Shark Bytes

X-Files was one of the great shows of all time, fascinating, thought provoking, addictive and gripping. Was being the operative word. X-Files seemed to have be born out of the groundwork laid by Twin Peaks, as a series. It should have finished on the 5th season, and not been a movie. There were still some 1st rate episodes to follow, in the 6th, and arguably some merely good ones later, but not many. Not all of season 5 was perfect, nor 4. But the misfires were single dips, rather than blocks of subpar episodes. The movie was the blatant dividing line, between "classic" and what came later. Other points are valid, Vancouver to LA, Scully becames the Armani girl, a particularly infuriating episode, but the seasons before and after the movie are like oil and water. The first real significant low point though, was A Christmas Carol, in season 5. The introduction of "Scully's daughter" did not bode well for the future of the series as a whole. From there a slide into maudlin territory was on the cards. The achilles heel of X-Files was the "great government conspiracy" trans-season arcs. They were intriguing at first, but became tiresome around season 5, with Patient X, R&B etc. From the movie on, it all became tedious, overly earnest, muddled and contrived. Originally the conspiracy/alien story was rooted in actual conspiracy theories, revolving around single issues, that were not really connected. Carter and the writers however, seemed to keep linking everything together, with threads that didn't really amount to much- killer bees, black oil, bounty hunters, clones. On their own, these ideas were fine. But Carter admitted that he did not keep track of the plots, and was obviously just winging it, making up "significant" twists, as they went along. The "conspiracy" arcs jumped before the stand alones, and ceased being fascinating. By the time it reached 6th Extinction etc, it became contrived, and pointless. The "stand alones" lasted longer, perhaps another season or 2, into the 6th and 7th, with some good ones, but real clunkers turned up in numbers. The Unnatural and How the Ghosts stole xmas were really bad. Triangle was truly woeful. But the good outweighed the bad, in season 6, despite the jump of the movie. Season 7 saw a whole slew of cring inducing stories- Milennium, X-Cops, Hollywood AD, Closure, First Person Shooter etc. The introduction of Doggett wasn't a bad move. It was a breath of freash air, in the otherwise stale Mulder 'n Scully soapopera. But the writing had taken a downturn with the standard of stand alones, and the "conspiracy" episodes were just worthless. Carter got carried away with the perceived "importance" of the show, and continued to attempt to "up the ante" in "significant developments", plus return to odd icons of the past, that really were better left a mystery. The show walked a fine line between possible and highly improbable. By injecting Mulder and Scully into grander scenarios, the suspension of disbelief was broken. It should have quit after season 5, or stuck to the classic format of stories, and drama. The love thing between Mulder and Scully should never have been covered, beyong unspoken feelings. I preferred the early semi-emnity, and distrust. It is a damn shame. X-Files was compulsory TV, and warranted repeat viewings, to take in all the nuances of story, character and direction. But the show was bludgeoned by it's creators. The good of the classic seasons is now marred by the dreary post movie period. If X-Files had called it quits, while on top, it may have been the best show ever aired.

best episodes-

Drive
Monday
Bad Blood
Detour
Folie a Deux
Travellers
Paper Hearts
Small Potatoes
Jose Chung's FOS
Pusher
Clyde Bruckman's Final repose
Hell Money
Blessing Way
Anasazi
Excelsius Dei
Humbug
Beyond The Sea
Darkness Falls
Squeeze

I surprised myself by, after being with the X-Files from the beginning, actually liking the Agent Doggett character and those episodes. I agree that it gave new life to the series in that he was a different kind of agent, more like a regular man or a cop than Mulder. I never would have thought that I would feel that way because early on I was crazy about the Mulder character, but I gotta say I didn't really miss him or Scully when they weren't there.

I have always loved X-Files and always will. It is my favorite show and favorite actors of all times. I still watch the repeats and WILL go to see the new movie.So do my kids. And I'm no kid. I'm a 64 yr old Grama.I have a crush on CSM,also!

I think that the Mulder & Scully stuff got too old and it started to get hard to care for them. I started to hate seeing Mulder & Scully all the time in the 5th season and stopped watching in the 6th season.
I started to watch again in the 8th season when a heard about Robert Patrick replacing Duchovny.

I like Robert Patrick's John Doggett. He was like a real G-man and a better person than Fox Mulder. To me, John Doggett was like Joe Friday or Eliot Ness and Fox Mulder was like an dumb oddball lazy old man who loved porn trapped in a younger man's body.

But the sad thing for me was that Scully remain on the show and that her character had become a dry-toast bi#%#ing who always was crying about "the government coming for my Baby" and "wheres Mulder". A main character having a baby in the last seasons should be number one in proof of a character which has jump the shark.

Monica Reyes was like John Doggett's Frank Canon. Doggett and Reyes were true to the show's plot of FBI agents looking into paranormal cases.

The show in the 8th and 9th seasons needed to move away from Mulder & Scully more and focus more Doggett & Reyes only.

The show was called The X-files and not the Mulder & Scully hour.

The X-Files would have been like Law and Order. Law and Order has new people join the force and old ones to leave all the time.

It was natural for new agents to join the X-Files Department and old ones to leave.

The X-Files would still be on if people were not so hung up on Mulder & Scully.

The super soldiers arc was true to the X-files conspiracy mythology. The super soldiers arc hit on real conspiracies like MKULTRA, U.S. Government secret Human genetic engineering projects and Hitler's Uber-men project.
I know people will say "if the Government had super soldiers, They would be fighting in Iraq." but you have to think of it like this: To the Government The super soldiers are special and cost money, but normal people are not. See this fits into The X-Files' world of Dark Evil Shadow Government.

The X-files never jump the shark.

The Mulder & Scully characters did jump the shark.

ok i was only like 1 when the series started but my dad got them all on dvd last year and i watched them all. I love the show but once mulder got abducted it was just a bit meh. And that whole thing with samantha in closure was rubbish wtf was with the ghosty things?? And i dont believe that scully would be such a sceptic then just because mulder got abducted she'd suddenly become a believer in everything. Plus the baby thing was crap. And all through the first 7 serieses i was rooting for mulder and scully, but when they finally got together i lost interest. Hated it when the lone gunmen died, was gutted when krycek was killed he was an awesome character. And the final episode was quite boring really.
Still gonna see the film as long as its not too like romantic between Mulder and Scully cos they were pretty awesome together when they were just friends.
All through there were some lame episodes like the one about csm

Jumped with the Brady Bunch episode.

Jumped with the development of the romance between Mulder and Scully. I always believed that prior to that, Scully would turn out to be Mulder's long lost sister. The introduction of a cloned sister ended that idea, but until then, I'm sure that was the original plan. Of course, they might have changed it because it might have seemed too obvious, but the romance angle was just as bad a move, and was obviously done at the behest of a certain segment of viewers.

That, and some of the episodes were just a little too far fetched even for X-Files.

The conspiracy was cool, as were some of the stand-alones. Although I can't think of any titles, some of my favorites include the one with the family of incest perpetrators, and the one with the mutant human flukeworm resulting from the ingestion of human DNA from fecal matter contaminated by radioactivity from Chernobyl.

That one was a brilliant take-off on old Marvel comic book hero-villain origins.

Embracing the silliness of UFO's, cryptozoology, and alien abductions is one thing. However, the episode where the show's main villian is revealed as the man who assasinated John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King was awful and totally trivialized two of the darkest days in American history. It also served to imply that Lee Harvey Oswald and James Earl Ray were innocent men rather than the cold blooded killers they were.

OMG! Where to begin.............

Mulder leaving, pissed me the hell off, and David Duchovny has forever been sucking because of his massive ego that he would actually think that he would become this major star when he left the show that MADE him a star! I have lost all respect for him, but tolerated his (multiple) returns during the 8th and 9th seasons! Plus, the series finale.

I don't particular;y care for Tea Leoni either........

The Lone Gunman dying, literally "jumped the shark", that's what that episode was CALLED!!!

Robert Patrick is cool, I just didn't care for his character, and I just stopped watching altogether.

Annabeth Gish -- BLAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I didn't care much for Mimi Rodgers' character either, nor did I buy that she and Mulder had some sort of affair...never bought that, never will.........

I loved the first 7 seasons of this show, never recovered when David left.

The first movie kinda sucked cuz Mulder & Scully neither kissed nor had hot sex. Hopefully they will in the new movie.

Moving to LA was a stupid move also because Tea probably pushed for that to happen and David bowed down like the lapdog he was.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Have to agree with the last comment--even at it's worst it was a 100X better then the crap that passes for TV today. Loved the stand alones, loved the conspiracy, loved the comedies, loved the characters. It had it's ups and downs throughout the years but I don't think it ever jumped.

This show jumped the shark when Scully had intercourse with a Sasquatch. That episode was ultimately banned from TV all together, if I'm not mistaken.

X-files jumped when Mulder left the show!
Case Closed!!

Bunch of different choices, but I'll stick with just two.

Closure, yeah, it was nice I suppose to give closure to the whole plotline with his sister, but the fact that it contradicted everything that had been said or hinted about his sister up to that point was just sloppy writing.

First Person Shooter was the other episode, the one that I think is the actual point the show jumped. The only episode that was so bad I wasn't able to watch the whole thing.

How is this on the "never jumped" hall of fame when the number one shark jump reason is the departure of Mulder?

For me, The X-Files jumped the shark twice, with a one-year recovery in between. The first jump came after the movie and the move to L.A. The comedy/drama balance couldn't be maintained, the mythology fizzled out and Duchovny had one foot out the door. Plus, shooting in L.A. cost the show one of it's greatest assets - the gloomy gray skies of Vancouver.

I know I'm in the minority among X-philes, but I think Season 8 and John Doggett was a "de-jump" and gave the show an energy it had not had in years. Robert Patrick had great chemistry with Gillian Anderson and, after two seasons of a visibly bored David Duchovny, it was nice to see an actor with his heart in the work. Sure, Monica Reyes was a flake, but the Scully pregnancy arc, the ultimate return of Mulder and the stand-alones (best since Season 4) got me tuning in again every Sunday. The two-part finale (Mulder, Scully and baby together; Doggett and Reyes with the keys to the basement office) would have been a great point to end the series.

Unfortunately, Chris Carter pushed on to Season 9 and jumped the shark again. Maybe if Scully was gone and not doing glorified cameo work; maybe if a new mythology (super soldiers? really?) had not been attempted; and maybe if Doggett had been given a new partner (the naive Agent Harrison? Maybe another male agent? I still think Bruce Campbell would have been great as a regular), Carter's dream of "X-Files: The Next Generation" might have been realized. But the abbreviated season suffered from the worst scripts in the show's history and a finale that didn't do it justice.

Maybe the upcoming movie will bring us back to the glory days of Seasons 1 through 5, before things got out of hand and The X-Files was one of the coolest sci-fi/mystery series in TV history.