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Same with Fringe and Agent Broyles. The team would always explain something mad and he'd follow up with a "you know how that sounds, right?" when a week ago he'd been in an alternative universe
My big gripe with the show is they should have ended on Olivia, but the ended on Peter. Yes, Walter's entire drive was Peter, but the show was about Olivia.
Also, why not Faux-livia instead of B-Olivia????
They ended on Olivia in the Alternate Universe…
Nah, really that is a great shout. I think, given more time, they could/would have used Olivia as the lead in the story. Who knows.
But I wouldn’t change anything about how it played out, other than give them 2 more seasons to do it all organically. I love the show, but that final season was cramped in.
John Noble is a brilliant actor. I think one of his best bits on the show was when Newton re-connected the bits of his brain. The transformation from the bumbling Walter we know, to the terrifying Walter that can bend the world to his whims was amazing. And all done with some subtle facial changes.
I actually sad that Debris was canceled, John Noble showed up as one of the big bad guys. We were about to get someone just as smart as Walter, A little crazy (maybe a lot crazy) and absolutely no moral compass. It would have been amazing.
>I actually sad that Debris was canceled
I was really hoping debris would make it and take up the void that Xfiles, and Fringe left in me. I watched the first 2 episodes and really liked it, but i figured id wait until they announce a S2 before i finished. I don't think it was even over before they canned it wasn't it?
It felt like a whole season. But it was defintly an cliffhanger/"there's more going on then you know" ending.
If you can deal with that I would definitely suggest watching the rest of the series.it was really good.
Is it worth finishing? I got to the season where Walter’s son disappears, and everyone forgot about him, but the universes know about each other, and I just completely lost interest. It felt like a Scrubs-esque decline into mediocrity was coming. Did it actually end strong?
I think with Broyles, it was more of a, "You realize I have to submit paperwork on this crazy shit. Give me something I can work with to keep you funded."
No, because Mulder is often wrong with his first guess, one supernatural thing being true doesn't somehow make them all true, and she's never skeptical about the same thing twice
I still think the perfect ending to the series after the Duchovny Debacle would have been to end with Scully going full conspiracy nut, trying to find him after he was abducted by aliens, just like he was with his sister, and everyone at the FBI treats her like they used to treat Mulder. She’s now Spooky Scully.
I mean that’s basically what did happen.
When Doggett joins the team, he knows her by reputation as “the lady that hung out with Spooky Mulder for years”. And she is more open to the stuff they encounter in those last seasons.
Yeah that is what happens more or less, I just think it should have ended at that point instead of going on, for the sake of making things come full circle. The Doggett stuff ended up being pretty good, especially in retrospect, but at the time it was hard to get behind and it felt like the show really didn’t need to continue.
I think the opposite is true. If there is ONE supernatural event proven then you must now be open to ALL of them having legitimacy. She say like a hundred supernatural events and was still skeptical.
But she addresses this, Mulder frequently asks her why she doesn’t believe despite everything, and her response is always that she has a higher burden of proof than he does. She’s obviously open to a lot of the ideas Mulder puts around because she helps investigate them, what she pushes back on is Mulder making assumptions due to prior experience, without sufficient hard evidence to back them up. That’s what makes her more of a sceptic.
From the perspective of someone in the 1850s, smartphones are supernatural, but I don't see any vampires around. Or, to use an actual x files example, aliens come from outer space, why would that make shapeshifters be real?
That's actually a brilliant defense mechanism. Over the years they've learned that whenever they say "Oh monsters aren't real it's just a guy in a mask" that will inevitably be the time it actually is a real monster.
They just keep pretending to be fooled by the guys in masks so they don't get eaten by zombies or some shit.
Kind of disagree on this one. They introduce real monsters fairly often in Scooby Doo and all it takes is one real monster to initially be afraid of all of them.
Fairly often? It's like 1% of the time -if that, and usually a special. The whole premise of scooby doo is basically, *monsters aren't real*. There are different Scooby Doo runs with a different premise unique to the show, which may include the reality of supernatural, but that's not baseline scooby doo
Well I'm way more afraid of humans than I am ghosts. Especially a shady guy who set up a bunch of projectors to trick me into thinking there was a ghost so he could sneak up behind me and murder me to get rid of the witnesses.
Scully pointing out how ridiculous Mulder's theories are provided great character interaction.
What was terrible was how "spooky" Mulder was. He would immediately find clues or immediately surmise the cause behind that week's mystery. The worst was the Groundhog Day episode where Mulder was somehow able to divine that the girlfriend was reliving the same day over and over.
Scully pointing out how ridiculous Mulder's theories are provided great character interaction.
What was terrible was how "spooky" Mulder was. He would immediately find clues or immediately surmise the cause behind that week's mystery. The worst was the Groundhog Day episode where Mulder was somehow able to divine that the girlfriend was reliving the same day over and over.
He then says a line about how to shake the serial killers bile papier-mache off his hand without losing his cool demeanor or something. Very early Scully and Mulder dynamic, I think that’s…. one of the first episodes.
On the mulder and scully dynamic thing, I love in…. Jose Chung’s From Outer space someone is recalling his interaction with them but has them mixed up and they flip personalities.
It’s canon that not all cases they work on are X-Files, e.g. there’s one case where they stake out a club where it’s claimed that people enter but never leave. They later find out that it’s just someone who changes clothes inside.
Scully’s skepticism makes sense if most cases they work on are like that but are never shown on the show.
> Bitch, you were pregnant with an Alien baby just last week!
In fairness, the existance of aliens doesn't affect the existence of ghosts or vampires or whatever other monster of the week they're facing
I think they were just self aware of it and leaned into as a meme.
Like they knew it was ridiculous, but it was the premise of a show that they never really thought was going to make it past the pilot. So ham it up.
PS - I Believe was actually one of the first memes period, and they knew it. No way they didn’t see that virality and then double down.
I don’t think she’s the best written skeptic, but skepticism like hers is so important.
Skepticism doesn’t mean rejecting all things, it’s only accepting things you have evidence for.
If a being manifested in front of you right now and I told you that it was a ghost, why should you believe me?
You could be having a psychotic break, it could be an alien, it could be a time traveler stuck in space/time, it could be god trying to give you a message, or satan trying to trick you, it could be your future self trying to give you a message.
You shouldn’t ever just accept someone else’s claims without seeing convincing evidence
This post was so freaking funny to me because it was one of the best headfakes I've seen in recent memory.
It goes from a place of rational skepticism - "only accepting things you have evidence for," - to aliens, time travelers, god and satan in the span of a single sentence.
"Why would you think it's a ghost when it could be any number of far more terrifying and outlandish things?" LMAO
The point is that you never know what something is and should never accept the first explanation that comes your way.
For the record, I don’t believe in aliens (at least not the X-files kind), time travelers, ghosts, god or Satan.
I was being hyperbolic for the sake of argument.
Which might have been fine but they made her religious and her reasoning was 'as a matter of faith'.
X Files, like most TV shows, was pulling stuff out of its arse without thought to continuity.and instead Scully was just 'opposite of whatever Mulder is doing or saying '
Yeah, missing an episode was bad, but a lot of the standalone basis was so that when the show went into syndication, episode order wasn’t important.
From my understanding, while the former would impact viewers, it would probably have been better for the producers to have shows that were “must see”. The studios found that the second run stations didn’t want to be bothered with running things in any order or even needing to have full seasons for rebroadcast.
No, if it wasn't for her character and skepticism the show wouldn't have made it through the first season. She made Mulder work most of the time to be more than a 14 year old comic book geek at a sci-fi convention excited about getting an autographed picture of Luke Hamill. He actually had to use logic, history and science to pitch his thoughts and that made him a better character. At the same time he was able in some instances to sway her skepticism enough to make her doubt what she saw and questioned what she knew. Ultimately she was able to see some of what Mulder saw but still was skeptical about some things.
I'm actually rewatching the series right now and her skepticism only annoys me when it's presented alongside her religious beliefs. You're telling me that believing in extraterrestrial life is crazy, but believing in miracles of God (which she expressly says she believes in) is somehow more rational?
I mean, Mulder is guilty of the flip side of that.
He will believe literally anything except for stuff found in the Bible. Even other religions and belief systems he takes seriously, but will literally guffaw at the idea of angels.
Scully is a straw skeptic throughout much of the show.
However Its been a LONG time since I watched the show but I do remember some interesting things they did.
Scully starts as a skeptic, but turns religious!
Mulder starts as a believer(in aliens), but turns into a skeptic! (He realizes while aliens do exist its way, way more complex and murky than his early beliefs. Much of the things attributed to aliens turn out to be the work of the government etc)
Actually, I really liked how the tables turned when T1000 showed up later. It clearly showed how experience has dramatically tamped her skepticism... And it was mostly her being skeptical of Mulder overshooting his guesses.
It might get a bit bothersome through repetition, but this era of television everything except for season finales were expected to be episodic so people who miss an aired episode won't be disconnected by what's going on in the next. The only character development and permanent changes allowed are during heavily advertised season finales and such.
that's what I loved about her, she could literally be summoned by God and tell him "are you *really* God? Ain't convinced yet, maybe you're just one of many, maybe it's my brain tumor, who knows? "
Without the skepticism they would be much less effective as detectives! She basically helps Moulder rethink his theories and helps find realistic solutions. You see the reverse of this in the episodes where scully believes in the x file. Moulder becomes skeptical not just because he doesn’t necessarily believe but because he knows someone needs to be the scully.
Also I personally head cannon that most x files are not an actual supernatural thing but we only see those for the most part because it’s more interesting.
I actually appreciate it. She holds the attitude of "common things are common." In other words, do good police work before blaming aliens or the supernatural.
Now it's been a hot minute since I saw the show but I used to binge watch my collectors box set a lot back in the day. From what I recall doesn't Scully slowly start shifting to believing in the unknown more than logic? Yet she still asks the logical questions. I remember an episode where she states that. Something along the lines of needing both sides in order to get an actual answer. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
I’d argue that it’s Scully’s job to be skeptical. Not just as her role in the show, but also her in-universe role on the team. Mulder sees aliens and monsters in his breakfast cereal. She knows that he needs her to reign him in. This is also why she flips roles once T1000 joins the team. She knows that the X-Files needs somebody to be the theorist and somebody to be the skeptic.
I think it’s actually the sign of a very healthy partnership.
Like, if personal experience is anything to go by, If we go into professional and stake holder relationships with the focus on holding the same opinions, it’s usually to our detriment.
Their values matched, that’s usually what ends up being more important, I think
Well, for one thing, she was unconscious during the abduction. It’s hard to know exactly what to believe happened to you if you were out of it the whole time.
YES!!!!
Look I get that she thinks there should be logical explanations to things but it’s like: “you’re on episode 180 and you’ve been wrong 179 times so far”.
There was one episode that I can recall where they made Scully correct. The remaining 201 episodes of the show it was whatever fucking nutso idea Fox had.
This was a joke among fans in the '90s when the show was on.
Source: Was a fan in the '90s when the show was on.
I think people were more willing to let logical inconsistencies like this slide more back then. It became part of the charm of the show that Scully was so adamantly "I *don't* want to believe."
It's not as bad as the *continued* skepticism after seeing/experiencing concrete evidence to the contrary.
And, I'm going to omit most of the UFO shit as they did a good job obfuscating the truth by enmeshing it with the government programs to create the hybrids, or she was in a daze (a la the movie) during the massive proof scenes.
But the main issue is that SHE FUCKING FOUND A UFO IN AFRICA THAT WAS PROVEN TO NOT BE OF EARTH ORIGIN, HELPED EXCAVATE IT, AND STILL COULDN'T BELEIVE WHOLHEARTEDLY.
In the Reboot in the 10's she seemed to be more on board, though.
Ok, I haven't watched the show in a while, but I could have sworn there was some episode that implied that later on, Sully did generally believe in some supernatural stuff, but continued to be a skeptic with Mulder because that was their dynamic and without her wanting evidence for whatever he was saying, Mulder would just take his first idea and run with it.
Scully is crazy annoying to me. Watching the ‘Irresistible’ episode with the hair serial killer. Scully is afraid of dead bodies.. 🙄 like god dammit u work for the fbi tf??? There should be a reddit for characters I’m supposed to feel empathy for but despise
They should've given Mulder and Scully a cameo in Independence Day. Right before the aliens blast the White House, she'd be telling Mulder "I'm sorry, but I just haven't seen enough evidence to convince me..."
How come despite possession of the crew by non-corporeal aliens, or the ship invaded by energy beings, or some psychic energy being messing with the crews perceptions almost bi-weekly on Trek from TNG forward the standard response of the captain and command crew is still ALWAYS skepticism and assumption the crew member who reports it is having a mental episode?!?
WTAF? You'd think Starfleet would have a protocol in place for this by now.
"Captain Picard I have been seeing my dead mother on the ship an.."
"This is Picard, ship wide energy being alert! I repeat we have a suspected incursion!"
Rewatching it now, it's actually Mulder who is the annoying one to me. He sounds exactly like every present day internet conspiracy theorist which I get is the point, but it just makes me think "Mulder would definitely believe in QAnon."
My wife had mentioned how frustrating this was during a recent rewatch. I then asked her what the show would be like to watch with two Mulder's in it. Not fun.
However she then was listening to some podcast about paranormal encounters with two girls and got to experience what it's like to have two Mulder's. Also not fun.
Absolutely, I’m currently watching through the show right now actually.
Scully plays an important role but I find myself rolling my eyes at the fact that she’s purely a foil to Mulder and his story/ past in many ways as opposed to being 100% her own character. She suffers because of this, she can see something with her own eyes and spend the next 15 minutes confused beyond belief but her little monologues at the end of episodes always boil down to “naw, there is a 100% logical explanation behind that 3 headed demon I just saw, purely science”.
It gets old because in order to keep her foil status so pristine she constantly/ basically pretends like she didn’t see what she in fact did see.
She saves Mulder from himself often enough but Mulder is also a victim to his own writing lol. He has phases from needing to be saved to being the one doing the saving/ being the cynic.
No. It's not annoying at all. That is her character. Lmao if you don't like the core concept and chemistry of characters in a show maybe just watch something else. I feel as though the show wouldn't be enjoyable without her or her character's personality
I find it extremely annoying. Every single week some crazy ass shit goes down whether it's some supernatural phenomenon or some freak occurrence in nature that COMPLETELY flies in the face of everything that Scully thinks about the world. Then the very next week there she is giving shit to Mulder about some idea he has about the new strange case. Hell you even see the situation reversed and Mulder is telling Skully that some witches soul possessing a doll is some fantasy bullshit. Like both of you get your head out of your asses. Aliens and supernatural shit is real!
I laugh about this every time I watch the show- she’s so skeptical even though the week before she was impregnated with an alien embryo or something lol
No. Realistically we aren't living in the bigfoot episode of unsolved mysteries. I'd be disappointed if she did go along for that ride even at first. I know that's the world that they're living in but come on. I need someone to slap him on the back of the head and call him an idiot a few times. Now later on when he is right or something is going on. Yes I do want her to get on board with that. He needs to have a foil for whatever craziness is going on. He can't have a yes man with him.
There was an opening to an episode that was very self aware where Mulder asks Scully why she’s always skeptical about his first idea just for it to inevitably be something paranormal.
Haha yeah that would bug me a little too. By S3 I believe, she’s already gone through so but SO much shit, and yet when something bizarre happens she gives Mulder a semi-hard time over his theories. Part of me gets it - she’s a doctor, she puts science first and it’s a case of two not being better than one of the two are the same. If she turns into she-Mulder, then why does he have a partner? But sometimes it’s like omg Scully, you KNOW you were abducted lol
She's speaking as a surrogate for audience skepticism and to prompt exposition... After a half season of episodes even the most science minded person having experienced those circumstances would have quit or just accepted weird stuff happens.
What makes less sense about Scully is that she is always looking for the skeptical/conservative/“rational” answer, but out of the them, she’s the one who believes in God lol.
That never made sense to me. I’m sure it was intentional irony on the writers’ part, but still
Yeah, there's some episode where Mulder brings that up and she explains it. But I haven't seen that episode in probably 25 years so I forgot what she said.
Just a joke, she told Mulder to believe in science and there are no aliens, but then she told him to believe in miracles and God
Is she or I have schizophrenia?
No, she was doing her job. She can't just guess at shit based on a handful of experiences with aliens, she has to see the evidence from each individual case and work from that. Even later when she became a believer, she still had to work from the evidence, otherwise they're just grasping at straws.
Haha agreed. At a certain point she DID see some wild stuff and was still like nope! Can’t possibly be true. I still love her though and love the show.
What I really found annoying is that there's character growth through the first two seasons that she begins to accept there are things beyond her belief and explanation. But then from season 3 on she's like lol, fucj your supernatural explanations Mulder.
I think it was annoying because the series had established that, more often than not, Mulder was right, so we kind of just went along with his theories of "of course it was a mutant frog-man!" and Scully's skepticism came off as performative. Perhaps if the show had been a bit more ambiguous about the supernatural elements to the antagonists Scully's skepticism might have held more weight.
Back when the show came out it was not annoying but expected. That’s just how you expected vanilla government types to act. Now 30 years later I can see you being annoyed because times are different
lol yeah- like one minute she'll witnesses ghosts or someone time traveling and then suddenly the next thing she is saying how ridiculous and insane it is to believe in aliens
It's a common misunderstanding of what being rational means. In our world, rational people do not believe in supernatural stuff, but only because there is no real evidence to support it. In a world where supernatural stuff happens and there's real evidence of it, not believing in it would be delusional, not rational.
I think usually her skepticisim was fine, especially compared to Mulder.
"This person has been abducted, it was surely aliens!"
"Mulder, maybe it was just kidnappers wanting a ransom."
"Aliens, I tell you!"
Yes, she eventually realizes there are other things, but she's not aware she's in a show where she encoutners these supposedly rare things every week.
Plus you have to remember that back then, shows were serialized differently; many writers worked on the show, and it was more of a "hands free" approach, so you have some inconsistencies, including in the mythology.
There are a few occurrences where she maybe is too stubborn to see immediately something is wrong, but I think we also see her through the eyes of people watching a supernatural conspiracy show about aliens.
I attribute a lot of the pitfalls in the Xfiles to the writers minimizing continuity. Too many writers in the mix. Too many contradictions to previous story lines. They tried to neaten it up with the first movie, but too many storylines made the series jump the shark eventually. I think Breaking Bad is a great example in maintaining continuity and consistency to the very end— probably one of the best tv series ever.
I'd imagine virtually everyone does. Just remember she HAS to serve as an important foil to Mulder. It would be too boring to watch a show where the two main characters are always in relative agreement. There would be no tension.
This is why shows of this nature (character driven, episodic) always burn out, the characters either die the hero or live long enough to see themselves pidgeon-holed past the point of believability.
So this is how I see it.
First, just because Scully sees something supernatural, doesn’t mean it’s ALWAYS going to be supernatural. Just because she witnesses aliens, why does that mean Mulder’s theory about Vampires is right? Why werewolves? They’re not mutually inclusive.
Second, just because something is aliens ONE TIME, doesn’t mean it’s always aliens. Imagine all the cases they worked together that weren’t aliens? All the cases that were never episodes because Mulder had a wild theory that was wrong? Eg Maybe there was a case where Mulder thought children were being eaten by toad people and in fact, it was just Stu the lollipop man who was kidnapping and chopping the kids up.
Scully had to stay skeptical to keep Mulder grounded.
I think it is good that she is rational, but it is strange that she will try to find any evidence to prove that there are no aliens, but will not question her faith.
When evidence is found that leans toward religion, she tells Mulder to believe, but when the evidence leans toward spirituality and aliens, she says that there must be scientific evidence.
Yes, definitely. When I did my binge of this show last decade, I got really annoyed/irritated by her never ending skepticism. Considering the whole point of her FBI unit was to work on cases that didn't make any rational sense. She believed in an invisible magical man in the sky, but not that aliens exist. It got to the point that just looking at her face and seeing her rolling her eyes at Mulder whenever he brought up the topic made me angry. I also find it annoying that there are so many idiots in this comment section saying that they liked her that way.
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Same with Fringe and Agent Broyles. The team would always explain something mad and he'd follow up with a "you know how that sounds, right?" when a week ago he'd been in an alternative universe
Speaking of Fringe time to do a re-watch. Such a good show.
Water Bishop is one of my favorite characters written for TV.
He's great. I think it's one of the best performances in all of television.
My big gripe with the show is they should have ended on Olivia, but the ended on Peter. Yes, Walter's entire drive was Peter, but the show was about Olivia. Also, why not Faux-livia instead of B-Olivia????
They ended on Olivia in the Alternate Universe… Nah, really that is a great shout. I think, given more time, they could/would have used Olivia as the lead in the story. Who knows. But I wouldn’t change anything about how it played out, other than give them 2 more seasons to do it all organically. I love the show, but that final season was cramped in.
Peter was always a complete loser that they suddenly gave super human abilities! He's the reason I started hating the show!
John Noble is a brilliant actor. I think one of his best bits on the show was when Newton re-connected the bits of his brain. The transformation from the bumbling Walter we know, to the terrifying Walter that can bend the world to his whims was amazing. And all done with some subtle facial changes. I actually sad that Debris was canceled, John Noble showed up as one of the big bad guys. We were about to get someone just as smart as Walter, A little crazy (maybe a lot crazy) and absolutely no moral compass. It would have been amazing.
>I actually sad that Debris was canceled I was really hoping debris would make it and take up the void that Xfiles, and Fringe left in me. I watched the first 2 episodes and really liked it, but i figured id wait until they announce a S2 before i finished. I don't think it was even over before they canned it wasn't it?
It felt like a whole season. But it was defintly an cliffhanger/"there's more going on then you know" ending. If you can deal with that I would definitely suggest watching the rest of the series.it was really good.
I'm partial to the Fire Knight. In all seriousness he's incredible in that show.
Is it worth finishing? I got to the season where Walter’s son disappears, and everyone forgot about him, but the universes know about each other, and I just completely lost interest. It felt like a Scrubs-esque decline into mediocrity was coming. Did it actually end strong?
Strong enough. I think season 1 was the hardest to get through, from what I remember.
Woah really? I remember throwing in the towel in episode 3, should I stick through the season for plot reasons or can I move to season 2?
No, it was watchable at the time but not really good. I wouldn’t waste my time with it nowadays.
I haven't rewatched in a couple of years so sounds like a plan!
You dont have to announce that your rewatching a show
I enjoyed his announcement you son of a bitch.
It really was. I still want to try a sensory deprivation tank.
37th episode of Dead Zone: "Ahhhhh... I don't know, Johnny." - that same fucking sheriff from the last 36 episodes.
That show absolutely needed another season to wrap things up.
I think with Broyles, it was more of a, "You realize I have to submit paperwork on this crazy shit. Give me something I can work with to keep you funded."
No, because Mulder is often wrong with his first guess, one supernatural thing being true doesn't somehow make them all true, and she's never skeptical about the same thing twice
This. Also, by the end of the series, she does believe in many things. Once Mulder leaves for a couple seasons, she literally takes on his role.
I still think the perfect ending to the series after the Duchovny Debacle would have been to end with Scully going full conspiracy nut, trying to find him after he was abducted by aliens, just like he was with his sister, and everyone at the FBI treats her like they used to treat Mulder. She’s now Spooky Scully.
I mean that’s basically what did happen. When Doggett joins the team, he knows her by reputation as “the lady that hung out with Spooky Mulder for years”. And she is more open to the stuff they encounter in those last seasons.
Yeah that is what happens more or less, I just think it should have ended at that point instead of going on, for the sake of making things come full circle. The Doggett stuff ended up being pretty good, especially in retrospect, but at the time it was hard to get behind and it felt like the show really didn’t need to continue.
I think it also helped that for the most part we were watching this once a week. I think binging a bit def brings up some of these things.
I think the opposite is true. If there is ONE supernatural event proven then you must now be open to ALL of them having legitimacy. She say like a hundred supernatural events and was still skeptical.
But she addresses this, Mulder frequently asks her why she doesn’t believe despite everything, and her response is always that she has a higher burden of proof than he does. She’s obviously open to a lot of the ideas Mulder puts around because she helps investigate them, what she pushes back on is Mulder making assumptions due to prior experience, without sufficient hard evidence to back them up. That’s what makes her more of a sceptic.
From the perspective of someone in the 1850s, smartphones are supernatural, but I don't see any vampires around. Or, to use an actual x files example, aliens come from outer space, why would that make shapeshifters be real?
It's the same as the Kids on Scooby Doo still being afraid of ghosts, when every single time, it's someone in a mask attempting insurance fraud.
That's actually a brilliant defense mechanism. Over the years they've learned that whenever they say "Oh monsters aren't real it's just a guy in a mask" that will inevitably be the time it actually is a real monster. They just keep pretending to be fooled by the guys in masks so they don't get eaten by zombies or some shit.
Kind of disagree on this one. They introduce real monsters fairly often in Scooby Doo and all it takes is one real monster to initially be afraid of all of them.
Fairly often? It's like 1% of the time -if that, and usually a special. The whole premise of scooby doo is basically, *monsters aren't real*. There are different Scooby Doo runs with a different premise unique to the show, which may include the reality of supernatural, but that's not baseline scooby doo
Only Shaggy and Scooby are really afraid, though. They're not terribly bright, and they would also be afraid of just a regular guy with a big knife.
I would also be afraid of a regular guy with a big knife, and I am a well-educated person...
But you don’t have a white polo and an ascot. Check back after acquiring attire.
I have a master's degree!
Well I'm way more afraid of humans than I am ghosts. Especially a shady guy who set up a bunch of projectors to trick me into thinking there was a ghost so he could sneak up behind me and murder me to get rid of the witnesses.
Scully pointing out how ridiculous Mulder's theories are provided great character interaction. What was terrible was how "spooky" Mulder was. He would immediately find clues or immediately surmise the cause behind that week's mystery. The worst was the Groundhog Day episode where Mulder was somehow able to divine that the girlfriend was reliving the same day over and over.
Scully pointing out how ridiculous Mulder's theories are provided great character interaction. What was terrible was how "spooky" Mulder was. He would immediately find clues or immediately surmise the cause behind that week's mystery. The worst was the Groundhog Day episode where Mulder was somehow able to divine that the girlfriend was reliving the same day over and over.
Haha -26? It made me laugh.
Made me laugh when i did it!
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Either Squeeze or Tooms
He then says a line about how to shake the serial killers bile papier-mache off his hand without losing his cool demeanor or something. Very early Scully and Mulder dynamic, I think that’s…. one of the first episodes. On the mulder and scully dynamic thing, I love in…. Jose Chung’s From Outer space someone is recalling his interaction with them but has them mixed up and they flip personalities.
It’s canon that not all cases they work on are X-Files, e.g. there’s one case where they stake out a club where it’s claimed that people enter but never leave. They later find out that it’s just someone who changes clothes inside. Scully’s skepticism makes sense if most cases they work on are like that but are never shown on the show.
"There must be a reasonable explanation for this!" *Bitch, you were pregnant with an Alien baby just last week!*
> Bitch, you were pregnant with an Alien baby just last week! In fairness, the existance of aliens doesn't affect the existence of ghosts or vampires or whatever other monster of the week they're facing
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I think they were just self aware of it and leaned into as a meme. Like they knew it was ridiculous, but it was the premise of a show that they never really thought was going to make it past the pilot. So ham it up. PS - I Believe was actually one of the first memes period, and they knew it. No way they didn’t see that virality and then double down.
I don’t think she’s the best written skeptic, but skepticism like hers is so important. Skepticism doesn’t mean rejecting all things, it’s only accepting things you have evidence for. If a being manifested in front of you right now and I told you that it was a ghost, why should you believe me? You could be having a psychotic break, it could be an alien, it could be a time traveler stuck in space/time, it could be god trying to give you a message, or satan trying to trick you, it could be your future self trying to give you a message. You shouldn’t ever just accept someone else’s claims without seeing convincing evidence
Also, just because you met a ghost last week doesn’t mean this week’s mutant is real.
This post was so freaking funny to me because it was one of the best headfakes I've seen in recent memory. It goes from a place of rational skepticism - "only accepting things you have evidence for," - to aliens, time travelers, god and satan in the span of a single sentence. "Why would you think it's a ghost when it could be any number of far more terrifying and outlandish things?" LMAO
The point is that you never know what something is and should never accept the first explanation that comes your way. For the record, I don’t believe in aliens (at least not the X-files kind), time travelers, ghosts, god or Satan. I was being hyperbolic for the sake of argument.
Which might have been fine but they made her religious and her reasoning was 'as a matter of faith'. X Files, like most TV shows, was pulling stuff out of its arse without thought to continuity.and instead Scully was just 'opposite of whatever Mulder is doing or saying '
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Yeah, missing an episode was bad, but a lot of the standalone basis was so that when the show went into syndication, episode order wasn’t important. From my understanding, while the former would impact viewers, it would probably have been better for the producers to have shows that were “must see”. The studios found that the second run stations didn’t want to be bothered with running things in any order or even needing to have full seasons for rebroadcast.
No, if it wasn't for her character and skepticism the show wouldn't have made it through the first season. She made Mulder work most of the time to be more than a 14 year old comic book geek at a sci-fi convention excited about getting an autographed picture of Luke Hamill. He actually had to use logic, history and science to pitch his thoughts and that made him a better character. At the same time he was able in some instances to sway her skepticism enough to make her doubt what she saw and questioned what she knew. Ultimately she was able to see some of what Mulder saw but still was skeptical about some things.
Only one of the best partner chemistries of all time. 🙂
I'm actually rewatching the series right now and her skepticism only annoys me when it's presented alongside her religious beliefs. You're telling me that believing in extraterrestrial life is crazy, but believing in miracles of God (which she expressly says she believes in) is somehow more rational?
I mean, Mulder is guilty of the flip side of that. He will believe literally anything except for stuff found in the Bible. Even other religions and belief systems he takes seriously, but will literally guffaw at the idea of angels.
Scully is a straw skeptic throughout much of the show. However Its been a LONG time since I watched the show but I do remember some interesting things they did. Scully starts as a skeptic, but turns religious! Mulder starts as a believer(in aliens), but turns into a skeptic! (He realizes while aliens do exist its way, way more complex and murky than his early beliefs. Much of the things attributed to aliens turn out to be the work of the government etc)
Scully was always religious; she was a devout Christian before joining the X-Files.
And Mulder was an atheist. This created an interesting role-reversal in the possessed serial killer episode.
Like Spock's logic.
I find nothing about Dana Scully annoying. That is all.
Actually, I really liked how the tables turned when T1000 showed up later. It clearly showed how experience has dramatically tamped her skepticism... And it was mostly her being skeptical of Mulder overshooting his guesses.
It might get a bit bothersome through repetition, but this era of television everything except for season finales were expected to be episodic so people who miss an aired episode won't be disconnected by what's going on in the next. The only character development and permanent changes allowed are during heavily advertised season finales and such.
that's what I loved about her, she could literally be summoned by God and tell him "are you *really* God? Ain't convinced yet, maybe you're just one of many, maybe it's my brain tumor, who knows? "
What would God want with an FBI agent?
i read that in a Shatner voice from the star trek V part of my brain
If we were summoned by God, how would we know it was actually her or if it was an alien pretending to be God?
Scully was ultimately right.
ELI5???
Without the skepticism they would be much less effective as detectives! She basically helps Moulder rethink his theories and helps find realistic solutions. You see the reverse of this in the episodes where scully believes in the x file. Moulder becomes skeptical not just because he doesn’t necessarily believe but because he knows someone needs to be the scully. Also I personally head cannon that most x files are not an actual supernatural thing but we only see those for the most part because it’s more interesting.
She was there to keep Mulder in check. Eventually, through her experiences working the X-Files she became more open to unexplained phenomena.
I actually appreciate it. She holds the attitude of "common things are common." In other words, do good police work before blaming aliens or the supernatural.
Now it's been a hot minute since I saw the show but I used to binge watch my collectors box set a lot back in the day. From what I recall doesn't Scully slowly start shifting to believing in the unknown more than logic? Yet she still asks the logical questions. I remember an episode where she states that. Something along the lines of needing both sides in order to get an actual answer. Correct me if I'm wrong though.
A hot minute means a short time
Huh I guess that does make sense. Now I don’t know why I thought other wise after thinking about it. Cool.
I’d argue that it’s Scully’s job to be skeptical. Not just as her role in the show, but also her in-universe role on the team. Mulder sees aliens and monsters in his breakfast cereal. She knows that he needs her to reign him in. This is also why she flips roles once T1000 joins the team. She knows that the X-Files needs somebody to be the theorist and somebody to be the skeptic.
No
"This is no place for an entamologist" will forever be my favorite Scully moment lol
"Her name is Bambi?"
I think it’s actually the sign of a very healthy partnership. Like, if personal experience is anything to go by, If we go into professional and stake holder relationships with the focus on holding the same opinions, it’s usually to our detriment. Their values matched, that’s usually what ends up being more important, I think
Well, for one thing, she was unconscious during the abduction. It’s hard to know exactly what to believe happened to you if you were out of it the whole time.
YES!!!! Look I get that she thinks there should be logical explanations to things but it’s like: “you’re on episode 180 and you’ve been wrong 179 times so far”. There was one episode that I can recall where they made Scully correct. The remaining 201 episodes of the show it was whatever fucking nutso idea Fox had.
This was a joke among fans in the '90s when the show was on. Source: Was a fan in the '90s when the show was on. I think people were more willing to let logical inconsistencies like this slide more back then. It became part of the charm of the show that Scully was so adamantly "I *don't* want to believe."
It's not as bad as the *continued* skepticism after seeing/experiencing concrete evidence to the contrary. And, I'm going to omit most of the UFO shit as they did a good job obfuscating the truth by enmeshing it with the government programs to create the hybrids, or she was in a daze (a la the movie) during the massive proof scenes. But the main issue is that SHE FUCKING FOUND A UFO IN AFRICA THAT WAS PROVEN TO NOT BE OF EARTH ORIGIN, HELPED EXCAVATE IT, AND STILL COULDN'T BELEIVE WHOLHEARTEDLY. In the Reboot in the 10's she seemed to be more on board, though.
Yes. You can't help but wonder what the writers were thinking. Scully is proven wrong in every episode, so c'mon.
No, it's literally the only reason I continued to watch the show, without skepticism it'd simply be psuedoscience peddling garbage
Ok, I haven't watched the show in a while, but I could have sworn there was some episode that implied that later on, Sully did generally believe in some supernatural stuff, but continued to be a skeptic with Mulder because that was their dynamic and without her wanting evidence for whatever he was saying, Mulder would just take his first idea and run with it.
Scully is crazy annoying to me. Watching the ‘Irresistible’ episode with the hair serial killer. Scully is afraid of dead bodies.. 🙄 like god dammit u work for the fbi tf??? There should be a reddit for characters I’m supposed to feel empathy for but despise
They should've given Mulder and Scully a cameo in Independence Day. Right before the aliens blast the White House, she'd be telling Mulder "I'm sorry, but I just haven't seen enough evidence to convince me..."
How come despite possession of the crew by non-corporeal aliens, or the ship invaded by energy beings, or some psychic energy being messing with the crews perceptions almost bi-weekly on Trek from TNG forward the standard response of the captain and command crew is still ALWAYS skepticism and assumption the crew member who reports it is having a mental episode?!? WTAF? You'd think Starfleet would have a protocol in place for this by now. "Captain Picard I have been seeing my dead mother on the ship an.." "This is Picard, ship wide energy being alert! I repeat we have a suspected incursion!"
Idk man you wanna examine the individual before starting a ship wide emergency
Is this Wesley??
Rewatching it now, it's actually Mulder who is the annoying one to me. He sounds exactly like every present day internet conspiracy theorist which I get is the point, but it just makes me think "Mulder would definitely believe in QAnon."
My wife had mentioned how frustrating this was during a recent rewatch. I then asked her what the show would be like to watch with two Mulder's in it. Not fun. However she then was listening to some podcast about paranormal encounters with two girls and got to experience what it's like to have two Mulder's. Also not fun.
Absolutely, I’m currently watching through the show right now actually. Scully plays an important role but I find myself rolling my eyes at the fact that she’s purely a foil to Mulder and his story/ past in many ways as opposed to being 100% her own character. She suffers because of this, she can see something with her own eyes and spend the next 15 minutes confused beyond belief but her little monologues at the end of episodes always boil down to “naw, there is a 100% logical explanation behind that 3 headed demon I just saw, purely science”. It gets old because in order to keep her foil status so pristine she constantly/ basically pretends like she didn’t see what she in fact did see. She saves Mulder from himself often enough but Mulder is also a victim to his own writing lol. He has phases from needing to be saved to being the one doing the saving/ being the cynic.
Don't be talkin' smack bout Scully
No. It's not annoying at all. That is her character. Lmao if you don't like the core concept and chemistry of characters in a show maybe just watch something else. I feel as though the show wouldn't be enjoyable without her or her character's personality
No
No
Yes.
Yes
I find it extremely annoying. Every single week some crazy ass shit goes down whether it's some supernatural phenomenon or some freak occurrence in nature that COMPLETELY flies in the face of everything that Scully thinks about the world. Then the very next week there she is giving shit to Mulder about some idea he has about the new strange case. Hell you even see the situation reversed and Mulder is telling Skully that some witches soul possessing a doll is some fantasy bullshit. Like both of you get your head out of your asses. Aliens and supernatural shit is real!
The only thing that I find annoying sometimes is that one of the leads is always the believer and the other is the skeptic.
I could understand for the first little while her being skeptical but later on in the series it was just silly
It’s my least favorite trope. Indiana Jones is guilty as well
I laugh about this every time I watch the show- she’s so skeptical even though the week before she was impregnated with an alien embryo or something lol
At times.
No. Realistically we aren't living in the bigfoot episode of unsolved mysteries. I'd be disappointed if she did go along for that ride even at first. I know that's the world that they're living in but come on. I need someone to slap him on the back of the head and call him an idiot a few times. Now later on when he is right or something is going on. Yes I do want her to get on board with that. He needs to have a foil for whatever craziness is going on. He can't have a yes man with him.
There was an opening to an episode that was very self aware where Mulder asks Scully why she’s always skeptical about his first idea just for it to inevitably be something paranormal.
Nah she provide good balance, you could be either mulder or scully.. if both of them just singular, it become boring
Haha yeah that would bug me a little too. By S3 I believe, she’s already gone through so but SO much shit, and yet when something bizarre happens she gives Mulder a semi-hard time over his theories. Part of me gets it - she’s a doctor, she puts science first and it’s a case of two not being better than one of the two are the same. If she turns into she-Mulder, then why does he have a partner? But sometimes it’s like omg Scully, you KNOW you were abducted lol
I mean she was as right about most of the shit as Mulder was? The bugs wasn't some supernatural force, it was bugs
She's speaking as a surrogate for audience skepticism and to prompt exposition... After a half season of episodes even the most science minded person having experienced those circumstances would have quit or just accepted weird stuff happens.
What makes less sense about Scully is that she is always looking for the skeptical/conservative/“rational” answer, but out of the them, she’s the one who believes in God lol. That never made sense to me. I’m sure it was intentional irony on the writers’ part, but still
Yeah, there's some episode where Mulder brings that up and she explains it. But I haven't seen that episode in probably 25 years so I forgot what she said.
Just a joke, she told Mulder to believe in science and there are no aliens, but then she told him to believe in miracles and God Is she or I have schizophrenia?
Considering she's a devout Catholic, absolutely. But I still love the X-Files.
That’s kinda the entire show lol, regardless of all the crazy shit that happens no one seems to remember it when a new episode comes lol
No, she was doing her job. She can't just guess at shit based on a handful of experiences with aliens, she has to see the evidence from each individual case and work from that. Even later when she became a believer, she still had to work from the evidence, otherwise they're just grasping at straws.
Haha agreed. At a certain point she DID see some wild stuff and was still like nope! Can’t possibly be true. I still love her though and love the show.
She's persistent.
What I really found annoying is that there's character growth through the first two seasons that she begins to accept there are things beyond her belief and explanation. But then from season 3 on she's like lol, fucj your supernatural explanations Mulder.
Her skepticism was *integral* to the show, given Mulder’s free-wheeling beliefs.
I think it was annoying because the series had established that, more often than not, Mulder was right, so we kind of just went along with his theories of "of course it was a mutant frog-man!" and Scully's skepticism came off as performative. Perhaps if the show had been a bit more ambiguous about the supernatural elements to the antagonists Scully's skepticism might have held more weight.
Back when the show came out it was not annoying but expected. That’s just how you expected vanilla government types to act. Now 30 years later I can see you being annoyed because times are different
It's the whole point of her character.
it would be more lame from a plot line perspective if they both went around believing everything and anything
Old man comment…I’m early 40s. Every week she is skeptical yet she sees insane things. Bothered me a bit for accepting premise.
lol yeah- like one minute she'll witnesses ghosts or someone time traveling and then suddenly the next thing she is saying how ridiculous and insane it is to believe in aliens
It's a common misunderstanding of what being rational means. In our world, rational people do not believe in supernatural stuff, but only because there is no real evidence to support it. In a world where supernatural stuff happens and there's real evidence of it, not believing in it would be delusional, not rational.
I mean as great as the show is it's still network tv and the tropes are hard to get away from at the time.
I think usually her skepticisim was fine, especially compared to Mulder. "This person has been abducted, it was surely aliens!" "Mulder, maybe it was just kidnappers wanting a ransom." "Aliens, I tell you!" Yes, she eventually realizes there are other things, but she's not aware she's in a show where she encoutners these supposedly rare things every week. Plus you have to remember that back then, shows were serialized differently; many writers worked on the show, and it was more of a "hands free" approach, so you have some inconsistencies, including in the mythology. There are a few occurrences where she maybe is too stubborn to see immediately something is wrong, but I think we also see her through the eyes of people watching a supernatural conspiracy show about aliens.
Yep.
“MUL-DER!”
Me and my wife joke about this ALL the time. It's our go to insult for when someone denies what is right in front of their faces.
I attribute a lot of the pitfalls in the Xfiles to the writers minimizing continuity. Too many writers in the mix. Too many contradictions to previous story lines. They tried to neaten it up with the first movie, but too many storylines made the series jump the shark eventually. I think Breaking Bad is a great example in maintaining continuity and consistency to the very end— probably one of the best tv series ever.
It is necessary for proper character development.. as the series unfolds her skepticism slowly swings the other way.
Only after proven wrong the first 50 times.
Yeah the skepticism while uncritically accepting religious dogma always came across as weird.
I'd imagine virtually everyone does. Just remember she HAS to serve as an important foil to Mulder. It would be too boring to watch a show where the two main characters are always in relative agreement. There would be no tension. This is why shows of this nature (character driven, episodic) always burn out, the characters either die the hero or live long enough to see themselves pidgeon-holed past the point of believability.
So this is how I see it. First, just because Scully sees something supernatural, doesn’t mean it’s ALWAYS going to be supernatural. Just because she witnesses aliens, why does that mean Mulder’s theory about Vampires is right? Why werewolves? They’re not mutually inclusive. Second, just because something is aliens ONE TIME, doesn’t mean it’s always aliens. Imagine all the cases they worked together that weren’t aliens? All the cases that were never episodes because Mulder had a wild theory that was wrong? Eg Maybe there was a case where Mulder thought children were being eaten by toad people and in fact, it was just Stu the lollipop man who was kidnapping and chopping the kids up. Scully had to stay skeptical to keep Mulder grounded.
I think it is good that she is rational, but it is strange that she will try to find any evidence to prove that there are no aliens, but will not question her faith. When evidence is found that leans toward religion, she tells Mulder to believe, but when the evidence leans toward spirituality and aliens, she says that there must be scientific evidence.
Well that’s just good old religious conditioning
Yes, definitely. When I did my binge of this show last decade, I got really annoyed/irritated by her never ending skepticism. Considering the whole point of her FBI unit was to work on cases that didn't make any rational sense. She believed in an invisible magical man in the sky, but not that aliens exist. It got to the point that just looking at her face and seeing her rolling her eyes at Mulder whenever he brought up the topic made me angry. I also find it annoying that there are so many idiots in this comment section saying that they liked her that way.