X-Files

[Mothra]

I love that you found this as fucking insane and uproariously funny as we did. I don't think it was intentional but like... I dunno, is it possible to make something like this by accident?

Wild ep. Perfect end to the show.

[Thad]

I was reading some recent stories about X-Files and apparently for a hot minute there there was going to be a spinoff called X-Files: Albuquerque that sounds like pretty much Lower Decks in the X-Files universe, but it looks like it ain't happening. Latest is that there's a new live-action series coming, helmed by Ryan Coogler, which could be pretty flippin' great if it actually happens!

(The article calls it a "reboot", but the entertainment media call things reboots that fucking aren't reboots all the time -- MST3K, Twin Peaks, Doctor Who, Frasier, Will and Grace, And Just Like That, Roseanne, Dexter, Quantum Leap, Jurassic World, Willow, Tron Legacy, Blade Runner 2049, Murphy Brown, Fuller House, Night Court, Animaniacs, Beavis and Butt-Head, King of the Hill, Clone High, Futurama, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, and the last fucking time X-Files came back are fucking not reboots, fuck you -- so that doesn't necessarily mean anything; the word Carter actually used was "remounting", which kinda sounds like he's very pointedly not saying it's a reboot.)

[Thad]

Some X-Files

Reyes is trapped in a werewolf dimension. Doggett is too stoic for government hackers or hauntings.

Skinner is infected by zombie plague. Doggett makes that one face, thinks wistfully of his dead kid.

Scully struggles to take alien babies seriously. Mulder hallucinates ghost cavemen in his apartment.

Mulder accidentally flirts with alien hobos. Smoking Man forces Scully on a road trip to San Mateo.

Reyes accepts brain implants unquestioningly. Doggett discharges his weapon at sasquatches.

Skinner bears the weight of a Syndicate secret. Doggett punches and kicks wraiths.

Mulder hallucinates that Scully will be killed by thousand-year-old men. Smoking Man infects Skinner with sex curses.

[Mongrel]

Mulder urgently seeks newspaper clippings. Smoking Man just, you know, smokes a bunch.

[Thad]

Skinner is infected by butt ghosts. Doggett grabs a phrenologist angrily by the lapels.

[Mothra]

We started watching season 11. I think the first ep of this season might be the actual worst episode of X-Files? Just mind-blowing stuff.

[Niku]

Skinner is infected by butt ghosts.

Good lord! What is happening in there?

[Thad]

Aurora borealis?

(The Simpsons comic -- I believe it was a Treehouse of Horror issue -- did a gag once about Principal Skinner's cousin who works at the FBI.)

[KingRoyal]

Ah- Aurora Borealis?! At this time of year, at this time of day, in this part of the country, localized entirely within the Assistant Director's ass?!



May I see it?


Also the X-Files canonically exist in the Simpsons universe so now Skinner x Skinner is real

[Thad]

Also the X-Files canonically exist in the Simpsons universe

It does seem like a missed opportunity not to at least give him a cameo in that episode. CSM got one, and he didn't have to speak.

[Thad]

(Though obviously an actual appearance by Mitch Pileggi would be better. Arguably the best scene in the entire run of Lone Gunmen was him playing Jimmy Bond in a Skinner mask.)

[Friday]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who has a strange fascination with Skinner

Like, I don't like him more than Mulder/Scully, but I also don't like him less

[Thad]

We were talking awhile back about "how could you make X-Files work today?"

and I was just reading a Hellboy comic

and how the hell has BPRD never been a TV series?

Clandestine government organization that investigates the paranormal -- Lovecraftian demons, Abrahamic demons, folkloric monsters, Universal-style monsters -- and punches lots and lots of nazis. That could be a great TV series! And you could do it for relatively cheap, if you didn't include the more fantastic characters like Hellboy or Abe Sapien in the main cast. (They could maybe show up occasionally.)

Course, you wouldn't even really need the license. Mike Mignola doesn't own the concept of a government organization investigating various monsters and paranormal phenomena. But yeah that's an example of an X-Files-like series without the conspiracy theory aftertaste.