I AM A DORK

[lirazel]

So I'm just bopping along, minding my own business, watching The X-Files as I am wont to do these days (blame FMM, no duh!), and all of a sudden I had to pause it and run here and flail because A) I needed to get it out of my system, and B) y'all are the only people I know who might possibly not think I'm crazy for this level of excitement.

BUT OMG A VERY YOUNG MARK A. SHEPPARD IS IN THIS EPISODE AND HE IS SETTING PEOPLE ON FIRE WITH HIS MIND OR SOMETHING I DON'T EVEN KNOW.

People, you do not even know the depth of my love for this man. Like, he's tied with J.K. Simmons as my current favorite character actor (and Anna Maxwell-Martin, too, though she's been in less stuff and sometimes has leading-ish roles and such).

And I couldn't even decide what icon to use, he's been on so many of my shows! BSG? Firefly? Heck, he's been on Supernatural, and it's a good thing I don't have a Leverage icon (which, by the way, why don't I have an icon of Parker and Hardison? I mean, I kind of haven't watched the show at all this season, but WHO CARES. I still love them liek woah). I went with the Gaius/Six one because Gaius is awesome. And played by a British man. Yes.

Okay.

Now I'm going to...go watch the episode.

Comments

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

I kind of love the idea of playing, "Hey! It's that guy!" It makes me happy.

My advice is to invest in the relationships and not in the plot, because to expect it to resolve coherently in the end leads to madness.


I guess I just need it not to be the sitcom reset thing. I need to watch the characters change and grow, otherwise I get bored. That's usually tied to more of an arc, at least as far as I've seen.

[molly_may]

Hmmm. There's no sitcom reset, the characters do change and grow. But. Scully is always going to believe that there's a rational, scientific explanation for something, and Mulder will always go for the paranormal explanation, and he will almost always be right. Somehow, the show manages to do this without Scully ever seeming dumb, maybe because she often gets to be right in the course of the investigation, or maybe because Gillian Anderson is just that good, but it doesn't matter how many wacky, unexplainable things Scully sees, it will be years and years before she accepts any kind of paranormal explanation. To me, that was the biggest mistake in the growth of the characters.

The X-Files was one of the first shows to really do a giant myth arc. It is the precursor to the Whedon shows, Veronica Mars, Lost, BSG, pretty much every sci-fi show of the past decade. And because of that, it makes A LOT of mistakes when it comes to the arc. Mistakes that the later shows learned from. You know how there's so many people out there who hate Joss Whedon and think he fucked over his shows (and I'm not even talking about the comics here, but the shows)? Well, I thought Joss was the most amazing showrunner ever because I had come from XF fandom and was used to Chris Carter. Joss is a master of continuity in comparison.

Heee, I don't want my lengthy comments to dissuade you from watching, I just think it's best to keep your expectations in check. It is simultaneously one of my favorite shows ever and the one that caused me the most bitterness over failed expectations.