X-Files Title Sequence Question

Cafe Society
1

Twenty years ago, there was a popular Fox drama called the X-Files which dealt with two FBI agents investigating paranormal phenomena. It starred David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson and focused on their efforts to prove/debunk various mysterious happenings by flying out to some new location and investigating the monster/alien of the week.

The opening to the show was a series of spooky photos showing things like UFOs, the Loch Ness monster, ghosts, etc… Then, about halfway through the sequence, they have a quick montage of two seeds sprouting underground and starting to grow in a mirror-image type of way while the words “Paranormal Activity” or something floated above them. Is there something weird about seeds that I’m not aware of? Would two people walking through the woods really think “OMFG it’s Bigfoot AND THERE ARE A COUPLE OF LIMA BEANS SPROUTING NEXT TO HIM!!!”

Is there some paranormal behavior of beans that I’m not aware of?

2

The beans are not what they seem.

Oh, wait, that was Twin Peaks.

I wondered a little at the time, but just wrote it off as just looking spooky.

I was more annoyed that they didn’t get the Kirlian photography effect correct (if that’s what they were going for, with the red finger segment).

3

Heh. It looks kind of cool though, doesn’t it? And I’m not sure it’s less weird than a plasma globe, a hand where someone has coloured a phalanx in red, an eye, or video of sky played back too fast.

Despite the fact that it makes little sense, it’s one of my favourites, and I think it still ups my heart rate and adrenaline a little every time I see it. I’m sure I’m not the only one who, on seeing a scene (in anything) end with a character confronted by something scary and weird, followed by a fade to black (and ideally with a long scream), expects that particular title sequence to come next.

4

Chris Carter describes it as “two seeds germinating back-to-back”, so I guess that’s what it is.

5

I always interpreted it with two implications:

  1. There are two of them, which to me says they were cloned, or otherwise arrived at by experimentation.
  2. Seeds always grow into something else. So you have that idea of new life, growing, changing, etc.

and 1+2=3) Since all genetically modified organisms are inherently evil, slavering, man-eating monstrosities, you should be afraid.

6

I love that the OP feels the need to explain the premise of The X-Files, one of the most popular shows of the last 20 years, to a group of massive nerds like the SDMB.

7

The sad thing is there are now rather a lot of people who were born after it was cancelled (12 years) let alone debuted (21 years). To a lot of teenagers it is a show from the olden days.

8

I found that cute as well.

Tell me more about this…“X-files” you speak of. :smiley:

9

Heh, point taken.

Thanks everyone, I really thought there might be more to it than that but it seems like sometimes, a seed is just a seed.

10

Doesn’t ring a bell.

11

And yet they all looked like Vancouver.

Really? I thought they used every resident of Canada as an extra at one time or another.

12

No one calls me Fox. Not even my mother.

13

Not paranormal, no. But the first person to figure out how genetics worked was Gregor Mendel, who figured out how inheritance worked by breeding pea plants. Given that one of the major themes of the show was aliens conducting genetic experimentation on humans, it might be a reference to Mendel.

14

It’s sort of tongue in cheek. The show likes to poke fun of itself in different ways.