I tried to watch X-Files a few times the first season, found it bored me to tears.
Tried to watch another episode later in the run for a guest star, found it still very bad.
Started watching Buffy when FX started running reruns (around the time Season 6 started), loved it, became slightly obsessed with it, one of the few series I actually own the entire run of on DVD (along with Angel).
So in conclusion, Buffy - YAY, X-files - BOO
edited to add: I’d certainly want Buffy on my side in the event of zombies, not the X-Files people
I’ll have to cast my vote for Buffy, with the proviso that I’ve only seen about 50% of the x-files episodes. Question to those who say that the x-files had better stand-alone episodes… which ones? List me a couple x-files episodes you think are better than The Body, and I’ll watch them right now.
I’ve finally finished watching Buffy straight through on disc, and loved it, but I found X-files to be better written, better produced, and better acted. Buffy is good clean fun, but X-files was often engaging and dramatic in a way that Buffy never attempted to be. The X-files mytharc was a mess, sure, but the monster-of-the-week stuff was usually good and often great. In my opinion, the best episodes of Buffy (Hush, The Body, Once More With Feeling, etc.) just rose to the level of what X-files achieved consistently. The best X-files (Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, for one) are extraordinary.
That’s a matter of opinion, of course, because we are comparing an episodic gritty horror-drama to a more continuous and lighter comedy-fantasy.
Now if we are talking whole-series arc, Buffy wins. Buffy did a much better job of advancing a coherent story from one week to the next. The X-files mytharc was just frustrating. But X-files had a much clearer divide between mytharc episodes and the much more numerous monster-of-the-week episodes. In the MOTW episodes, the X-files writers were free to focus on the task at hand without having to service and advance multiple ongoing secondary characters and storylines. For example, Buffy wove numerous romances and relationships into the storyline while X-files kept the Mulder-Scully relationship as an undertone that rarely stole attention from the current crisis.
In retrospect, I would much rather watch a random X-file than an out-of-context Buffy episode. The two shows are different enough that it comes down to a matter of taste.
I liked them both, but I think X-files was the better show. It was fun, but also captured a lot of the zeitgeist of the US in the 90’s. Right-wing paranoia, the triumph of the technocrats and the “end of history”, UFO-mania, etc.
Buffy was basically just a vehicle for jokes. I had fun watching it while the sense of humor was fresh, and then stopped as it got old.
On the basis of this comment, I don’t believe you’ve watched a single episode of Buffy. There are jokes, true, but it’s hardly accurate to say the show was merely a “vehicle for jokes.”
Buffy. There’s not even the mildest hesitation for me, even though I hated what the show became and loathe Joss Whedon’s fake feminism and fail race issues and all his little worshiplet fans.
X-Files was an awful show with some good episodes. Buffy was a great show that ran off the rails. Even at its worst, Buffy was better than 90% of the X-Files.
Buffy. I loved the X-Files so much that I wrote a couple of fanfics on it and am still in an X-Files online community of a sort, and spent this summer with people I originally knew from Fox’s X-Files messageboard.
But I find it hard to rewatch. The standalone episodes are good, but the mytharc ones are just, well, boring, when you know that nothing ever comes of it. One of the major arcs was about Mulder finding his sister and that was resolved three times, none of them satisfactory. (Her being a spirit fairy thing after being abducted by a previously-unmentioned serial killer was the worst). Chris Carter killed the show he created.
Buffy I can watch again and again. There are flaws, but it works as a full story from season 1 to season 7, and every episode is at least good.
I know this is a zombie thread, but it’s hilarious that someone claimed the X-Files wasn’t a cult show by comparing it to Lord of the Rings, which is also apparently not in any way cult. And here is an apple, which I will prove is not a fruit by demonstrating to you that an orange is also not (the only) fruit.
X- Files. I only watched a handful of Buffy episodes but I agree with those who say it was more like a kid’s show. Every time I watched one, I came away with the feeling that I was not the target audience. Kind like the way I feel about comic books and anime - I know there is a contingent of adults out there who like such things, but to me they feel like kiddie entertainment.
And how are you all remembering the names of individual episodes? I was an X-Files fan and I continue to watch them on DVD but I wasn’t able to relate any of the episode names above with actual episodes without doing a google search on the name. Jose Chung’s From Outer Space? <google search> Oh that one… Charles Nelson Reilly. Not one of the better episodes.
Definitely X-Files. And I say that as someone who has both shows in his personal top ten.
What sets The X-Files apart is the outstanding direction and atmosphere. When these things are done at a high level, everything about a show is elevated. Episodes like Squeeze, Darkness Falls, and Detour are much more compelling due to this. Then you have the contrast between brutal episodes like Home and Our Town, with comedy/horror like War of the Coprophages, Jose Chung’s From Outer Space, and Bad Blood (the show was really brilliant at using comedy). The show was also amazing at creating highly memorable killers like John Lee Roche (Paper Hearts), Tooms (Squeeze, Tooms), Robert Modell (Pusher, Kitsunegari), and Boggs (Beyond the Sea). But enough with the name-dropping, a sample of episodes doesn’t give the true picture of what it was like to watch a show with sustained excellence in direction/atmosphere, combined with creative, often excellent writing and character creation. Even the much-maligned mytharc episodes were often very good.
Still, the finale of season 5, “The End”, is aptly titled. There were some good episodes after that, but it was never the same. The move from Vancouver to Los Angeles largely ruined the atmosphere of the show. At the same time the movie came out, and it wasn’t very good, pulling the show down.
I’m replying to my own post because nachtmusick mentioned the episode Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, which I consequently just found and watched. It’s just a matter of opinion of course, but I didn’t find it anywhere near as good as Buffy episode The Body, for example. In fact, I didn’t find it rising above being merely adequately entertaining.
Laura was a big X-Files fan - had signatures, hosted a monthly X-Files discussion group that met at Borders, and I liked it because Laura liked it. Asking her the title question last night, she answered that Buffy was the better show.
Overall, I think Buffy, at its height, was a better show that the X Files (though Jose Chung is still the best episode of both shows, hands down), and will probably be remembered for a longer time overall. However, and I know this isn’t a popular opinion, the silly mess that was seasons 8 and 9 of the X Files was not HALF as bad as the shit storm that was season 7 of Buffy. If we’re going to compare bad television, I don’t think ANYTHING has ever been as bad as season 7 of Buffy. There were entire blocks of episodes in which nothing happened. Characters stood joylessly in a living room for several hours worth of viewing. At one point, Andrew pulled out a camera and used his psychotic little imagination to pretend things were happening, and that was okay, but then, back to the standing around. Quick, bring in some annoying cardboard cutouts to liven up the living room! Back to standing! No one smile! Xander, fix the windows! And it went on and on and on, until I wanted to blow up my television. It was like an even more boring 20 hour miniseries of Twilight.
Compare with seasons 8 and 9 of the X Files, where stuff actually happened. It wasn’t especially good stuff, but at least it was happening! Doggett was a somewhat rounded character with motivations and backstory and a capable actor. He and Scully (and later Monica, but no one liked her) actually worked cases each week, and had adventures. They got lost in underground tunnels with lizard men. Burt Reynolds was God. Doggett almost chopped Scully into little pieces with an axe. Shit went down! And Doggett and Scully were full of angst, but were basically likable (until the whole thing fell apart with baby William). Can’t say the same of Buffy. I’d watch both seasons 8 and 9 of the X Files three times over before I’d even go near season 7 of Buffy.
You surely have no clue, boy. The best thing about Buffy was Andrew.
Buffy, no competition that show made me cry and made me laugh and sometimes it made me cry for so much laughing.
Plus the chicks were way more hot than the obnoxious redhead.
Buffy, absolutely. I loved X-files at first, but after a while, it was a whole lot of going nowhere fast. Buffy grew and changed as a show, as the characters did the same. X-files had great leads, but Buffy had a great ensemble cast. Nothing on X-files ever got the emotional reaction from me that Buffy did at its finest. X-files ended with a clip-show mess. Buffy ended with a powerful finale.
Buffy doesn’t even touch the X-Files. The pure genius and innovation of the show shaped television and changed it forever. Buffy is great when you’re a teenager, but the x-files developed the sort of intrigue style used in Buffy. Anyhow, BBC and experts agree with me. Of course, these are just opinions.
And here is an apple, which I will prove is not a fruit by demonstrating to you that an orange is also not (the only) fruit.