0:00

to Night Vale is brought to you

0:02

by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally responsible financial

0:04

geniuses, monetary magicians, these are the things

0:06

people say about drivers who switch

0:09

their car insurance to progressive and save

0:11

hundreds. Visit Progressive.com to see if

0:13

you could save. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company

0:15

and affiliates, potential savings will vary,

0:17

not available in all states or situations.

0:20

Okay, this is the third of

0:22

three episodes of the best worst that

0:24

I'll be putting on this feed

0:26

So this is the last one if

0:28

you enjoy the show, please subscribe

0:31

to it directly in your podcast app

0:33

Or go to nightvillepresets.com for all

0:35

the various ways you can subscribe Please

0:37

enjoy Best

0:50

Worst, a celebration of the best

0:52

and the worst of the television we

0:54

love. I'm Joseph Fink. And

0:56

I'm Meg Bashmaner, and we love

0:58

TV. So we created the show

1:00

to explore what we love about

1:02

popular TV shows by watching both

1:04

the IMDb viewer best rated and

1:06

worst rated episodes of a quintessential

1:08

series. Because we used to love TV, and

1:11

now TV's gotten kind of weird. And so we

1:13

want to figure out what was so good about

1:15

the TV we loved. Maybe we were just

1:17

better. Maybe we were just better people then.

1:19

Yeah. I mean, what you deserve, I think.

1:21

I really do stand by that. There was

1:23

a study, I think, in the Washington Post

1:25

that everyone thinks that everything was

1:27

best when they were between 10 and

1:29

15 years old. Everyone would just

1:31

always be like, oh yeah, people were most trustworthy.

1:33

The music was best. And it's always just

1:35

whenever they were 10 to 15 years old. which

1:38

is when the X -Files were out. Each of

1:40

the shows on this podcast must appear at

1:42

here is the word I'm looking for to our

1:44

set of rules. Each show must have at

1:46

least 100 episodes. We are also

1:48

excluding premieres or finales because those tend

1:50

to have inflated ratings and we're looking

1:52

to watch the television show at its

1:55

absolute best, not at its most important

1:57

or cliffhanger -y. Let's get to today's

1:59

show. Meg, what is today's show? Today's

2:01

show is The X -Files, which

2:03

ran for nine seasons, 217

2:05

episodes from the years 1993

2:07

to 2002 and was brought

2:09

back for a couple more

2:11

seasons in 2016 and 2018.

2:14

Those seasons, as far as I know, not

2:16

good. Oh yeah. I don't think there's

2:18

been a single time that anyone has

2:20

brought back a beloved show and it's come back

2:22

good. just that it just doesn't work everyone's like

2:24

right now they're announcing they're going to bring Malcolm

2:26

in the middle back and it's just it's not

2:29

going to be you can't recapture the magic. You're

2:31

never going to be 10 to 15 years old again. I

2:34

think for shows that had like a

2:36

really long run and a really like satisfying

2:38

conclusion where like the writers really gelled

2:40

on a proper conclusion for these characters and

2:42

then they'd come back with like a

2:44

shitty spin off like 15 years later. It's

2:47

like I find that insulting to everyone

2:49

who worked on the original show. They worked

2:51

so hard to come to a conclusion

2:53

and, like, leave it there. I understand for

2:55

shows that were, like, kind of canceled

2:57

without, like, a proper conclusion or were not

2:59

given enough space to get the ratings

3:01

that they needed to survive, but the shows

3:04

that, like, had, like, this

3:06

big, beautiful career. And then, like,

3:08

they just come back and just, like, it really is pissing on

3:10

the grave. But even, like, Arrested Development

3:12

was brought back, which was definitely canceled too soon.

3:14

And when it was brought back, it was

3:16

bad. Like, it's just something about they lose the

3:18

momentum. of what they were working on. They lose

3:20

the magic of that rowdy's room and they

3:22

can't recapture it. So... X

3:24

Files, let's talk about our own background

3:26

with the show. Expectations,

3:28

nostalgia. What do you got? I

3:30

did not watch it when it was on. I was

3:32

one of the four other people in this country who

3:34

did not watch it when it was on. Yeah, so

3:36

I was aware of it because of the monoculture. But

3:39

I did not watch it when it was

3:41

on. I had had enough knowledge of it because

3:43

of the monoculture. If someone made a joke

3:45

about it, I understood it. But I did

3:47

not. No, I don't think I had

3:49

watched a full episode of X Files until

3:51

recording this podcast. I

3:53

have kind of two layers of nostalgia.

3:56

The first is when it was like on its first

3:58

run, like when it was first starting up in

4:00

like the early 90s. I mean,

4:02

we were seven, eight years

4:05

old. I was too young to

4:07

watch it, but I had like family

4:09

friends who watched it. And the

4:11

kind of whisper network of kids

4:13

about X -Files was that it was

4:15

the scariest show ever made. Like there

4:17

was this real like, this show

4:19

is terrifying. And so I

4:21

was like, I never watched it,

4:23

but it was so built up in my

4:25

head as like this is the scariest thing

4:27

ever made. The X -Files is terrifying. And

4:30

then kind of in the

4:32

era of like Netflix, getting Netflix discs

4:34

in the mail, I started catching up on

4:36

some shows I had missed and I

4:38

watched. I fell off

4:40

eventually, as most people do, because

4:42

X -Files is one of those shows that gets

4:44

pretty bad later on. But I went through

4:46

like probably the first five or six

4:48

seasons on Netflix by disc and really

4:50

enjoyed it. So I was

4:53

excited about this one. As

4:55

listeners might know, I'm very into

4:57

like paranormal and conspiracies and

4:59

stuff like that. X Files is

5:01

not a influence on Welcome

5:03

to Night Vale. So

5:05

I was very excited to get you this one. You're

5:08

just staring at me. So I'm just gonna keep going through

5:11

should we get to the worst? Yeah, let's take that

5:13

excitement that you have I'm just staring at you because I'm

5:15

trying to communicate that I'm ready to move on to

5:17

the next segment Which is yes, so let's take

5:19

that excitement and move right into

5:21

the worst episode of this show, which

5:23

is season 3 episode 18 Teso dose

5:25

Beachos Teso dose

5:27

Beachos, which is the name of

5:29

a place Although apparently

5:31

Beechos is also in several

5:33

Spanish -speaking countries slaying for balls,

5:36

which the writer did not know.

5:38

So the name of this thing is two

5:41

balls in a lot of countries. Which

5:43

adorable. You want to give us a

5:45

brief summary? There's

5:47

an archaeological dig in the Ecuadorian Highlands,

5:49

which is where we begin. There's

5:51

two archaeologists there, Dr. Belach and Dr.

5:53

Roosevelt, and they get into an argument

5:55

about the removal of an urn that

5:57

contains an amaru, which is a

5:59

female shaman. And then Roosevelt's like, we

6:01

have to take it because they're about to, I guess

6:04

like do some sort of like mining of that

6:06

area. So it's just going to get fucked anyway. And

6:08

Belach's like, or we could just leave it for

6:10

the people that live here that like would know what

6:12

to do with it, who are indigenous to this

6:14

area. But Roosevelt doesn't want to have that, and then

6:16

we see Roosevelt get merked by a giant cat,

6:18

then we find ourselves in Boston. So

6:20

they've moved the burial urn

6:23

to Boston, so of course, why not? Take

6:25

it to one of America's

6:28

bottom five cities. Yeah, I

6:30

like to think of it as America's

6:32

Dublin. Anyway, so they take

6:34

it there, and then there's another

6:36

doctor that's missing, who's the archaeologist there.

6:39

And there's also like a huge

6:41

amount of blood that they discover in

6:43

the lab. So like people are

6:45

going missing. And then we meet

6:47

Monica, who's a graduate student who works

6:49

there, who has a dog who doesn't appear to

6:51

be a sort of service dog, but just like

6:53

has a dog in the museum and the museum that

6:55

has lots of bones, which I would think would probably be

6:57

like, maybe it's not cool to bring your dog to

6:59

this job situation. But anyway, all

7:02

right. So Scully and Mulder show up

7:04

and like they just keeps having these

7:06

like cat attacks on people. It

7:08

is sort of an incoherent episode, as I'm trying to describe

7:10

the plot to this. I'm like, this is just -

7:13

Well, people keep disappearing. There's also

7:15

a red herring plot happening, which

7:17

is the museum is overrun with

7:19

rats and there keeps being dead

7:21

rats everywhere. And so there's like,

7:23

I think a little bit of a red herring

7:26

that maybe this is rats doing something, but

7:28

no listeners of this show.

7:30

What's happening is just cats.

7:32

Like house cats are killing

7:34

people. The house cats, we

7:36

think possibly. No, definitely. It's

7:38

like the basement of the

7:40

museum has like 100 house cats

7:42

in it. And they're unlike normal cats

7:45

because they have like this urn

7:47

is making them act differently. They're

7:49

hunting in a pack and killing

7:51

people. Okay. You're helping me

7:53

out here. All right. And then so Dr. Belak,

7:55

who's the one who who was like, we

7:57

can't take this thing. I was apparently doing this

7:59

drug called Yahweh. Which is

8:01

just, it's ayahuasca. Just ayahuasca. So he's just

8:03

like tripping balls on ayahuasca like the whole

8:06

time since he's been back, and it's definitely

8:08

fucked him up quite a bit. And then

8:10

he goes to the museum, but

8:12

then Mona is dead, the grad student,

8:14

and then the dog. The dog

8:16

is also dead? The dog gets killed, yes. Because

8:18

they do an autopsy on the dog

8:20

and they find... poison in the dog

8:23

stomach. Wow, you really missed a lot of

8:25

details in this episode. The dog ate a cat. Yeah, the

8:27

dog ate a cat in the cat. the cat had eaten

8:29

a rat with rat poison. Yes. And that's how the dog

8:31

died was from the rat poison that was in the rat

8:33

that was in the cat that it ate. It's

8:35

a real nesting doll situation. And

8:38

so then we get

8:40

to the end of this episode where they're

8:42

like in the steam tunnels underneath this

8:44

museum trying to find Mona or Dr. Bielek

8:47

and they get attacked by the

8:49

pack of cats. Jillian

8:51

Anderson gets attacked by a stuffed cat in

8:53

a very obvious way. And then

8:55

the State Department says that they have

8:57

to send the urn back and then

8:59

all is well again. Yes.

9:01

And the people in the Ecuadorian

9:04

Highlands under the watchful eye

9:06

of their shaman rebury their

9:08

urn back where it was and

9:10

all as well. Yeah. And

9:12

presumably those cats just go back to being cats. It's

9:14

unclear. We don't get a follow. Because they're just

9:16

back to napping and sunbeams. Yeah.

9:20

I mean, this is I think an

9:22

episode with good intentions. This is

9:24

like an issue episode, right? It's about

9:26

colonization.

9:29

It's about archaeologists not considering local people.

9:31

It's like trying to say something. It's

9:34

just executed very badly.

9:36

It's executed so badly. It

9:38

felt like they tried to make

9:40

this episode in one day for

9:42

$100. I understand that the

9:44

script that they're working with is very

9:47

silly, which is going to be difficult

9:49

to making something cool and scary. So I

9:51

get that they're up against something

9:53

big here, but it's just a lot

9:55

of like TV magic, directorial magic, a

9:57

lot of like sound effects and Foley

9:59

and cutaways. There's so much

10:01

of that that there's really not much left

10:03

to even further the story. So

10:05

some background is that so

10:08

this is written by John Chabon

10:10

who like went

10:12

on to write for Breaking Bad and

10:14

Better Call Saul. He is a writer

10:16

capable of better work and it's written

10:18

by Kim Manners who has directed by

10:20

Kim Manners directed by Kim Manners who's

10:22

been directing TV since the 70s. He's

10:24

a real pro and Kim Manners knew

10:26

he had a dog shit episode. He

10:28

was very aware and he understood what

10:30

the problem was, which was the ending. I

10:33

think if you change

10:35

the last third, then you

10:37

have what is a mediocre but

10:40

not terrible episode of television. I

10:42

think it's the pack of cats attacking them

10:44

in the basement. And so

10:46

he apparently begged Chris Carter, the

10:48

showrunner for a while, being like, let

10:50

me change the ending to one

10:53

giant, like one jungle cat, because

10:55

I can make that scary. And

10:57

Chris Carter would not budge. It had to be a pack

10:59

of house cats. Yeah, they fell into the

11:01

trap of what they thought they were doing was

11:03

important. And I want to let

11:05

everyone out there know that your art is not

11:07

important. It is not important

11:09

to anything or anyone. And

11:12

I think if you believe your art to

11:14

be important, it absolutely will not be. So...

11:17

Yeah, you kind of have to let

11:19

other people make your art important. You can't

11:21

make your Yes, exactly. Exactly, Joseph. That

11:23

is what the kinder way of what I'm

11:25

trying to say is, is that, yes, I

11:27

think that there was... there is an opportunity

11:29

with this episode. Again, it's an issues episode

11:31

and I think that they took it really

11:33

seriously and I appreciate them taking it really

11:35

seriously. But as a result, they made dog

11:37

shit television or cat shit television, I guess.

11:39

Or dog shit, cat shit, rat shit, rat

11:41

poison. Yes. Kim

11:44

Manners, by the way, would not

11:46

let this go. He referred to, so

11:48

X -Files had a system. where

11:50

every rewrite they would change the color of

11:53

the the paper so that no one

11:55

would mix up rewrite some scripts and this

11:57

one went through so many rewrites it

11:59

ended up going back to salmon

12:01

and so he referred

12:04

to this episode as second

12:06

salmon and then also got everyone

12:08

who worked on it a

12:10

t -shirt afterwards saying, I survived

12:12

Tessa's Dos Beachos. So

12:14

this is bad TV being made by a

12:16

guy who is so aware he is making

12:18

bad TV and is pissed off about it.

12:20

It's trying to. And by the way, second

12:22

salmon is what you feed cats. So

12:24

this episode was

12:27

watched by 17 .38

12:29

million people in

12:31

its initial broadcast. It's amazing.

12:33

It's just like we keep going back

12:35

to secession because session was like the

12:37

mode like this really talked about show

12:39

and I bet at its peak it

12:41

probably was like two million maybe maybe like

12:43

a little over one million. And

12:46

it's just that the era of the

12:48

monoculture where you could turn out just.

12:51

horrible television and 17 million people would

12:53

still watch it. And I do. I do

12:55

want to give them, I obviously want to give

12:57

X Files credit. It's a very popular show that they

12:59

did lots of cool stuff with, they created. I

13:01

would say that it's defined the genre. Yeah. I

13:04

mean, I think most people working

13:06

in sci -fi and horror right

13:08

now are people who grew up with the X

13:10

Files. Like the X Files is a real

13:12

influential work for the work coming right now. Yeah.

13:14

And I will say that

13:16

They made 24 episodes a season.

13:18

They were making a ton

13:20

of television. They are producing hour

13:23

-long shows every week. Again,

13:25

it's not all going to be incredible, and

13:28

it's not all going to

13:30

work, but they're working without net because they

13:32

have to turn the tape over to Fox, and

13:34

Fox has to put it on. we

13:36

get to see them fail, which I

13:38

think is cool because normally you don't

13:40

get to see failure on TV anymore

13:43

or anywhere anymore. It's like something that

13:45

is so invested in and so like

13:47

managed and noted that like you don't

13:49

get to see sort of big swings

13:51

miss. And I like that.

13:53

I like to see something that is overall really,

13:55

really successful. I'd like to look at it at

13:57

its worth to look at it for its failures

13:59

because I think there is a lot to learn from

14:02

it. Yeah. I mean, I

14:04

think going back to some

14:06

of what we try to do with the worst

14:08

episode, which is look at what is the show, why

14:10

did the show become so popular that we can

14:12

see even in its worst. You

14:14

have David DeCoffney and Jillian

14:16

Anderson, who just have

14:18

undeniable chemistry are great on screen.

14:21

They're there, they're doing it. I honestly

14:23

think that some of the

14:25

shots are good. There's some like good

14:28

cinematography in this. There's some like

14:30

cool lighting. When they're in

14:32

the steam tunnels, there's like some

14:34

like stark shadows and lights like

14:36

they're someone really someone who knows

14:38

what they're doing did like think through

14:40

what that scene would look like. Yeah

14:43

and going back to Kim Manners, Kim Manners really

14:45

did try really hard to make this episode

14:47

good and even just speaking to the writing is

14:49

the fact that you're at you know second

14:51

salmon you've tried so many times and I think

14:53

that's cool. The thing that I love in

14:55

the artistic process is it doesn't matter if it's

14:57

good doesn't matter if it's bad what matters

14:59

to me. as a person who creates art, as

15:01

a person who enjoys art, is that you tried.

15:03

You tried your absolute hardest. You used all your

15:06

tricks. You did not phone it in. You did

15:08

not give up. And I don't think

15:10

they gave up ever here. I

15:12

just think that sometimes you can't win

15:14

them all, right? They're also, they're

15:16

trying to say something that...

15:18

Honestly, I feel like a little

15:20

ahead of its time in popular culture

15:22

in the early 90s, which is this idea

15:24

of like, even if you're well -intentioned, you

15:27

can't save a culture without listening to that

15:29

culture. You know, you have this pompous

15:31

archaeologist who's like, I want to save this

15:33

urn because it'll get destroyed, but he's

15:35

not listening to the people. Who's

15:38

culture that are belongs to as I said

15:40

the execution of that story is very bad,

15:42

but I think the idea that they were

15:44

trying to talk about was actually pretty ahead

15:46

of its time for popular culture. And then

15:48

the other side of that coin is just

15:50

because it's a culture you understand doesn't mean

15:52

that it's necessarily witchcraft. Just

15:54

because you don't get them doesn't

15:56

mean that they're witches, but yeah, I

15:58

mean it's it definitely then plays into

16:01

a lot of the tropes

16:03

of like. the scary natives attacking

16:05

white people like there is

16:07

kind of this very hitchy over the

16:09

head scene at the beginning where

16:11

the pompous archaeologist is listening to

16:13

like classical music while the native

16:15

people are playing like ominous sounding

16:17

drums and so it's like this

16:19

back and forth between like civilized

16:21

music scary native music and and

16:23

it's very much playing into the

16:25

horror tropes of that they weren't past

16:27

that even as they were trying to

16:29

say something. One interesting note is

16:32

the guy who plays the Shaman

16:34

was a Kree activist

16:36

and a founder of the Saskatchewan

16:38

Native Theater Company. I

16:40

bet this episode annoyed the shit out of him

16:42

having to play the scary Shaman, but you

16:44

know what? It was a paycheck. It probably paid

16:46

for a nice show at the Saskatchewan Native

16:48

Theater Company, and so good for

16:51

him. Yeah, I was gonna say you

16:53

got that SAG Health insurance, but it's Canadian, so they

16:55

don't need that. They don't need their SAG Health insurance. One

16:58

major problem I think this show has, and it

17:00

speaks to what this show is good at, this

17:02

show is at its absolute best

17:04

when Mulder and Scully are bouncing

17:06

off each other. That's the show,

17:08

is those two characters and those two

17:11

performers, and they don't show up for so

17:13

long because we get a cold open that

17:15

they're not in. But then we get, after

17:17

the credits, like a second setup, because now we have

17:19

to be in Boston and set up those characters and

17:21

set up the murder there. So we

17:23

do not see Skully or Mulder

17:25

for seven minutes of a 40 -minute

17:27

episode. That's almost a quarter of the

17:29

episode. It does not have our

17:32

two friends in it. Yeah. We're anchorless.

17:34

We're rudderless without them, which

17:36

I guess brings us to the best,

17:38

right? Well, I've got some more notes on

17:40

Oh, he's got some more notes. Go for it, babe. I

17:42

wrote all down all sorts of things. I

17:45

just wrote Where Are Himbo

17:47

at one point when

17:49

Mulder wasn't there for seven

17:51

minutes. They do

17:53

some fun things. One of

17:56

the guys who gets killed is driving a

17:58

Jaguar, so they can really focus on the cat

18:00

statue. They have a

18:02

nice killer POV shot that's very

18:04

like Halloween or Evil Dead, so

18:06

they're kind of referencing some classic

18:09

horror movie shots. There's a lot

18:11

of careful craft and thought

18:13

going into an episode that

18:15

just ultimately doesn't work. I

18:17

think one of the main reasons this doesn't

18:19

work is the big cat attack is

18:21

just Skully waving around a stuffed animal. And

18:24

the reason was that Jillian Anderson is very allergic

18:26

to cats and so could not be anywhere near a

18:28

cat. And so they had, why

18:30

not just have an attack molder,

18:32

you'd think. But instead, we have

18:34

Skully just like doing her damnedest to

18:37

pretend to be attacked by... like

18:39

an animal that my three -year -old would happily go to

18:41

sleep with, just like a little stuffed cat. It

18:44

definitely speaks to the turmoil they had

18:46

while creating this episode, where they like

18:48

did not realize that this was going

18:50

to be a problem until like they

18:52

were filming it. Kim Manners realized it

18:54

was going to be a problem, but it

18:56

was Chris Carter. Chris Carter apparently would not

18:58

change his mind. It had to be cats.

19:01

Like, I don't think it would be great,

19:03

but if it was like a jaguar in

19:06

the basement hunting them, I

19:08

think Kim could have done some

19:10

nice scary shots of that and

19:12

you wouldn't have had Skully having to

19:14

like wave a stuffed cat. I mean even a

19:16

freaking Maine Coon could have done it. Yeah,

19:19

I mean Chris Carter is one of

19:21

those people where he created a really

19:23

good show but also this is not

19:25

the only episode where you really have to

19:27

question his creative judgment. There's a famous one

19:30

called First Person Shooter that I really thought

19:32

was going to be the worst

19:34

episode that is about a, like,

19:36

evil video game that is just

19:38

very, like, kids these days in their

19:40

video games. Our intermission

19:42

is, how is that theme

19:44

song? I mean, it's classic. Obviously,

19:46

you hear it, you're like, that's the X -Files

19:48

theme. I feel like when ringtones came out,

19:50

there's a lot of people's ringtone. You

19:53

can't sing along to it. I wouldn't say it's a

19:55

banger or a bop, but I

19:57

would say that it is instantly

19:59

identifiable and non -offensive. This

20:02

is for me top five

20:04

TV theme song of all time Cheers is

20:06

number one. I would put this at

20:08

number three ish. It's just

20:10

like It fits the mood

20:12

perfectly. It's so memorable.

20:15

The whole opening credits sequence is so

20:17

good. Just like in and of itself,

20:19

the opening credits sequence is famous. Pretty

20:21

much every one of those shots, and

20:23

then the truth is out there, which

20:25

they would very occasionally change to something

20:27

like Trust No One, and everyone would

20:29

be like, oh my god, they changed

20:31

the text. Just ugh. This

20:34

to me is like peak

20:36

television opening credit sequence. I

20:38

think that It should be a

20:40

law. I think the FCC should

20:43

be involved that every television show, no matter

20:45

what television show, should have a theme song

20:47

and a credit sequence. I think that should

20:49

be required. Yeah. I mean, the issue

20:51

is that everything has a skip intro button now,

20:53

so no one wants to... The FCC needs

20:55

to get rid of the skip

20:57

intro button. Every four episodes, you're

20:59

required to watch it in full. Well, that's the

21:01

issue, right? Is that now we watch 12 episodes

21:03

in a row, and so by the 11th,

21:05

we don't want to watch the credit sequence. you

21:07

know, when you're watching it once a week, the

21:10

credit sequence is sort of like the overture

21:12

at like an old timey musical. Like it's a

21:14

little bit like, oh, it's been a

21:16

long week, but now I'm getting into the mood for X -Files. I

21:19

think it's an important structural beat. And I

21:21

think that it is a travesty that

21:23

we have hollowed this from this

21:25

artistic expression. I agree.

21:28

I agree that the blame, I

21:30

think, actually has a very

21:32

easy to find scapegoat. Scapegoat's

21:34

not the right word because it actually is their fault,

21:36

which is lost. because Lost

21:38

is both kind of one of the first shows

21:40

that people were like, I want to binge

21:43

this because it has this continuing story, but also

21:45

Lost is the first one in my memory

21:47

that does not have an open and credit sequence.

21:49

It just has like... word lost

21:51

coming at you briefly with

21:53

a sound. And I

21:55

remember even at the time, people were being like,

21:57

wow, this is so innovative. They don't have an open

21:59

and credit sequence. But then it turns

22:01

out they ruined television. Everyone

22:03

was like, oh, we don't have to have an open and

22:05

credit sequence. Great. You have to have an open credit sequence.

22:07

And it has to be a little bit silly. Yeah.

22:10

Yeah. I mean, to me, I wouldn't put the

22:12

theme song in the top. We'll talk about

22:14

this when we get to it. But to me,

22:16

kind of the ideal open and credits is

22:18

Buffy. because Buffy has the like, they have like

22:20

when they put Allison Hannigan's name, you get

22:22

like old clips of Allison Hannigan doing stuff. It's

22:25

just perfect. It's sort of the curtain call. Like

22:27

each of the actors comes out when their name

22:29

is called and you get to see them. That's

22:32

what I'm looking for. And it changes

22:34

every season. So you can be like,

22:36

oh, we're in season four. The credits

22:38

are different now. Yeah. I mean, there

22:40

was the trend on HBO shows for

22:42

a while where they had like really

22:44

cool. I think they even still... for

22:46

some shows. There was like, I

22:48

remember there was one company that like,

22:50

that was what they did. They did all

22:52

of the HBO opening credits. Yeah. I

22:54

think it started with Trueblood. I think it

22:56

was Six Feet Under because Six Feet

22:58

Under had a really cool opening credit sequence.

23:01

You know where it started was the Sopranos probably. Yeah.

23:03

The Sopranos is such a classic one. I think

23:05

what happened is the Sopranos had a classic one and

23:07

then HBO was like, we have a mandate, we

23:09

have to have cool opening credits evidences, because that's kind

23:11

of what we're known for right now. And the

23:13

cool part of the Sopranos is it literally is just

23:16

the ride home from the city to very close

23:18

to where the house they grew up in was. So

23:20

it's like a little personal gift for Meg. And

23:22

now the best episode of the X -Files,

23:24

what is that? It's Bad Blood, which

23:26

is the 12th episode of the fifth season.

23:28

I forgot to note this based on

23:30

my theory. Tastato's speeches is

23:32

a little different because I said that The worst

23:34

was most likely to be in either the first

23:37

season or one of the last two. Instead, this

23:39

is in the third, which is very much not

23:41

where I thought it would be, but Bad Blood

23:43

season five. I think we're going to be seeing

23:45

a lot of seasons. Seasons four to

23:47

six are going to be like the sweet spot

23:49

for best episodes because that's when the show is

23:51

really cooking. They haven't gotten tired yet.

23:54

I think we're going to see a lot of those season fives. You

23:56

know, give us a summary. Do you

23:58

want me to try to do it off

24:00

the top of my head or you got

24:03

it? I think we can do this together.

24:05

All right. So this is a Monster of

24:07

the Week episode, and it's told in a

24:09

very interesting structure. The structure was based upon

24:11

an episode of the Dick Van Dyke show

24:13

called The Night the Roof Fell In, in

24:15

which the main characters, they tell different versions

24:17

of a fight that they had. But the

24:19

story is told in Mulder and Scully's different

24:22

versions of the events that happened. So we

24:24

start out with a ticking clock. Mulder's like,

24:26

we have an hour before we have to

24:28

go talk to Skinner about what happened. Well,

24:30

so what specifically we see right off the

24:32

bat? Mulder kills a guy because he thinks

24:34

the guy's a vampire and then Skully shows

24:36

that the guy is just a guy so

24:39

Mulder has straight up killed a person And

24:41

now they're looking talking about how to cover

24:43

it up Which is very like cops kill

24:45

cops lie like we're on we're watching two

24:47

cops try to cover up the fact that

24:49

they killed a guy So that's where we

24:51

are so it starts with Skully's version of

24:53

events Mulder's real cocky comes in he's like

24:55

We got to go down to Texas to

24:58

go do this thing. There's vampires there, and

25:00

he talks about vampires for a little bit,

25:02

and they go there, they go to the

25:04

Texas town, and there's been a person who's

25:06

been killed, a tourist who's been killed, so

25:08

they're at the funeral home, then they meet

25:10

the cop who's played by Luke Wilson, who

25:13

Scully finds very hot, apparently.

25:16

Scully has to go do...

25:18

autopsy while Mulder goes off

25:20

with the cop. And so

25:22

we get Mulder's version of events where she does

25:24

the autopsy, she figures out cause of death,

25:26

which is poisoning, and there's pizza in his stomach.

25:28

She's really tired. She goes back to her

25:30

hotel room, she orders a pizza, and then Mulder

25:32

comes in. And then we flip to Mulder's

25:35

version of the story, where we get to see

25:37

where he goes with the cop, and then

25:39

also just his versions of events, where when he's

25:41

talking about it, Scully is dismissive of him. And

25:44

the hot sheriff is ugly and kind

25:46

of a hick. The hot sheriff is, yes,

25:48

ugly and kind of a hick. And

25:50

Mulder is really brilliant about vampires and knows

25:53

a ton about them. And Scully is

25:55

just like this horrible, wet towel killjoy the

25:57

whole time. But so yeah,

25:59

we get the version of those events

26:01

where Mulder goes off with the

26:03

cop, they go to a cemetery, and

26:05

then they go to a

26:07

trailer park where things have got

26:09

a ride. There's some great

26:11

physical comedy involving Mulder trying to

26:13

stop a runaway RV, and

26:16

it ends with him just hanging off the back of it

26:18

being dragged in the mud. It's

26:20

very much a comedy episode. Very much

26:22

a comedy episode. And then we end

26:24

up back at the motel, but this

26:26

time we see that. Mulder is to

26:28

become the vampire's next victim because he

26:30

has eaten the poisoned pizza that was

26:33

that that scully ordered because the the

26:35

guy was the pizza guy was the

26:37

pizza guy So scully puts it back

26:39

puts it together. She's doing another autopsy

26:41

She puts it together that Mulder's in

26:43

trouble. So she goes back and she

26:45

finds him about to be eaten by

26:47

the vampire She shoots at him. He

26:50

runs away and that is when that's

26:52

when Mulder kills the guy and then

26:54

we get this kind of coda Where

26:56

they have to go back because the

26:58

guy he killed woke up and murdered

27:00

the coroner because it turns out he

27:02

really was a vampire and then we

27:04

get the little twist that in fact

27:07

everyone in town including the hot sheriff

27:09

is a vampire but they're kind of

27:11

like nice tax -paying. just get along, go

27:13

along vampire. So instead of killing Skully

27:15

and Mulder, they just knock them out

27:17

and then skip town and disappear. It

27:19

was really just like this kind of

27:21

bumbling late teen kid played by, brilliantly

27:24

played by Patrick Runa that causes this

27:26

whole issue by being like a messy,

27:28

a messy vampire. Yeah, the

27:30

other vampires all eat cow blood.

27:33

And he just like got in his head that

27:35

he wanted to be a real vampire and kill

27:37

humans. And he causes so much trouble that they

27:39

all have to pull up stakes and get out

27:41

of there. This is just a fun episode. It's

27:43

not the one I thought was going to be

27:45

best because I think there's some episodes that the

27:47

X -Files did that are really, like, beautiful and kind

27:49

of cosmic and, like, at the

27:52

time I watched them made me really feel things.

27:54

And this is not a feel things episode. This

27:56

is just a very silly, funny episode. But

27:58

I can see why people like it

28:00

so much. Yeah. It's written by Vince Gilligan.

28:02

So Crater, Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul,

28:04

lots of great television. This man has given

28:06

us. And directed by Cliff Bull, who

28:08

was one of those, you know, 80s and 90s

28:10

TV director is directed a lot of Star Trek.

28:12

He in fact has a Star Trek alien race

28:14

named after him. And so yeah, we got guest

28:16

appearances from Luke Wilson and Patrick Renna. Was Luke

28:18

Wilson famous at the time? Luke Wilson was just

28:21

in Home Fries with Drew Barrymore. And I think

28:23

Vince Gilligan wrote that film as well. So this

28:25

was right after. Okay. So he wasn't like a

28:27

movie star yet. He wasn't like a full on

28:29

movie star. He was working though. Like he was,

28:31

yeah, like it would make cultural sense for him

28:33

to be guest starring in an episode of a

28:35

very popular television show. And he did

28:37

great. He did great. Yeah, he was a

28:39

lot of fun in both his, he did very

28:42

well as a hunk and also very well

28:44

as a silly hick in kind of the two

28:46

versions of him. Yeah, but starting with the

28:48

writing, it's great. We love a show that is

28:50

using a fun structure and we love a

28:52

show that is borrowing from the television, the television

28:54

dynasty of the Dick Van Dyke show. So

28:56

I think I mean, classically, you would

28:58

call this like a Rashomon structure after the

29:00

Japanese movie I watched once when I

29:02

was 15. I watched it in my film

29:05

class. Yeah. But yeah, so it is

29:07

of that style. And that's great when we

29:09

use an existing structure and bring our

29:11

story and our characters to that. I think

29:13

that's a great way to write for

29:15

things is to play with different structures. I

29:17

could talk about structure and laying your

29:19

skin on top of its bones forever, but

29:21

we're not going to do that because

29:23

we're going to talk about this episode. Jillian

29:25

Andrews described this episode as one of her favorites

29:27

of the series. saying, oh, yes,

29:29

I love that episode. As far as I'm

29:31

concerned, it's one of our best ever. I

29:34

think it really showed how well David and

29:36

I can work together, which, again, this goes

29:38

back to your thesis that the most special

29:40

thing about X file is what makes it

29:42

so great is this chemistry between Dukovny and

29:44

Anderson. Yeah. And going back to the

29:46

worst one, which had. seven minutes without them

29:48

this one they are in it from minute

29:50

one second one like it starts with

29:52

the two of them and so we're right

29:54

in with their chemistry and the structure where

29:57

we see their two points of view only

29:59

works as well as it does because we

30:01

have gotten to know their two points of

30:03

view like it gets to sort of

30:05

poke fun at these personas that we've really

30:07

gotten to know and love that in her

30:09

view Jillian Anderson isn't being skeptical,

30:11

she's just being the adult in the

30:13

room. Whereas from the Mulder's point of

30:15

view, he's not being like

30:18

crazy. He's just, you know, he's

30:20

just laying out the facts and he just

30:22

has an interesting case. Like, kind of, we get

30:24

to see how they see themselves, which is

30:26

a lot of fun. Agreed. This

30:28

was watched by... 19 .25 million viewers

30:30

when it premiered. You get two more

30:32

million viewers. I mean, it's a few

30:34

seasons later, so I think X Files

30:36

was a bigger hit by then. Yeah,

30:38

it was definitely an appointment television show,

30:41

an appointment television by that point in

30:43

time. Some notes. We have

30:45

a prison rape joke. So

30:48

that's very 90s television. Mulder

30:51

does not tip the pizza guy

30:53

at all. It costs

30:55

like $14 .99. Mulder

30:57

gives him $15. So

31:00

in some ways, Mulder does deserve to

31:02

get murdered by the pizza guy. One

31:04

thing I think you can really

31:07

see what's good about the X

31:09

-Files here is we have a

31:11

joke about like points of view

31:13

on a sex object, which is

31:15

the sheriff. But that sex

31:17

object is a man and is

31:19

based a lot of it on

31:21

Scully's point of view on him.

31:23

And so even in a episode

31:26

about kind of a sex

31:28

object joke. Skoli is not that

31:30

sex object. Skoli became a sex symbol

31:32

because she's hot, but the show

31:34

never plays it that way. The show

31:36

never like makes her wear skimpy

31:38

clothes or plays into her sexuality like

31:41

other than her sexuality as like

31:43

an active participant in that she was

31:45

like hot for the sheriff. So

31:47

I really appreciated that, that kind of

31:49

the sex symbol joke was the

31:51

hot sheriff and not Skoli. Yeah.

31:54

Guys, it's the mid 90s. Women are

31:56

allowed to find men attractive. They'll never

31:58

get to be president, but in the

32:00

90s, they're allowed to find men attractive

32:02

on television. I mean, I think

32:04

in the 90s, they maybe were even president on

32:06

television. There's probably some show. Starting around

32:08

the 90s to early 2000s, every show, if you

32:10

had the president, it had to be either a

32:12

white woman or a black man, just to be

32:14

like, look at us. I liked how before when

32:16

you said, Jillian Anderson is hot, you like had

32:19

like a little bit of like a permission in

32:21

your face for me and like, yes, hon. Jillian

32:23

Anderson is very hot. I don't think that's what

32:25

I was thinking at the time. There was a

32:27

little bit of permission tone in there. I think

32:29

I was just trying to think of how to

32:31

phrase it and then just land it on. She's

32:34

hot. That's it, like objective hire. But she's

32:36

so pretty, man. I mean, they both

32:38

are, right? Like, that's the whole thing is

32:40

they were both really hot. They're hot together.

32:42

Yeah. That's sort of one of the big

32:44

appeals of the show. The amount

32:46

of fanfiction written about those two, man. And

32:49

they did eventually get a romance plot, but it

32:51

actually took, I think, quite a while. There was

32:53

We'll talk about this more in our Patreon

32:55

only show The Middleist, but there was

32:57

an attempt to replace her as a possible

32:59

love interest with someone else that just

33:02

went really badly because viewers did not want

33:04

that. They wanted those two together. My

33:06

final note for this episode is that

33:08

apparently I was trying to see this and

33:10

they did a really good job hiding

33:12

this, but the glowing eyes, the

33:14

vampires all have glowing eyes and that's

33:17

how you know they're vampires, that was

33:19

just painted onto their eyelids and so

33:21

none of them could see. So

33:23

like when they're like being approached by a crowd

33:25

of people with glowing eyes, all those people were

33:27

just having to walk with their eyes shut. And

33:30

that's how that effect was done, which is just,

33:32

I love it. Like now you'd get a CGI team

33:34

has to go in there. And back then it

33:36

was just like, no, just glow in the dark paint,

33:38

put it on their eyelids and close your eyes.

33:40

Cool. They can just put your hands out in front

33:42

of you and walk slow. You'll be fine. I

33:45

mean, I noted that in all the shots, like

33:47

they only showed them walking for like. half, like

33:49

a second at a time. I think it's real

33:52

slow and that's right in front of them. Yeah.

33:55

And then they're like all like spaced pretty far

33:57

apart. Yeah,

33:59

it's good. It's like it's as we've

34:01

talked about before. There was this

34:03

bridge between television and film. And

34:05

for most of its time, television was

34:07

firmly in the side of theater. You could

34:09

do things like just paint glow in

34:12

the dark paint on someone's eyes. And you

34:14

wouldn't you would never do that for

34:16

a big budget movie. But for a big

34:18

budget TV show like this, that was

34:20

fine. Because it's it's theater and need to

34:22

turn around quickly. Yeah. And that kind

34:24

of somewhere in the mid 2000s to early

34:26

2010s, TV slipped from theater to film.

34:28

And now everything has to be everything has

34:31

to look film quality. Everything has to

34:33

be shot in location. And I

34:35

think you see some of the just the fun of

34:37

like you can do simple theater stuff with TV and

34:39

it works. It doesn't look big budget, but it works. Suspender

34:42

disbelief. Like, do you really need

34:44

all this? Use your imagination. Do

34:46

you have any more notes on the best

34:48

ever episode? I really liked this episode. I think

34:50

that I understand why it's good. And I

34:52

think that for people who are really into X

34:54

-Files and watching it while it was happening, I

34:56

think that they would have had a really

34:58

good night with this one. The one I thought

35:00

was going to be best. Well,

35:02

there are a couple of notes. This is Tide, actually. I

35:05

went with this one because it had

35:07

more votes on IMDB than the other

35:09

one. But this is Tide with Clyde

35:11

Brookman's Final Repose, which is another episode

35:13

that I would have thought was best.

35:15

It's a very good episode about a

35:17

psychic. who can only predict people how

35:20

people are going to die is the

35:22

only thing he's able to predict. Great

35:24

episode. If you've never watched X

35:26

-Files and you're curious to watch more good

35:28

X -Files, I will say there's

35:30

an famous episode called Jose Chung's

35:32

From Outer Space that I have

35:34

not watched in 15 years, but

35:36

when I watched it as a

35:38

teenager, it genuinely was the single

35:40

best episode of television I'd ever seen. So

35:42

if you're curious, go search out

35:45

Jose Chung's From Outer Space, which is just

35:47

such a weird and good episode of television. Next,

35:50

well, I was going to say next week, but next

35:52

week is our Patreon only show the Middle East. But in

35:54

two weeks, what are we covering? It's in

35:56

the script. So I'm going to say it's house, everyone. It

35:59

is not house. We already covered house. It

36:02

is. I love Lucy.

36:04

Oh, no. Continuing our, we

36:06

alternate between our dramas and

36:08

half hours it comes. Yeah,

36:10

I love Lucy. I'm sure

36:12

had some highs but I am

36:14

dreading its worst episode because I feel

36:17

like the worst episode of I

36:19

Love Lucy might be our, I feel

36:21

like so far our worst episodes

36:23

have all been not great but still

36:25

like watchable and I am a

36:27

little afraid that the worst episode of

36:29

I Love Lucy might not even

36:31

be watchable. I'm worried that the best

36:33

episode of I Love Lucy might

36:35

not be watchable. Yeah well we're gonna

36:37

find out and you're gonna find

36:39

out too when we Cover I Love

36:41

Lucy. Join us next week

36:43

for our Patreon -only show, The

36:45

Middleist, where we look at

36:48

the exact middle -rated episode of

36:50

The X -Files, which is season

36:52

two, episode 24, Our Town. It's

36:54

a fun little one about

36:57

cannibalism and a meatpacking plant.

37:00

And it also has our Patreon -only

37:02

episode, within a Patreon -only episode, The

37:04

Littleist, where we discuss how our three

37:06

-year -old would handle the show. See

37:09

you then. Bye, guys. And

37:14

that's it. Thank you so

37:16

much. Please subscribe wherever you

37:18

get podcasts to the best

37:21

worst. Within the Wires is

37:23

an immersive fiction podcast set

37:25

in an alternate utopian -dystopian

37:27

timeline. Each 10 -episode standalone season

37:29

takes the form of found

37:32

audio. Co -writers Jeffrey Craner,

37:34

that's me, and Janina Matheson

37:36

use relaxation cassettes, or museum

37:38

audio guides, or a series

37:40

of voicemails to plunge you

37:43

into the world of Within

37:45

the Wires. It's a vibe,

37:47

and it's a story you

37:49

can piece together as you

37:51

listen. Season 9 is out

37:53

October 15th, 2024. Subscribe to

37:56

in the wires wherever you get your

37:58

podcasts. From

38:01

PRX