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The X-Files, 1x01 - Pilot
Because 8 years is apparently enough time for me to get over the "ARRRRGH" factor and recapture the nostalgia, and because this show at its best is creepy and funny and exciting and weird, and I still want to be Dana Scully when I grow up.
Oh, the pilot. I have great fondness for this episode, even though it isn't all that good.
A refresher: Scully, a doctor who has been with the FBI for two years at this point, gets called in to a meeting with a bunch of grumpy old white dude supervisor-types (the grumpiest of whom is smoking a cigarette - dun dun dun!). She's assigned to work with Fox Mulder, psychologist, successful profiler and general weirdo, on his pet project, investigating unexplained phenomena. She asks if they want her to debunk the X-Files project; they say they trust she'll make the proper scientific analysis. She does; they go on to regret having said that for the next nine years.
The case is pretty forgettable: members of the same high school class keep ending up dead in the woods with strange marks on their backs and no obvious cause of death. The sheriff's not-so-comatose son turns out to be responsible, acting, he says, on orders from aliens. There are ominous nosebleeds and implants in people's sinus cavities, Scully does her first autopsy of the series, and (almost) all their evidence is destroyed in a fire.
Something I notice now that I wouldn't have noticed then: all the victims we see are girls, and we see them primarily in nightgowns/underwear, dead, afraid, or running for their lives. The two girls with speaking parts are both very childlike: Peggy doting on Billy after her accident, and Theresa, who must be about 21, seeming to be completely under her father's control. There's almost a horror-movie morality to it: they were out in the woods with boys after high school graduation and Bad Things happened to them.
We also see two very patriarchal groups: the men in Oregon (where protecting the sheriff's son seems to take precedence over protecting the medical examiner's daughter), and the high-level bureaucrats at the FBI. Both represent a nexus of power, but it's clearly power that's being misused and causing harm to people, and our heroes set out to undermine that.
What I love about this episode (and the series) is Scully, and the dynamic between Scully and Mulder. He's got the angsty backstory and the crusade, but it's clear in this episode that he's SO eager to believe that he doesn't always question what he should. I think it's easy to describe their dynamic as skeptic and believer where he is right and she is wrong, but it's Scully's insistence that there are real answers to find that gets them somewhere. Maybe it was aliens, but if they hadn't looked harder, they wouldn't have found out about Billy, and Theresa probably would have died.
And Scully is the POV character: we follow her primarily throughout the episode and see things through her eyes. She's also many flavors of awesome - she has confidence in herself and her abilities. She's not intimidated by her bosses, and she's definitely not intimidated by Mulder. ("That's pretty good, Scully."/"Better than you expected, or better than you hoped?") When snarked at, she snarks back, and when pissed off, she's not shy about it. ("Dammit, Mulder, cut the crap.") And I love, love, love the ending.
She sits there and lets Blevins chew her out, and then casually pulls the implant out of her pocket, presents them with irrefutable evidence, and walks out on a fuck-you-very-much note.
It's a positive sign of things to come. *g*
Favorite quotes and other trivia:
-"Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."
-"So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?"
"Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you."
"Oh really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me."
-"The answers are there. You just need to know where to look."
"That's why they put the I in FBI."
-Slideshows! Sunflower seeds! Mulder and Scully in glasses! The "I WANT TO BELIEVE" poster!
-Oh, Scully's outfits. /o\ I can't decide if that's early 90's fashion, or if they were just too cheap to find clothes that actually fit her for the pilot. Maybe a bit of both.
-One of my favorite moments is Scully making the crack about "Spooky" Mulder and then looking sulky when CSM doesn't laugh.
-I swear I can actually identify individual Vancouver trees at this point, from excessive repeated exposure.
-This episode was filmed/set in 1992 and aired in 1993, which means that there are surely quite a number of people in fandom who were born after The X-Files premiered. o.O
-In conclusion:
<3
(Not cross-posted because I figured I should find something to post to DW for the fest!)
Oh, the pilot. I have great fondness for this episode, even though it isn't all that good.
A refresher: Scully, a doctor who has been with the FBI for two years at this point, gets called in to a meeting with a bunch of grumpy old white dude supervisor-types (the grumpiest of whom is smoking a cigarette - dun dun dun!). She's assigned to work with Fox Mulder, psychologist, successful profiler and general weirdo, on his pet project, investigating unexplained phenomena. She asks if they want her to debunk the X-Files project; they say they trust she'll make the proper scientific analysis. She does; they go on to regret having said that for the next nine years.
The case is pretty forgettable: members of the same high school class keep ending up dead in the woods with strange marks on their backs and no obvious cause of death. The sheriff's not-so-comatose son turns out to be responsible, acting, he says, on orders from aliens. There are ominous nosebleeds and implants in people's sinus cavities, Scully does her first autopsy of the series, and (almost) all their evidence is destroyed in a fire.
Something I notice now that I wouldn't have noticed then: all the victims we see are girls, and we see them primarily in nightgowns/underwear, dead, afraid, or running for their lives. The two girls with speaking parts are both very childlike: Peggy doting on Billy after her accident, and Theresa, who must be about 21, seeming to be completely under her father's control. There's almost a horror-movie morality to it: they were out in the woods with boys after high school graduation and Bad Things happened to them.
We also see two very patriarchal groups: the men in Oregon (where protecting the sheriff's son seems to take precedence over protecting the medical examiner's daughter), and the high-level bureaucrats at the FBI. Both represent a nexus of power, but it's clearly power that's being misused and causing harm to people, and our heroes set out to undermine that.
What I love about this episode (and the series) is Scully, and the dynamic between Scully and Mulder. He's got the angsty backstory and the crusade, but it's clear in this episode that he's SO eager to believe that he doesn't always question what he should. I think it's easy to describe their dynamic as skeptic and believer where he is right and she is wrong, but it's Scully's insistence that there are real answers to find that gets them somewhere. Maybe it was aliens, but if they hadn't looked harder, they wouldn't have found out about Billy, and Theresa probably would have died.
And Scully is the POV character: we follow her primarily throughout the episode and see things through her eyes. She's also many flavors of awesome - she has confidence in herself and her abilities. She's not intimidated by her bosses, and she's definitely not intimidated by Mulder. ("That's pretty good, Scully."/"Better than you expected, or better than you hoped?") When snarked at, she snarks back, and when pissed off, she's not shy about it. ("Dammit, Mulder, cut the crap.") And I love, love, love the ending.
Section Chief Blevins: What we've just witnessed, what we've read in your field reports, the scientific basis and credibility just seem wholly unsupportable, you're aware of that?
Scully: Yes, sir. My reports are personal and subjective. I don't think I've gone so far as to draw any conclusion about what happened or what I've seen.
Blevins: Or haven't seen, as seems to be the case. This, uh... time loss. You did or did not experience it?
Scully: I can't substantiate it, no.
Blevins: What exactly can you substantiate, Agent Scully? I see no evidence that justifies the legitimacy of these investigations.
Scully: There were, of course, crimes committed.
Blevins: Yes, but how do you prosecute a case like this? With testimony given under hypnosis by a boy who claims that he was given orders from some alien force through an implant in his nose? You have no physical evidence.
Scully: This is the object described by Billy Miles as a communication device. I removed it from the exhumed body. I kept it in my pocket. It was the only piece of evidence not destroyed in the fire. I ran a lab test on it. The material could not be identified.
She sits there and lets Blevins chew her out, and then casually pulls the implant out of her pocket, presents them with irrefutable evidence, and walks out on a fuck-you-very-much note.
It's a positive sign of things to come. *g*
Favorite quotes and other trivia:
-"Sorry, nobody down here but the FBI's most unwanted."
-"So who did you tick off to get stuck with this detail, Scully?"
"Actually, I'm looking forward to working with you. I've heard a lot about you."
"Oh really? I was under the impression that you were sent to spy on me."
-"The answers are there. You just need to know where to look."
"That's why they put the I in FBI."
-Slideshows! Sunflower seeds! Mulder and Scully in glasses! The "I WANT TO BELIEVE" poster!
-Oh, Scully's outfits. /o\ I can't decide if that's early 90's fashion, or if they were just too cheap to find clothes that actually fit her for the pilot. Maybe a bit of both.
-One of my favorite moments is Scully making the crack about "Spooky" Mulder and then looking sulky when CSM doesn't laugh.
-I swear I can actually identify individual Vancouver trees at this point, from excessive repeated exposure.
-This episode was filmed/set in 1992 and aired in 1993, which means that there are surely quite a number of people in fandom who were born after The X-Files premiered. o.O
-In conclusion:
<3
(Not cross-posted because I figured I should find something to post to DW for the fest!)