I've been meaning to watch The Lone Gunmen, is it any good? I didn't really pay attention to the X Files during the original run so I didn't even know about this show until sometime last year.

I loved it, but I still haven't seen all the episodes (yet, thanks for posting this LMO). It was kind of the Better Call Saul to Breaking Bad. But I was a huge X-Files fan but one of those people who didn't like the weird attempts at making it like Twin Peaks. X-Files is actually how I learned what "jump the shark" refers to because they had an episode named that.

And people might complain that Saul isn't as action packed as BB and they're right. They're separate people, but arguably Jimmy (Saul) is the second most interesting character in that universe and in a lot of ways I like it more. I understand that the Lone Gunmen are going to be in the new X-Files but at this point I don't really care about Mulder and Scully as characters anymore. Scully's funny because she just forgets about everything that just happened and calls Mulder a conspiracy nut even though the aliens were right in front of her face, and Mulder's pretty braindead. It was a great comic duo but I don't know where they can really take the alien conspiracy thing. But it's a household name and I'll probably watch it anyway.

I'm definitely all for the X Files, even the later stuff is fun (although I've never made it to the end, I'm getting in to season 7 right now and plan to finish the whole series but usually I give up in season 6) nowdays so I should enjoy it.

Yeah, I was still in high school when all the weird episodes were happening and I've seen some of them more recently because my old housemate was plowing through the entire season. There was a lot that I either didn't get or dismissed as esoteric because that's what you do when you're 18 and listening to Joy Division.

What would be cool is if new X-Files was a mixture of those distinctively different styles. Like, the movies went in a completely different direction from the series, and I haven't read the comics but I'm assuming they go down another path. It's basically like Batman at this point. Make Mulder a wise-cracking alien hunter or a figment of his own imagination trapped in a simulated 1920s on an alien spaceship, who knows?

The secret to enjoying all X-Files has to offer is to throw all the UFO conspiracy episodes right into the garbage and skip all of them. Shit was proto-Lost and did nothing but navel gaze at its own spinning wheels with zero payoff.

Stick with the monster of the week episodes. The series peaked somewhere around season 3-5, especially with the Darren Margon written episodes.

Yeah I agree.. I haven't really revisited it but I remember the series getting good and becoming addicted three or four years down the line, and I still haven't seen a lot of the first season. Just like Breaking Bad!

But this show rocked. The WTC episode alone would've probably been enough to cancel it anyway though, if it had stayed on the air a couple more months.

I actually don't mind the alien conspiracy episodes that much until maybe season 5 or the second part of season 4, but I used to have to bail on them around when Mulder goes through that healing ceremony, which is what, the first episode of season 3?

But yeah, the monster of the week episodes are still usually pretty entertaining even up to season 6, season 7 has been all aliens so far.

IZ, watch the first season of X Files, it's definitely the best one.

The bummer is, and I never knew this, the best episodes were the Vince Gilligan ones and at least as far as I know he's not tied to the show, because, I dunno, he's got emmys to accept and stuff so it could just be a whole bunch of aliens that look more realistic. Maybe they'll give Mulder a plasma gun what to fight the aliens with because I'm tired from watching the dancin' and the singin' competition..

Yeah, if you check Wikipedia, you'll see that according to the comic books, which are set after the original X-files series ended, the Lone Gunmen actually survived the events of "Jump the Shark", their "deaths" being faked by the federal government to provide TLG with cover stories and enable them to start new lives as above-top-secret CIA investigators, or something.

Which is great, because the Lone Gunmen were the best thing about the X-files! They were vicarious audience-insert characters that the rest of us nerds could relate to.

For a second there I thought you said "Ingress." Do you play Ingress LMO? It's fun to play on the bus because you can just tag shit and then you're gone. I'm still pretty low level though but I own a bar now as an Enlightened one.