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It's pretty sad that Chris Carter had a feature film and SIXTEEN EPISODES and a high flying FOX budget and the all original actors and Vancouver and he STILL couldn't wrap up his show.

"By Odin's beard, you shall not cut my hair, lest you feel the wrath of the mighty Thor!" [pause] "Please, kind sir, do not cut my hair. NO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

"That looks painful. Dear brother, you're becoming predictable. I trust you, you betray me, round and round in circles we go. See Loki, life is about... It's about growth, it's about change, but you seem to just want to stay the same. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you'll always be the god of mischief, but you could be more. I'll just put this over here for you."

"The damage is not too bad. As long as the foundations are still strong, we can rebuild this place. It will become a haven for all peoples and aliens of the universe." [Asgard explodes] "Oof. Now those foundations are gone. Sorry."

Translation: "These movies and shows aren't made to serve MY personal interests and specific desires for film and TV, therefore they are objectively bad and people who like things I don't are wrong." Didn't you learn anything from your nervous breakdown in the DCEU thread?

INFINITY WAR was okay. I didn't hate it, I thought it was a good superhero epic -- it's just, I'm not really that into epics. I don't like seeing giant battlefields with hundreds of thousands of people charging forward; I prefer the three-person battles of CIVIL WAR or, despite reservations, Daisy and Coulson walking through a dimly lit hallway. It bothered me that INFINITY WAR trampled over RAGNAROK's ending by immediately slaughtering "half" of the survivors of Asgard and gave Thor his eye back.

I don't really have any strong opinions about INFINITY WAR except to say it's not really for me; I'd rather see superheroes more on the scale of Oliver and Felicity eating breakfast for dinner or Barry making his wedding plans or Kara and Lena eating Chinese food, if that makes any sense.

I found the scale of INFINITY WAR really difficult to relate to and, to be honest, the only reason I went to see it in theatres was so that I could watch this week's AGENTS OF SHIELD (which I will go watch now at the gym).

It's also gotten kind of cheap. This whole season looks like it was filmed in someone's basement and they clearly don't have the money for the extras and location filming that they once had. Excellent character-oriented writing and the stories are as strong as ever, but every episode feels like a bottle episode with only a few exceptions this year. I love the scripts, but the visual quality of the show has gotten frustratingly claustrophobic with the team constantly advancing down dimly lit hallways to get to more dimly lit hallways.

I don’t think I approve of you, Transmodiar, hoarding away a trinket of anecdotal SLIDERS trivia and refusing to divulge it on the grounds that your friends mock you for it when that only indicates how urgently you must divulge it.

I didn't know you'd met Jerry. What happened there? I knew Jerry had met your wife and hit on her unsuccessfully when she was interning at MTV before your marriage and while you were both taking a break. You blogged, rather grimly, "It's heartening to know Jerry wants my ex." And you met Charlie O'Connell at a bowling alley, didn't you?

While clothiers separate suits into classic, modern and slim fit, no two manufacturers ever have the same measurements in the same divisions. I’m not sure what you mean by trouser legs being too short as most ready to wear trousers are deliberately too long — so the customer can have them hemmed for their height.

Slim fit generally refers to clothes hanging close to the body in contrast to a more loosely fitted design. If you watch FRASER or a Sean Connery Bond film, jackets and trousers were large and wide whereas on SMALLVILLE, Clark’s suits were very fitted to his figure. The latter is how most modern suits are cut for average sized men. Some manufacturers call it slim fit.

https://ezrapaul.com/blogs/news/are-you … -too-tight

There is no redemption for a human trafficker, for procuring children to hand over to a pedophile, for enslaving and torturing women into forced labour. I have no concern whatsoever for Allison Mack's recovery or well-being and I'd suggest we save our concern for the victims and not the perpetrator.

You have no idea how weird it is for me to see Slider_Quinn22 saying we should separate the art from the artist when he insists on Quinn in Season 4 indicating Quinn's sociopathy rather than Jerry being half assed and hungover and not bothering to learn his lines or read the entire script.

But Chloe shouldn't be a villain just because Allison is one; we shouldn't confuse the actor with the character.

At this point, I would digitally replace Allison with Ann Coulter or Tomi Lahren if it would get Allison's sorry ass out of the show.

We both agreed that Allison Mack was a cultist, abuser, human trafficker and sexual slaver long before it was fashionable to do so. We both enjoyed the JUSTICE LEAGUE movie which the world at large considers a crime against humanity. Many friendships were founded on far less.

**

There is an open source technology recently popularized for its low system requirements which allows a user to digitally replace a person's face with another in pre-existing video footage. It was (of course) first employed to graft the faces of Hollywood actresses onto female pornography performers engaging in performative sex acts.

I propose that we assemble a bank of (used) Playstation 3s to form a makeshift rendering farm, map Kristen Bell's face using box sets of the three seasons of VERONICA MARS, and begin digitally replacing Allison Mack in SMALLVILLE with Kristen Bell instead and hire noted impressionist Robert Floyd (Mallory on SLIDERS) to re-record all of Mack's dialogue in Bell's voice. I propose we use the magic of CGI to remove Allison Mack from every single hour of television she ever performed, expunge her from every single frame of film and leave her with nothing but her crimes.

But to be realistic, anyone wanting to use Chloe before would probably just use Felicity Smoak instead and right now, who could blame them?

**

I just had this weird daydream of Justin Hartley's Oliver Queen confronting Allison (not Chloe) and yelling, "YOU HAVE FAILED THIS CITY!"

It's also surreal to me that it's one of only two things Informant and I ever agreed upon.

I believe the standard arrangement is that the creators would own 10 per cent of the franchise. Such as it is. Anyone developing TV would be better off calling their parallel show by a different title and they'd have more freedom, recognition, ownership and profit.

LOST IN SPACE is a known and recognizable brand for the general audience.

I'm really enjoying all the shows this season. SUPERGIRL's been a delight with Kryptonian sleeper warriors, Alex dealing with her breakup and the crossover was amazing. THE FLASH has been terrific in giving our heroes a villain who can outthink them at every turn. LEGENDS has been a revelation and done the impossible by making Wally West a viable character and finding a way to humanize Damien Darhk to the point where he regrets Season 4 of ARROW as much as Stephen Amell and Informant.

ARROW has continued with its return to street-level action and had Oliver progress while still having the same flaws.

I thought the argument between Oliver and John this week in "Brothers in Arms" was incredible. Both make completely valid criticisms of each other's leadership, but both refuse to acknowledge their own flaws. Oliver dismisses John's point that his leadership style is fundamentally alienating while John ignores how he hid his medical problems from the team and endangered all of them. But John presents Oliver's human resource failures as tactical disasters when they weren't. Oliver portrays John's secrets as facilitating a criminal takeover of the city rather than the moral failures they actually were.

Oliver calling out John for killing Andy was truly cruel when Andy was declaring his intention to murder John's wife and child when John shot him. John was out of line to say that Diaz had won the city because of how Oliver had handled the recruits. In the end, neither are happy with themselves for how they've steered their teams but direct their frustration at each other rather than inwardly.

I also really like how, on THE FLASH, Iris has remained in charge at STAR Labs, something that I didn't entirely notice until Ralph snapped at Iris that she contributes nothing and she replied that she is the leader of the team. Candice Patton has such a gentle screen presence that it was only then that I realized she's been giving orders since the Season 4 premiere; it always felt like her instructions were suggestions that the others found so instantly clear in their logic and purpose that they would follow them.

On one level, it's trying to hammer the female lead into a meaningful role outside being the damsel in distress of Season 1. On another, this decision really works; Iris isn't a scientist or a fighter, but she is an excellent human resources person who grasps each team member's abilities and can distribute and direct them well, giving them the right attitude and direction for their skills and body of knowledge and allowing their specialities to inform her choices. And it really puts Oliver and John's leadership to shame. Slider_Quinn21 is constantly wondering why Team Arrow doesn't call Barry; I wonder why they don't call Iris.

I think the most likely route to a reboot happen is NBCUniversal having some sort of development deal with a producer who is a huge fan of SLIDERS and pushes for NBCUniversal to take the property off the shelf. It's not terribly likely at all, but it happened with DOCTOR WHO. BBC had no desire to revive the series because they'd done it very cheaply in the past, saw no way to revive it inexpensively, knew science fiction in 2005 was pricey -- but they wanted to work with Russell T. Davies after the success of QUEER AS FOLK and THE SECOND COMING. And Davies didn't want to do anything but DOCTOR WHO. Once that starts, Quinn, Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo whether played by the originals or new actors, have a lot of obvious marketing avenues to become icons to a new generation of viewers.

I do think Slider_Quinn21 went way too far, way, way too far -- but the ideas themselves were pretty solid even if I objected to torturing and imprisoning the original cast. If you forced me to go with his next generation approach...

SLIDERS - SECOND GENERATION
Sarah Nyugen is a tech support worker who failed out of her physics program in grad school. Kai Geoffrey is a YouTube star who failed to hang on to his 15 minutes of fame after an ill-advised stunt at a suicide scene. John Galen is a politician who failed to retain office after a scandal involving a blimp, some helium tanks and a hot dog stand.

Geoffrey, in a desperate attempt to revive his career, attempts a video at the supposedly haunted Mallory house only to experience computer problems that send Sarah to his aid.

Sarah, fascinated by the remnants of Quinn's technology, accidentally triggers a vortex that ensnares her, Kai and John (who just happens to be driving by). They are sent to an Earth where Galen is the wealthiest man in America and he lives it up -- until it turns out identity theft is a capital crime and Galen is marked as an impostor. On the run, the three are aided in surviving this parallel Earth by a mysterious stranger who reveals himself to be Dr. Quinn Mallory.

Sarah triggering his tech drew his attention. Quinn slid to this Earth to investigate. But in helping these new sliders, Quinn accidentally damages his own system and now the four find themselves sliding randomly through the interdimension in a search for home with Quinn serving as an experienced slider who is hiding a secret of his own, a dark past from which he's running, a terrible reason for why he can never go home again...

I think it'd also be neat to have one episode of PHASE II in which Wade, Rembrandt and Arturo are called in to investigate the new sliders' disappearances and reassure us that our old friends are indeed alive and well and not... like, in jail or something. *casts a curious look at Slider_Quinn21*

But written all this, I think you'd be better off just starting over again with Quinn opening the vortex for the first time whether he's played by Jerry O'Connell or Lucas Till.

I once asked Temporal Flux how a new SLIDERS could start over again without all the baggage of the past. Could we reboot without losing what makes SLIDERS special? TF replied that he would love to see a reboot with the original cast, and he gave me his idea, which I updated for today with some ideas from Transmodiar:

• In 2019, Wade Welles is a fortysomething tech journalist who failed to build a life beyond reviewing smartphones and laptops.

• Rembrandt Brown is a coffee bar owner in his sixties who failed to hang onto his 15 minutes of fame.

• Professor Arturo is a genius in his seventies who failed to find a career outside of writing high school study guides for science students.

• Quinn Mallory is a fortysomething tax accountant who lost his passion for science after failing to create anti-gravity -- but 25 years after giving up, he realizes that he discovered something else instead.

• Quinn has not spoken to Wade Welles or the Professor since a strange day in 1994 when they accused him of strange behaviour he didn't recall and ended their respective associations with him.

• Quinn has never been able to explain why the Professor recalls him being rude and abusive in class or why Wade remembers Quinn kissing her.

• In fact, those hours of his memory are missing, which he attributes to sleep deprivation over his failed science project.

• When Amanda Mallory dies, Quinn goes back to his old house to clear it out and sell it. He uncovers his old anti-gravity machine and his video cassettes. Watching one of them, one he doesn't remember making, he is struck by inspiration.

• He restarts the machine with some adjustments and opens a new vortex.

• After an initial slide, he eagerly invites the Professor and Wade, finally realizing what happened in 1994.

• They open a gateway to explore once again, accidentally drawing in a passing Rembrandt -- and the adventure begins again.

• SLIDERS: A journey through what could be and might have been. Sometimes, getting lost is the best way to be found.

Here's how I think the plot could unfold:

• Opening scene: same footage from the Pilot where Quinn knocked out the power in 1994.

• Cut to 2019.

• Quinn, a tax accountant, has been assigned to income tax duty.

• Wade and Arturo are sent to his desk, where, as he does their taxes, they rant at him for various sins (giving up on science, ridiculing Arturo in his class, abandoning his life's passion, kissing Wade and pretending it never happened).

• Quinn tells them he has no idea what the hell they're talking about and he's done fine for himself. He failed in his ambitions for science -- he moved on. Wade leaves in disgust. Arturo tells Quinn he should be ashamed of himself.

• ARTURO: "You abandoned your gift! You could have changed the world with your intellect and body of knowledge, but what have you done with it instead? Learned how to fill out forms and reduced yourself to a calculator on legs!"

• The phone rings. Quinn picks it up. Then he hangs up. He looks blank and lost.

• ARTURO: "What the devil is wrong with you now?"

• QUINN: "My mom had a heart attack. She's dead."

• ARTURO: " ........................... but on balance, Mr. Mallory, perhaps you shouldn't be too hard on yourself."

• A blur of funeral arrangements, farewells, followed by Quinn going to his old house.

• He explores his basement, which he has not visited in years.

• He finds a video cassette on the floor, one of several. Pops one of these into a VHS player and TV.

• He sees his younger self (Jerry in young-age makeup, obscured by low VHS quality video) talking about adjustments to make to the anti-gravity machine.

• Quinn can't remember making this video or these adjustments -- but now he makes them. He triggers the machine. It doesn't work. But these adjustments inspire him to try a subsequent configuration. He triggers it again.

• A vortex opens and sucks Quinn in.

• He ends up in a parallel universe, explores it, and then the sliding machine back home re-opens a tunnel to bring him home.

• (Some explanation about how Quinn set up a double-entry gateway, purely by accident.)

• Quinn returns to his basement, excited. Starts playing more of the VHS cassettes -- and urgently calls the Professor and Wade to his house.

• He plays them the videos, saying that his alternate universe double must have left him these tapes all those years ago -- probably as an apology for screwing up his life.

• They review the footage, although some is missing due to some tapes having been broken over the years. They construct a timer while various segments of VHS-Quinn play.

• VHS-Quinn speaks in reverent, eager tones about what must be out there in the multiverse, how excited he is to explore.

• (Presumably, Quinn recorded these entries in 1994 between speaking to Smarter-Quinn and welcoming Wade and Arturo into the basement.)

• Quinn, Wade and Arturo slide out, accidentally ensnaring a passing Rembrandt as they do, who happens to be driving past the Mallory house for reasons too terrible and complex to explain here (read: I haven't thought of any yet).

• They have another adventure, but triggering the timer early causes them to be lost in the multiverse.

• All the video journals are left behind on Earth Prime except for fragments here and there that Wade finished converting to keep on her smartphone (as a convenient aid for future episodes if the writer gets stuck for a plot device).

And then, on the website! We have some exclusive web content. We have:

• Clips of VHS-Quinn talking. It's established that he's recording these segments in 2001. We have him recap individual episodes of the 1995 series from his perspective along with worlds we never saw.

• We have clips of Quinn explaining the function and properties of sliding.

• We have clips of Quinn talking about his childhood, which is precisely the same as "The Guardian."

• And then a final clip.

• It's Quinn in 2001, saying that terrible things have happened.

• His friends are all dead.

• His world is gone.

• The only reason he's alive now is because a fellow slider sacrificed himself to bring Quinn back from quantum limbo.

• Quinn has been forced to make a terrible choice.

• He has commandeered a Kromagg weapon.

• It is a reality warping weapon. He has modified it. He has reprogrammed it.

• He can alter reality. He can change the past. He can make it so that no one has ever created sliding, not himself, not his doubles, not the Kromaggs.

• Everyone will live the lives they'd have had if sliding had never been created.

• But this is only a delay; he knows his amnesiac self will reconstruct some variant on the technology eventually. So he's left him these tapes to guide him.

• He hopes his amnesiac self has the wisdom and perspective in the future that Quinn lacked in 1994 and wishes his future self luck in his adventures, speaking of the infinity and wonder of the multiverse and everything that awaits him once again.

There is a sad irony in watching Season 11 and noticing that SUPERNATURAL started out as a cheap X-FILES clone, but over the course of five seasons, SUPERNATURAL has corrected most of THE X-FILE's flaws, improved on almost all of its strengths and Season 11 seemed like an inept and overbudgeted clone of SUPERNATURAL.

THE X-FILES is a terribly incoherent show because of the freedom accorded to each episode's writer and the lack of concern for linking each episode even when they're meant to be sequels to each other.

This freedom is often cited as a strength of THE X-FILES where the blockbuster BOURNE movie heroics of "My Struggle IV" exist alongside a surreal comedy like "Forehead Sweat" and the buddy cop drama of "This" and the sci-fi lunacy of "Familiar." But SUPERNATURAL has shown that it can easily integrate a variety of tones and styles -- horror, action, comedy, metatextual commentary, theology, hopeful stories and bleak tales -- into a collective whole by making sure the lead characters have ongoing arcs and consistent voices even if the story around them this week has a different tone and genre from last week and next week.

THE X-FILES has also been applauded for isolating the myth-arc episodes from the monster of the week episodes, allowing standalone adventures that any audience member can tune into at any point with even myth-arc episodes being somewhat accessible. As Slider_Quinn21 notes, his inability to remember the details of the myth-arc actually helps him avoid confusion because he doesn't notice contradictions.

But SUPERNATURAL handles this so much better too. There are myth-arc episodes and there are monsters of the week, but SUPERNATURAL capably builds the myth-arc into the ongoing characterization and personal arcs, allowing standalone episodes to be thematically relevant to the myth-arc even if they aren't significant to the plot.

Sometimes, the monster of the week stories offer small pieces of information or equipment that may be useful in a myth-arc episode, but SUPERNATURAL is generally successful in making sure that each episode has a beginning and an end while serving as a chapter in a larger story. In addition, SUPERNATURAL is aware that it exists in an era of box sets and streaming whereas THE X-FILES seems terrified to let elements progress between episodes.

Both SUPERNATURAL and THE X-FILES are dealing with a complex mythology that can often be confusing. But THE X-FILES frequently denies its own history through blatant retconning and rewriting and refuses to acknowledge its own revisions. Mulder confronts the Smoking Man but the change from Colonization to the Spartan Virus isn't even mentioned; he later visits Deep Throat's grave and doesn't observe that Deep Throat seemed to be involved in a completely different conspiracy than what was unveiled in Season 10.

In contrast, SUPERNATURAL has wisely given its myth-arc separate chapters, closing one off before starting another. The apocalypse gave way to a civil war between angels which transitioned into the Leviathans and battling for control of Hell and moved into the Mark of Cain and shifted into the Darkness and then moved towards the Men of Letters and so forth.

You don't get SUPERNATURAL without THE X-FILES, but I think it's safe to say that SUPERNATURAL has surpassed its predecessor and is an improvement in nearly every area except budget and women and even that last one might change soon.

I think Slider_Quinn21 raises a good point that a reboot could alienate old fans. And admittedly, when Chris Carter killed off Mr. Y, Erika Price and the Smoking Man, he freed the show from ever having to address the myth-arc again. There is no need to delve into Colonization or the Conspiracy of Men or the Spartan Virus any further. A reboot creates a clean slate, but we already have one.

So, here is my soft reboot proposal (without Gillian Anderson):

FBI Agent Tamlin Rivers (obviously played by Summer Glau) is in disgrace after a botched meth lab raid blew up in her face and killed 12 agents. She has scarring that's only partially hidden by her hair. She is reassigned to the most dead-end division in the bureau, the X-Files. She is briefed by Skinner (who is in a wheelchair after his injury).

Skinner says that the X-Files was shuttered by Kersh but then reopened under classified directive and he can't tell her too much about the past except that Rivers will be joining Agent Scully who has a wealth of knowledge and experience in paranormal investigations.

Rivers, a skeptic, heads down to the basement and is greeted by Agent William Scully (Miles Robbins). Glau protests that William is too young to be in the FBI; he's 18, the average recruit is 30. William dismisses all this with a smile and paperwork indicating he's a genuine FBI agent. He drags Rivers into their next case.

At one point in the premiere, William calls Mulder on the phone to ask for advice. We see Mulder in his house, holding a bag of breast milk by the fridge. William says he's not sure he can pull this off. Mulder assures William that he'll be great but reminds William that he's no longer immortal or telepathic and needs to not take crazy risks.

The conversation is interrupted by the sound of Scully screaming for Mulder off camera (using reused audio from Season 8's "Without" of Anderson screaming for Mulder in the desert) and a crying baby in the background (stock). Mulder apologizes and hangs up.

As Season 12 progresses, Rivers researches Scully and guesses that Scully is some sort of outside operative from deep in the Department of Defense somehow planted in the FBI with a false paper trail; this is thrown off by multiple colleagues at the FBI claiming to have known Scully for years.

Rivers has also heard of Agents Mulder and Scully, but when she tries to look up their records, their personnel files have been classified and their names and details have been redacted from the casefiles. As the season unfolds, Rivers finds William's peculiar ignorance of procedure and protocol to be frustrating and disturbing. He barely seems to consider the FBI a job. He sleeps on a sofa in the office.

At one point, Rivers discovers that William doesn't even get paid: payroll's never heard of him and he's been living off lottery ticket winnings (which are running out).

He's immature and juvenile, an obnoxious quality for Rivers who is a professional, precise and highly experienced agent. However, he is loyal and self-sacrificing and completely trustworthy despite being an unknown quantity, and William and Rivers develop a heated rapport of respectful teamwork.

After several standalones, we get a William focused episode and a revelation: William, losing control of his powers, broke into the defunct X-Files office to try to find answers. Reading the casefiles made him feel connected to Mulder (whom he considers his father even though they're brothers) and Scully, whom he considers his mother. The basement felt like home.

In a final burst of telepathic and psychokinetic energy, William rewrote the memories of everyone in the building to think of him as Agent William Scully and assigned to the X-Files (and had them fake the records). This burnt out his abilities, leaving him only human but having found a place where he belonged.

William called Mulder and Scully who were relieved to hear he was alive and encouraged him to take the X-Files Division forward. After more standalones, the Season 12 finale could have Duchovny (and maybe Anderson) guest-star to officially hand over the show to Rivers and William.

I can't see Chris Carter accepting this. Despite all the ridiculousness that Carter has written into his series and scripts -- Carter would balk at an 18-year-old boy being presented as an FBI agent.

I think Season 6 was pretty definitive: even without being assigned to the FBI's X-Files division, Mulder and Scully still investigate weirdness the way other couples go bowling. Going private allows them to bring their trainee, William, on cases. I think it's fine for them to be outside consultants to the bureau, but I don't think the show needs a myth-arc. It's never really had one, just a scattered number of episodes that are (mismatched) sequels to each other. Even the four "My Struggle" episodes were detached. Colonization had nothing to do with Sveta's story which had nothing to do with the Spartan virus which had nothing to do with William's mental manipulation powers which had nothing to do with the CSM actually wanting William for his immortality. The show would've been better with character arcs over a myth-arc.

"Nothing Lasts Forever" and "My Struggle IV," despite being written by two different writers, seemed to have the same writing style: both Karen Nielsen and Chris Carter write scenes and moments instead of stories. In "Nothing Lasts Forever," Nielsen has written some truly creepy and compelling gore-horror scenes and some genuinely heartfelt character interaction scenes for Mulder and Scully matched with some superb superhero action with Juliet spiking murderous organ harvesters. There's a linking theme of youth and age and how some seek to defy it with supernatural-paranormal science, some expend it on vigilante exploits that lead to prison and some go with the flow.

But the end result: Mulder and Scully wander through the story and don't make any difference except for the worse -- which is to say that had they not gotten involved, the story would end with Juliet having killed the organ harvesters and set off to rid the world of more evildoers. Instead, because Mulder and Scully are involved, Juliet will now go to jail and the world of THE X-FILES is now deprived of a badass lady who stakes evil, bloodthirsty lunatics through the heart. Mulder and Scully have therefore made the world worse and the episode is simply a collection of nice moments.

"My Struggle IV" is much the same except Chris Carter isn't really a character oriented writer. His cool moments are action: car chases, William making people explode, Mulder and Scully running through the dark halls of an abandoned factory, a shootout, a car possibly running Skinner over. He's all about the action sequences and thriller escapades and as a result, there isn't much space for Mulder and William to reunite, for Scully to process William's parentage, for Mulder to grapple with the revelation.

There are truly nice scenes throughout: Mulder hugging William, Scully's revelation, Skinner explaining he helped the Smoking Man to gather more information, but they're so crowded out by empty action that they have no room to breathe. The shootouts and car chases and multiple sequences of Mulder getting close to William only for him to slip away add little to the story beyond delaying reunions and confrontations that come too quickly to have impact.

As a final episode (and it probably should be), it's effective enough in concluding the mess that is the myth-arc and ending with Mulder and Scully together and the X-Files Division shut down again (although it's unclear why it was reopened in the first place). Skinner's fate being left unknown is the only plot point that truly calls for resolution and it's irksome that Carter left that dangling for no real reason beyond the wish for a Season 12 despite Season 11 being Anderson's last (or so she says).

I think THE X-FILES under Chris Carter has come to a belated, awkward, strangely rushed yet overlong finale that wasted a lot of time but found some nice notes on which to conclude despite Skinner's frustratingly unknown status.

THE X-FILES was the first show I ever saw where small children were acceptable victims of the week. It really disturbed me and I don't really know what to say about it. SMALLVILLE also really troubled me with the way it casually massacred teenagers (even if they were played by actors in their late 20s).

My main problem with the X-FILES formula for monsters of the week: Mulder and Scully never accomplish anything. Had they not appeared, the story would have unfolded in much the same way. THE X-FILES does it deliberately to represent how our world is at the mercy of inhuman, unknowable and otherworldly forces whether they're technologically advanced aliens or supernatural beings. It's not something I enjoy.

I don't really feel comfortable saying whether "Familiar" was good or bad except to say I don't really like THE X-FILES, I never have, I study it rather than enjoy it and it always makes me appreciate FRINGE.

With FRINGE, the victims of the week are played for tragedy and grief, but their deaths also lead Fringe Division to preventing further bloodshed and loss of life with every case-of-the-week building to the Season 5 finale in which Fringe Division saved the entire human race.

In every FRINGE episode, there is a scientific explanation. Sometimes, that science is absurd emotionalism masquerading as empirical analysis, but the show is commited to something resembling rationalism whereas THE X-FILES is an abstract horror show one week and a technology driven thriller the next and the lead characters are helpless. That's not what I personally want to see.

I will never say that THE X-FILES is a bad show, but it's not *my* show. No thank you. I'll watch it. I'll study it. I'll never buy DVD sets to revisit its narrative. I'll never like it and I'll never write a six part series of screenplays for it.

But people should be free to create work that I don't like.

Hey, when's the ebook of THINK OF A ROULETTE WHEEL coming?

Didn't we already have this conversation when talking about "This"?

I honestly don't mind. The DESPERATE HOURS novel still exists and is still a great read. It was a terrific volume for the time in which it was published, presenting a very amusing thought experiment by having the 1960s sets and costumes right alongside the 2017 sets and costumes and having the characters declare that the 1960s design is more advanced.

But it is equally valid to declare that the 23rd century through DISCOVERY is a visual re-interpretation in the way a SPIDER-MAN comic looked one way when Steve Ditko drew it in the 60s but looks another way when Steve McNiven draws it in the 21st century.

From a scripting standpoint, nothing's at odds with the original STAR TREK except for aspects that should be ignored anyway like "Turnabout Intruder" saying no woman has ever captained a starship. Gaffes like "Vulcan Hello" contradicting "Tholian Web" (in which Spock said there's no record of a mutiny aboard a starship) have been patched with Burnham's record being expunged. Spock has never been forthcoming about his family, not even acknowledging his parents when they were standing right in front of him.

It kind of reminds me of SPIDER-MAN and IRON MAN comics. In SPIDER-MAN comics, flashbacks almost always reprint panels from the 1960s comics even though they're completely at odds with the 21st century designs because the 1960s issues are so iconic. With IRON MAN, however, flashbacks tend to take place in the modern world with scenes always redrawn and updated because Iron Man wasn't terribly popular when he first began. DESPERATE HOURS took the SPIDER-MAN route, but the DISCOVERY finale took the IRON MAN path.

How does the DISCOVERY-style Enterprise fit in with DESPERATE HOURS declaring that Constitution class starships have a different design style and uniforms? GO FUCK YOURSELF, that's how.

... I'm sorry. Slider_Quinn21 has jokingly needled me about how I take media tie-ins like novels, comics, video games and audioplays as canonical and invest emotionally in them and refuse to ever call them 'unofficial,' constantly asserting that this plothole or that unfinished arc is addressed in this comic and that novel. Unfortunately, when it comes to DESPERATE HOURS and DISCOVERY, I must concede defeat.

This is a difficult time for me as I must confess the unspeakable -- STAR TREK novels aren't canon. It was really hard to type that.

What happened here: David Mack was writing DESPERATE HOURS when Bryan Fuller was working on the show. Fuller suggested that Mack write a Spock/Burnham story as Fuller didn't want to do a crossover. As Mack was writing the novel, Fuller left and the costumes changed from the neo-Cage look to the more ENTERPRISE-styled uniforms.

Mack described the onscreen Enterprise exactly as it appeared in the 60s and point-blank had Spock declare that the Enterprise looks more advanced than the 'older' DISCOVERY ships. But now, Fuller's successors have chosen a route Fuller wasn't going to use; they want to do a crossover and DESPERATE HOURS no longer fits.

Sorry for the delayed response on some of these items.

I have no interest in debates over whether or not the alt-right qualify as Nazis or if white nationalist Richard Spencer should be considered one when he claims he doesn't identify as such. He calls for ethnic cleansing and for racial extermination and was punched in the face; I wouldn't have punched him, but I wouldn't shed a tear for his pain given his rhetoric. I can't say I'm all that concerned with getting to grips with how Informant categorizes different hate groups.

I'm also not terribly interested in explanations on how Trump bragging about sexual assault doesn't count as a confession and how he hasn't professed racist views -- except to say that people are free to offer their views but have no business declaring that those who disagree are mentally ill.

My view: the 2016 election was subjected to an unprecedented level of hacking from Russian agents. The FBI is investigating whether or not these agents coordinated and collaborated with the Trump campaign, a worthwhile avenue of inquiry. Christopher Steele's distaste for Trump is not a disqualifying factor in his information being used to open an investigation as espionage and law enforcement constantly rely on informants biased against the party on whom they're reporting and such information is not treated as proof in itself, but as information that must be corroborated or disproven in the course of an investigation. A biased informant is a given in any investigation as such parties tend not to be neutral.

In addition, Trump's denials of collusion have been matched with (a) firing James Comey which Trump confessed on TV was to interfere with the investigation (b) being unable to keep his story straight on why he fired Comey and (c) seeking to fire Mueller for the same reasons. Nobody goes to this level of effort if they're not scared of what will be discovered.

Devin Nunes misrepresents law enforcement (and now espionage) to stir phony outrage and Nunes' claim that Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia (to sabotage her own campaign?!) is unbelievably stupid. Nunes is another person to add to the list of dubious alt-right white nationalists, Birthers, Men's Right Activists, Sarah Palin, Cassie Jaye, James O'Keefe, Paul Elam, Roy Moore and other peculiarities in the current political climate.

I sometimes think THE X-FILES might have been better as a low-rated, low-budgeted cult series that muddled along, always drawing in slightly more ad revenue than it cost to actually make it, supported by a legion of diehard fans and largely ignored by the general public. Like FRINGE! Like SUPERNATURAL! Except the fate of cult shows in the 90s was, well, pretty much what we saw with SLIDERS: a slow death by a thousand cuts with endless retooling and recasting until the fanbase was reduced to six people and the ending to the series was scripted by the fanbase's village mental patient (twice over).

It’s funny how THE X-FILES comic books, the SEASON 10 - 11 series, were originally billed as a canonical conitnuation of the series. Chris Carter, who did little more than read the comic book scripts, had his name put on the covers. The publisher understood that Carter’s name at the top of the credits lent the comics a credibility among fans that was instantly lost the second THE X-FILES was announced as returning to TV.

SEASON 11 ends with Mulder confronting an alien ship that warps spacetime in order to traverse great distances. A rip in reality shows glimpses of parallel universes — one of which shows Mulder and Scully in their “My Struggle” outfits: Mulder with his sunglasses and green jacket, Scully with her parted down the center hair. The implication was that SEASONS 10 - 11 were in a parallel universe to the Revival — except that given the Revival’s liberties with the myth-arc and continuity, the actual effect upon readers (or at least me) was that the comics were canon and it was the Revival that was set in a parallel universe to the original TV show.

The televised Season 11 seems determined to pepper every episode with the theme of alternate realities whether they are visions (“My Struggle III”), computer simulations (“This”), perceptions through multiple personalities (“Plus One”), false memories (“Forehead Sweat”) and telepathic illusions (“Ghouli”).

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In terms of the downfall of THE X-FILES as a cultural force — this is strictly my opinion, but Seasons 2 - 5 were the height of the show in terms of ratings. After the movie, the ratings started to fall. My suspicion is that the Mulder/Scully case-of-the-week format with occasional myth-arc episodes was effective for five years. After five seasons, however, the audience craved a new take. FIGHT THE FUTURE suggested that there would indeed be a new emphasis on the Mulder-Scully relationship and the myth-arc where Seasons 1 -  5 hadn’t really done character arcs or developed the myth-arc all that much.

Season 6, however, didn’t deliver. There was a lot of teasing for both the Mulder-Scully relationship and the myth-arc, but there was nothing concerete. The romcom episodes came to an end without any real changes. The “Two Fathers”/One Son” revealed the mythology and killed off the Syndicate, but the aliens were still coming and the Smoking Man carried on his plotting, so nothing had really changed. Speculatively, I wonder if “Two Fathers”/“One Son” made it clear that both the relationship and the myth-arc would only ever be teases and doubletalk and the audience gave up.

Later shows like HOUSE and BUFFY were careful: each season had a year-long myth-arc that would be resolved by the season’s end. Each year also had some revisions to the format. As David Shore (HOUSE) would remark, you want to be making little changes to the show before the audience starts asking for them as opposed to after they’ve gotten bored — and you maybe want to commit to the changes wholeheartedly instead of in the wishy-washy fashion THE X-FILES did. That said, Informant would not agree with commiting fully and totally to a Mulder-Scully romance...

Personally, I would have had FIGHT THE FUTURE be the climactic, widescreen action conclusion to the alien invasion arc — and it ends with the X-Files Division burned to the ground and Mulder and Scully banned from the FBI premises for life. Season 6 ends with Mulder working at a tabloid and Scully working at a blood bank — until the Lone Gunmen call. Frohike won the lottery. Frohike wants to expand the Lone Gunmen into a national enterprise of exploring paranormal events — and he wants to re-name the magazine THE X-FILES and he wants Mulder and Scully to be his lead investigators. Season 6 starts a more ensemble approach where it’s now Mulder, Scully, Langley, Frohike, Byers and then it widens to include Jeffrey Spender, Diana Fowley and then it turns out that Frohike didn’t actually win the lottery, but the Smoking Man staged it...

With Season 7, I would have THE X-FILES go global with Mulder and Scully mentoring trainees as a new generation of X-Files investigators. With Season 8, Mulder goes missing and we focus on Scully and the trainees. With Season 9, Gillian Anderson is at last released from her contract and the trainees take center stage, shepherded by FBI agents Reyes and Doggett who have been made liaisons as the FBI consult with the X-Files Magazine.

TV works best when the concept evolves a bit each year. THE X-FILES refused to grow. It’s still refusing to grow.

Thank you for your thoughts.

Season 8 was very strong as THE X-FILES committed fully to serialization, something it had declined to engage in despite being the first show to attempt an ongoing mythology over multiple episodes and seasons. Season 9 suffered badly because Mulder was inexplicably made the center of the show despite the actor refusing to return and there was also a lot of awkward scripting to include Scully in stories because they had the actress on contract but didn't have anything for her to do.

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I don't think we need anymore standalones where William is represented through a surrogate (Christian in I WANT TO BELIEVE, the genetically altered children in "Founders Mutation," the trash man monster in "Home Again"). It was time for William to step back into the story and James Wong made it happen albeit in that classic X-FILES fashion of being elusive and always out of reach, much like Samantha and the truth behind the conspiracy.