X-Files

[Beaubier]

Did anyone watch the premiere?

I liked that the mythos storyline is finally continuing but I’m not sure how I feel about the execution. I did not like CSM’s revelation about William and I hope he’s lying.

[JBatmanFan05]

I liked it.

CSM was especially fun in it. I'm pro-Trump and liked how Carter cleverly couched CSM's endgame into the current perception of Trump era. His name was confirmed, C.G.B. Spender = a partial lie, his real name is simply "Carl Gerhardt Bush." Germanic (I suspect) and probably more what Carter was aiming for, this (much used) suggestion that CSM is comparable to the Nazis or his family had some strong or weak ties to long ago German politics or thinking. You can tell Carter wants to imbue CSM with shades of Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip where Nazi scientists were recruited after the war by the US to do military industrial complex work. Spielberg did the very same thing with cold amoral CIA Agent Hoffman (Scott Shepherd) in Bridge of Spies who was working for the CIA in the US thanks to "german extraction."

I don't mind the William/CSM thing so much considering I didn't care for the Mulder parentage thing already and thus have long come to accept that CSM and fathering everyone's children in the US is just a big thing in this show. This evil father/good son "sins of the father" genetic predestination exploration and dynamic. I'm not sure the show will let the revelation stand anyway, but no biggie for me if it does. Bio father only matters so much. Twin Peaks had a similar parentage surprise and it wasn't a big deal, where you thought less of the characters or doubted the real father/child connection.

EDIT: edited part on CSM's name

[Beaubier]

William B Davis is always a delight to watch as the CSM and you can tell that he has a lot of fun in the role. I’m surprised that Reyes is hanging out with him and am curious how that’s going to work out long term.

I found the CSM/Scully thing to be creepy and gross in more than the standard X-Files way so that’s my main issue of it.

[Carabas]

...this suggestion that CSM is somewhat comparable to the Nazis or his family had some strong or weak ties to long ago German politics or thinking. You can tell Carter wants to imbue CSM with shades of Wernher von Braun and Operation Paperclip where Nazi scientists were recruited after the war by the US to do military industrial complex work.

What suggestion? It's been canon since season 3 back in 1995 that CSM has worked with Nazis on Operation Paperclip.

[JBatmanFan05]

What suggestion? It's been canon since season 3 back in 1995 that CSM has worked with Nazis on Operation Paperclip.

Hah! I forgot about that reference, can't remember them all. But my precise point is that whether he worked in canon with O.Paperclip Nazis or not, his vaguely germanic background seems clearly inspired by the real thing, the real practice of the US (and USSR) to hire former enemies and seditious/subversive or shady types* for research and black ops. (which is not so different from the practice of govts and companies to hire caught hackers)

*And if Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man (which I love) is correct or in the ballpark of the truth, he was perhaps targeted for recruitment because of his father's perceived seditious/subversive shades.

[BeastieRunner]

William B Davis is always a delight to watch as the CSM and you can tell that he has a lot of fun in the role. I’m surprised that Reyes is hanging out with him and am curious how that’s going to work out long term.

I found the CSM/Scully thing to be creepy and gross in more than the standard X-Files way so that’s my main issue of it.

I thought that William came to her via abduction shenanigans?

So CSM using doctors or aliens to impregnate her was no stretch to me.

Still creepy!

[LoganAlpha30X33]

This whole thing reminds me of that Gwen Stacy piece of crap storyline where she had kids with Norman Osborn before he killed her...

[BeastieRunner]

This whole thing reminds me of that Gwen Stacy piece of crap storyline where she had kids with Norman Osborn before he killed her...

They had kids!? I thought he just slept with her?

[Carabas]

This whole thing reminds me of that Gwen Stacy piece of crap storyline where she had kids with Norman Osborn before he killed her...

Hey, that at least was 100% consensual. Not even on the same continent as this.

[LoganAlpha30X33]

Well yeah but it was still a creepy storyline, yeah Beastie Gwen had twins that she had before she died, they got artificially aged up and the daughter looked exactly like Gwen and they were used to really mess Peter up when they showed up...

[Ilan Preskovsky]

I thought this was pretty bad - if, at least, nowhere near as bad as last season's terrible finale. I really wish Chris Carter would leave the writing and directing to others. He clearly runs a brilliant writing room but he was never the best writer/ director during the show's peak years and he has only gotten worse as time went on.

I rewatched the entire series not too long ago and it really does hold up - hell, I even like the mythology through most of its run - but even if it's great to see Mulder, Scully, Skinner and Smoking Man again - and they all somehow look more comfortably like themselves than last season (don't ask me how the hell this works), the episode itself mostly fell between being dull and headbashingly stupid. I hate the idea that CSM is William's father and, for all of his general shadowiness, I don't buy into the idea that he would actively be trying to destroy 90% of humanity. He's always been a bad dude but at least you could understand where he was coming from. This is both super unoriginal and dumb(the only way to save humanity from global warming is to kill most of us - really?).

I'm still down for the rest of the series but, man, I can't believe that loads of people have been turned off from this supremely subpar opener.

[SUPERECWFAN1]

The best episodes is where X-Files does monsters , horror and sci-fi single episodes. Its like the show disappears up its own ass repeatedly in these dumb mythos stories Carter loves to do. Its not 1995 , I give 2 craps if Mulder's son or Scully's had became a super human. I saw the previews of Mulder in a Sasquatch costume and him discussing alternate universes and thought , yeah this will be fun !

Instead we got Carter doing this. Least I can avoid the next episode.

[JBatmanFan05]

More on CSM's name...per Chris Carter, it's apparently "Carl Gerhardt Bush" (I think this spelling may be correct) and "Spender" was an "assumed name or taken name." Thus Fox and Jeffrey aren't really Spenders. They should have been Bushes (how's that for irony?).

Thus the long known "C.G.B. Spender" was half wrong, C.G.B. was correct, Spender was a lie. Even Cassandra Spender was lied to about his last name.


Fun fact: Carl Gerhardt Bush was the grandfather of Christopher Carl Carter

https://www.cinemablend.com/televisi...te-smoking-man

[Beaubier]

In an interview with EW, series creator Chris Carter said this has been the plan for William all along. "Yes. But, of course, if The X-Files never came back, we would have never gotten to explore it," Carter said. The Smoking Man isn't the biological father per say. "He's the figurative father if he's not the actual father. He didn't rape Scully. He impregnated her with science," Carter said.

https://www.google.com/amp/m.eonline...ong-apparently. Interesting interview bits.

Rumor is that the story isn’t going to be wrapped up this season. But rumor also is that Gillian Anderson won’t be returning. IMO, without Mulder & Scully there is no X-Files. The original run went downhill so fast when it switched to Doggett & Reyes. No thanks if that’s the case.

[JBatmanFan05]

But rumor also is that Gillian Anderson won’t be returning. IMO, without Mulder & Scully there is no X-Files. The original run went downhill so fast when it switched to Doggett & Reyes. No thanks if that’s the case.

Yea, Gillian might succeed in really icing the show's future, ending it. Carter seems uninterested in going forward without her. I think you could maybe do a few last episodes of Mulder/Jeffrey/William vs CSM and etc, but that's it without Scully.

The positive is that Gillian is mostly citing scheduling as her issue. And scheduling can always change and free up. If she strikes a period where she's not getting roles or ones she likes, that would seem to work in X-Files favor as far as a possible return.