watch this show from beginning to end. It was like The Twilight Zone meets the Outer Limits meets Kolchak: The Night Stalker.
Great episodes and I think the only one that lived up to a few of the Twilight Zones.
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Good description, though I still have my head in the LE angle of it. The fact that Mulder seems to always lose his weapon was annoying. It made for great jokes, tho…
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Well it was showing them as human I guess. The stories got me…and I was always pissed they were looked down upon by the other FBI agents.
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In the case of Mulder’s gun problem, there were those that wrote in about it (it was 1993-1994). There is an episode where Mulder makes a crack about being tired of losing his gun. The issue seemed to stop after that. Also, during an interview on some talk show, a real LE officer told Duchovny how to properly hold a flashlight and gun, simultaneously. They clearly were in need of some kind of LE consultant back then. Shows like NCIS have Navy consultants.
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Yes that show did need those consultants. I thought over all they did a good job on it.
They had some great shows…my favorite was banned…the inbred family. They stopped showing it back then…I’m not sure about now.
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Who banned it?
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From what I read Fox would not show it the second time
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Ah. OK.
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Go to Stuart’s
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I should’ve liked it but just couldn’t really believe the leads, and once it went away from ‘Freak Of The Week’ format I was was outta there.
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That’s a show I would watch…Freak of the Week… Obbverse you should be a Hollywood writer.
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😂
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I loved Scully and how she inspired woman to join the STYEM field in the “Scully Effect”.
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Typo above- STEM field
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