Missing the X-Ship

Closing scene from "The Unnatural"

I've been reading reviews and recap analyses of The X-Files season 10 and for the most part I reflexively avoid commentaries by "shippers", fans who obsess about the relationship between Mulder and Scully. However, I found myself in shipper territory when I read this.

"two people with that kind of history"

X-Ship: mostly empty

I'm one of the people who see the X-Ship as mostly empty. Yes, there have been times (example, at the end) when Dana and Fox were cute together, but more often than not they were portrayed as bickering co-workers, not lovers.

The Big Gap

S10E5

Ya, so we did not get to see the years immediately after Mulder and Scully put their son William up for adoption. All we know is that Dana and Fox were no good together after they lost their gig with the FBI. In season 10, we were force fed a scene in which Mulder lamented wasting so much of his life on bogus rumors and lies. But Mulder and Scully were back in the FBI and the X-Ship was on a new cruise of the Love Boat, so it was time for Fox to pull out of his depresion.

"Mulder and Scully didn’t exactly behave like they were estranged."

Hanky Panky

We did not need to see the point in their relationship where Dr. Scully got tired of periodically paying the "obscenely overdue triple-X bill" for the unemployed Mulder.

And we did not need to see a paranormal-deprived and depressed Mulder tell Scully to get back to her nunnery. What else would she do except "God's work" at the hospital?

Mulder's flame

Did I Miss Something?
"unlike the tension of the original series, which was compelling and sexy, this tension feels soured and rotten"

No, I don't think so. There was always something rotten on the good ship X-Shipper. Shippers were able to imagine all kinds of Fox/Dana steam and violins off stage during the original run of The X-Files. That all had to be imagined because it was not in the scripts.

Mirror, Mirror

reminder of the past: another doomed ship?

I think Chris Carter did a great job of encapsulating the whole Fox-Dana dynamic in episode 5. Shippers were besides themselves from being forced to watch the Mulder-Einstein and Scully-Miller pairings.

Through the original series and into "My Struggle II", we saw Scully transformed into someone who is now primed and ready to recognize a conspiracy and take action to fight it. Mulder's transformation was completed in "Babylon", with Fox now having experienced enough paranormal phenomena to bring him to the point of discussing God and position him in life where he is ready to believe in some spiritual "woo".

Scully's anti-flame: Waterston

Miller and Einstein were the perfect reminder of where Fox and Dana started out so long ago, of how far apart they once were in their thinking. The youthful tension that animated the Fox-Dana team is long gone, but it has been replaced by something more weighty. That's never going to satisfy shipper dreams any more than Chris Carter's anti-science tease is ever going to satisfy me.

Previously on The X-Files:

Dec. 29: anticipating new X
Jan. 24: pre-season 10 expectations
Jan. 25: reaction to 'My Struggle I'
'Founder's Mutation'
Jan. 31: waiting for the Were-monster
reaction to 'Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster'
Feb. 10: 'Home Again'
Feb. 16: reaction to 'Babylon'
Feb. 23: the miniseries finale
Feb. 28: on to season 11

CGI agents Data Nully and Fax Modem

ReBoot
In 1995, the animated television show Reboot had an episode featuring CGI agents Nully and Fax.

Monster of the Week. Nully andFax help hunt for a Web Creature. Watch out! Residents of the Net must take care; the vampire-like Web Creatures can suck out your code!

Next: investigating socially-unacceptable behavior in Deep Time

visit the Gallery of Posters

 

Rebooting Hollywood Profits

To boldly repetitively go where the ca$h will flow.

"...all the big action battles, chases, fight scenes, all that stuff would never have any meaning..." ...that just about sums it up for me.

The original Star Trek series had to have miniskirts and frequent fist fights or even occasional sword fights in order to satisfy the Hollywood money juggler$. However, in the Star Trek fictional universe humans have done away with primitive cultural artifacts like money.

Mr. Abram$ reboot$ the $tar Trek ca$h-o-matic franchi$e back into the 20th century where mindle$$ $ummer action flick$ can $till bring in the buck$.

Dr. Marcus goes undercover with Kirk on Orion

John's Summer Fantasy
J. J. could have taken us into the future and done something novel like put Spock in command of the Enterprise.

.....when Kirk gets demoted, Pike orders Spock to sell Kirk into slavery on Orion as part of a spy mission. To Kirk's surprise, there are other human slaves there, including Carol Marcus, who is in pursuit of the advanced biological knowledge of the Orions.....

Silly me
But seriously, did anyone mention to Abram$ that he was making a Star Trek movie, not a Star Wars flick? Abram$ made a Hollywood action flick using some old characters with familiar names, "an adventure that is a little bit more speedy, a little bit more action adventure, a little bit more intense" and that does nothing interesting in -or to inspire us about- the future.

And: a little bit more action than what? Last summer's no-brain action movie, some other blur of explosions that has already been forgotten?

 

Oh, and one more thing....

Kaaaaaaaaahn!

Search for Interesting Aliens

...oh joy, more Klingons...

Think of all the interesting characters and aliens that Gene Roddenberry brought to the screen. Imagine a reboot that showed us some backstory for Flint during his last visit to Earth before returning to Holberg 917-G.

Or show that the aliens of planet Exo III actually did have space travel and tell us where they went and how they interacted with the Federation.

On second thought, it is probably for the best that Abram$ defiled Kahn and only trotted out Klingons, aliens who I don't care about anyhow. Still, I did let myself have hope.

Flint and Rayna I visit Earth

It is easy for me to imagine Flint as an Interventionist agent on Earth. Some mysterious aliens from planet Exo III have been secretly living on Earth for millions of years. Flint is their human agent who the aliens have given extended life and a robotic assistant, Rayna. If you must involve the Klingons, have Flint's mission be to channel from the aliens to Star Fleet just enough technology so that the Klingons can be handled by the Federation.

2013 SIHA Awards
The 2013 search for interesting aliens in Hollywood has been abandoned. I'm giving my award for "interesting alien" to Wanderer, in The Host. I'm amazed on each occasion when the folks in Hollywood make a movie about aliens who arrive on Earth and do something other than mindlessly go to war or try to blow everything up.

Before the Golden Age; 1924.

Reruns: 2012 SIHA Awards
Timewarp: 2014 SIHA Award
SIHA 2015
2016 SIHA
____________________
September 15, 2013
"Screw science, this is Hollywood"
My kids are watching Into Darkness and I just heard mention of stopping a volcano with cold fusion. That might be funny if it was not in the middle of everyone shouting and trying to generate drama.

Also:

I hope James Doohan can rest in peace.