I've just realised something: I bet Duchovny made it part of his contract that he have a decent fight scene. The sheer number of times we've seen stuff ruined by love/sex/romance/fights that were included cos a powerful star decided he wasn't fighting and shagging enough…

She consulted on The Erlenmeyer Flask back in season 1

What's interesting here is that the story idea came from someone who worked on The X-Files in season 1!

Scully looking up at a UFO! http://toast-hosting.co.uk/…

You're remembering The Red and the Black, which is part of my favourite mythology 2-parter: Patient X, where we meet Cassandra Spender.

But that scene was true to the story and added to the drama. It was exactly two titans clashing, one who didn't want the other to know what he knew, the other determined to get it.

She conveniently passed out several times while the thing took off; they showed her eyes going up into her head then closing, to make sure we really *really* knew she didn't see it. TBH it was believable given that she'd just been woken up from a coma inside a block of ice

See I'm moving over to the view that Carter simply took previous story points and sprinkled them in, whether or not they made sense.

Noel Rohrer should've starred in The Rural Juror.

It was all imaginary. Whenever one of the syndicate said "and now we can continue with our work", it was actually CSM putting on a squeaky voice while holding a Barbie doll in one hand and another Barbie doll in the other.

I like how you say "horrific fire" when you mean "being blown up by 3 Tomahawk missiles fired approximately 50 metres away".

The one scene I really liked in episode 1 was right at the start - black helicopters chasing the UFO. It actually looked dramatic and made me think something good was gonna happen.

A number of people have said that the mythology episodes should've been spread as one story over the full 6 episodes.

They did a whole thing about smallpox vaccines in season 2 and then 3/4 - but they did it a lot better, cos the purpose was to catalogue the population by inserting unique protein makers when they gave the smallpox vaccination. The whole thing was great because it was credible - everyone received a smallpox injection,…

Anyone else notice how Mulder's recap at the beginning of episode one had him saying "my name is Fox Mulder", but Scully's recap had her saying "my name is Dana Katherine Scully"?

The worst thing was, it happened for self-referential reasons: Tad O'Exposition said that the reason the plans were being accelerated was because of all the stuff he had been broadcasting 6 weeks ago. In other words, Mulder & Scully are the reason the world is being destroyed!

I think he *was* awesome, but they've even changed *his* character so much in this episode. The CSM from original X-Files had some obvious human frailties, but this one is just Pure Evil.

My worry is that this cliff-hanger was done the same way as the Season 7 cliff-hanger. When it was written that Mulder would get abducted by aliens, they didn't know if the series would be renewed for an 8th season.

Actually that list does have numerous examples of Carter's problem with drama. In Herrenvolk, he walks for 10 miles with a cloned hybrid, but only once he's finished the walk, and then seen the clones of his sister, does he demand that Jeremiah Smith "explain it to me NOW' - just as the alien bounty hunter finds them.…

I generally agree with your views on Carter's previous writing - but where I'd take issue is with episodes like Requiem. That was a perfect example of how stuff was just thrown out there with no foundation, new explanations came from nowhere, there was no mystery, just show AND tell.