Here’s the situation: I missed a lot of network television over the years, but now that the kids are off to school and my mornings are open, the wife and I are interested in catching up.
We’ve been working through our DVD collection that we’ve splurged on, and we’re talking about going back to the shows we missed. Now, as a reader of science-fiction and fantasy, I’m cool with the pretext of “X-Files”, but the show ran nine seasons and I’m not certain if I want to invest all that time only to be disappointed at the end (where I understand things got really squirrelly, plot-wise).
So let me throw it open to the Dopers. Now that the buzz has faded from the show, is it worth watching? If not, are certain seasons worth it? And should I buy the DVD sets (which we’ve done for “Soap” and “Futurama”), or would it be better to rent them?
Well, up to about season 6 is pretty damn good IMO. But it falls off drastically after that and to be honest I know nothing of this season 9 you mention.
The first six seasons are excellent. (The sixth season is actually my favorite, I think.) After that, don’t bother. And by “don’t bother” I mean “run away, run away!”, or “close your eyes and pretend they never happened.”
Those first hundred episodes or so are really some damn fine television, though.
I would even include Season 7 among the good ones. But once the show was more about Doggett and Reyes (i.e., the junior varsity) and less about Mulder and Scully, it’s not really that exciting to watch.
I didn’t start watching it until the 8th season, so I have a fondness for the last two seasons a lot of fans don’t - but look up the phrase “X-Files dripper” on google, and you’ll see a lot of people do like Doggett and Reyes. I’d of watched a spin-off with them, but YMMV. Sure, the show lost some momentum by the end, but the worst X-files episode is better than a lot of crap still on TV today.
I think the full catalog is worth watching. I agree that the last 2 seasons were a bit fo a drop off, but they still manage to be compelling on occasion.
On the whole however, I think you should rent and not buy. Nothing against the show (its still one of my faves all time) but it just isn’t the type you’ll rewatch that much. The mystery is the thrill to me, once you know the outcome it loses a little of it’s edge.
IMHO, go Netflix and just queue up the entire damn thing and enjoy them all.
Ah, it’s the first DVD set I’ve bought. My husband’s more the DVD buyer/watcher in our family, but X-Files was the first thing that I wanted to buy to re-watch. If the Mythology episodes get old, I think the single-episode shows are still pretty good. I plan on aquiring most of the seasons. Can’t wait to get “Home” again!
I lost a lot of interest too when Mulder and Scully faded out in the end.
I’m also thinking of picking up Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Twin Peaks as time goes on. I missed Buffy the first time around, and thanks to the Dope Boards, I understand it’s better to see episodes of Buffy uncut. Good writing is so rare, I’d hate to miss some snappy dialogue.
Actually, from reading the Buffy thread, I’m now really looking forward to checking it out. I never thought I’d buy DVDs of TV shows, It’s nice to have something on hand to watch when one actually feels like watching TV, but there’s nothing on…
We started re-watching the series a few months ago - we’re half way through season 8 now. The quality does drop off after season 6, but there are enough good bits in the last seasons that we’re gonna finish it anyway.
When I first watched the series, the mythology was the most interesting part. Now that I know where the mythology plot is going, I find that I like the standalone episodes better.
Part of the problem was that “plot” episodes never actually went anywhere. Each and every fricking’ one of them basically ended up exactly where it began, and that gets annoying. Also, the giant conspiracy suffers from the same thing as any long-running conspiracy plot: it eventually gets so convoluted that it ceases to make even the remotest bit of sense.