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As part of the effort to live without cable, using only TV-on-DVD and downloadable television, I picked up the first season of X-Files for about twenty bucks.

Wow, was that show ever Canadian!

I can’t decide whether the opening credits are very low budget (ie. Canadian) or just typical of the early 90’s. The post Se7en world has spoiled us with engrossing, AfterEffects-produced opening sequences. I remember I used to keep the TV on after one of my shows just to watch the opening for The Practice, even though I had no intention of watching the episode.

Glacing back to this early-90’s relic is great. Newer shows with high production values can successfully disguise Vancouver as anywhere else, but the early X-files episodes managed to do so with clever framing. However, one of the first things I’ve noticed about the series is that about half of the episodes throughout the first season take place (at least to some extent) in the woods.  Western United States, mid-west, New England, anywhere that there’s trees, that’s where Fox and Scully are likely to find their next case. I never noticed it before, but when you watch a half-dozen episodes over a few nights that kind of repetition becomes apparent.

There were also a surprising number of themes introduced in the first season that were spread out through the series.  Super Soldiers, Lone Gunmen, Smoking Man and even the device implanted in Scully in a later season are all introduced. Those last two are actually featured in the pilot episode.

I was a bandwagonner. Although I didn’t jump off when David Duchovny left the series (as many did) I didn’t get into the series until after a few seasons. One of my earlier memories at University of Waterloo was how empty Fed Hall (the on-campus club) was on the night of the X-Files season premiere (”is Fox really dead?” asked the previous season’s cliffhanger). No one in the club at 9:59pm, and a long lineup by 10:30. That’s about when I started watching it. 

So, for me at least, these episodes feel somewhat new if only in the fact that I have not seen many of them. On the other hand, I also feel nostolgia in watching an episode introduce a multi-season story arc whose conclusion I already know.

John made the point that the Fox Channel wouldn’t let a show like X-Files survive now.  It didn’t show a healthy Neilson Ratings until the third or fourth seasons. Had it been cancelled, it would have drastically changed television as we know it. X-Files was one of the landmark shows of the 90’s, and the storytelling style can be seen today in shows like Lost and Heroes.

On a related note, Simone and I watched the last episode of jPod last night. Whoever thought it was a good idea to move a TV show aimed at twenty-somethings to a Friday night should be dragged out into the street and shot. There’s no way a show aimed at that age group could survive…

…well, except X-Files.

Edit May 1, 2008: I wrote the above entry very quickly over a shortened lunchhour. After reading it again, I decided to fix some grammar, put in some context, and add a friggin’ point to some paragraphs where I completely forgot to do so.