“Revelations” is a spiritual successor (literally) to season one’s “Beyond the Sea”, as Mulder and Scully swap places. Then, Darin Morgan returns with “War of the Coprophages”, a delightfully deep and goofy episode about killer cockroaches. Yes, you read that right.
Tuning In Episode 64: The X-Files, Revelations/War of the Coprophages
Joel Goodwin
-Some random thoughts, as someone who never found The X Files interesting.
I think Darin Morgan might be the kind of person who can writes a great novel over several years then is expected to rush the next one out over years. He might just not have the grab bag of ideas to see him through a series of his own.
I assumed the underlying story of the episode was some of the cockroaches were robots – I think there’s a scene where the guy stamps on one and it scuttles away unharmed suggesting it is made of something stronger than your usual bug armour.
Finally, I found that when Mulder flipped between “I want to believe” and “you shouldn’t believe your theory, it’s stupid” just felt inconsistent. That the flip was usually more of a writerly conceit than a consistent plotting of the character. This is actually core to why I never got into The X Files – it always seemed very constructed. The mythology never making any sense yet the show pretending it all did, for example, just came across as audience manipulation.
But I acknowledge a ton of people got into The X Files and, for them, they found it offered something pretty cool and unique. And there were always the Darin Morgan episodes…
I actually enjoyed the first series of Millennium a lot more (the later series’ turned into crazy conspiracy stuff, as if copying the X Files – no surprise I tired of this).
Joel Goodwin
-Sorry for the typos there… hope it is readable!
Eric Brasure
-I think that’s a very good point re: Darin Morgan.
I disagree about Mulder–he’s consistently kind of full of himself. 🙂
Hopefully you try and give The X-Files another shot–it really is one of the finest television series ever created.