u/AndDontCallMePammie

Milagro isn’t one of my favorite episodes. In fact on the few rewatches that I’ve done over the last 25 years I’ve skipped it. I was 17 when it originally aired and I remember feeling that Scully was acting out of character and the episode was a really ham fisted take on Barton Fink.

I’ve just rewatched it and OH MY GOD, NOTHING ABOUT THIS EPISODE IS OKAY!

Scully discovers that she’s had a stalker for literal years, and considers it FLATTERING! Mulder is like “awww my neighbor is sending you escalating unwanted advances, that’s cute, but I only care because I think he might be involved in this case.”

She’s an FBI agent and so she goes into her stalker’s apartment alone?! She defends him to Mulder …

I feel like this is one of those episodes where having a woman on the writing staff would have helped guide the story better. Even in 1999 there’s no way a woman would have behaved this way after discovering that she had a literal stalker.

I understand that Scully is incredibly lonely and in season 6 she’s exploring what her life might look like without Mulder in it (due to his connection with Diana). But this is a hard no-go for any woman.

This one is probably going to be a hard pass when we get there with my 13 year old!

Watching them in the order they were written and originally supposed to air.

Just passed the scene in Mulder’s office in Never Again where he’s dismissive of Scully.

My 13 year old’s option on the exchange: “what an asshole”.

END OF NEVER AGAIN UPDATE: “He was funny, but he was still an asshole”.

END OF LEONARD BETTS UPDATE: “Wait, what? But Scully doesn’t have cancer … mom, does Scully have cancer?”

I’m wondering if Duchovny has been able to see that the longevity and profitability of The X-Files could have been improved if he’d been able to see the bigger picture.

I remember when the pay equity dispute with Gillian was happening and he was incredibly dismissive of it as a “women’s lib” thing and that as the star/lead on the show he should rightfully be paid more. Ahem. Leaving that there.

If he’d been able to see that Gillian was just as irreplaceable (if not more so) and had supported her efforts, it would have made them an incredibly powerful bargaining unit. It also would have reduced the negative press that he received for being so flip and assholeish about the whole thing.

They were both open at the time that they were absolutely DONE with the show after season 7. BOTH actors leaving would have truly forced Fox into a position of transitioning the series into movies (at least as far as David and Gillian were concerned).

Instead of taking that approach he seemed intent on getting everything he felt he was owed by Fox and others because his contract forced him to do two years that he didn’t want to do (the various lawsuits, etc…).

Gillian wound up staying on for the rough seasons 8 and 9 to make the money she needed to fund the career opportunities she wanted after the show was over. Had she been paid anything near what David had been, she could have more readily walked away after season 7 as he had.

In his podcast he said that as the star he should have been an ally to Gillian. I wonder if he sees that in the bigger picture it wasn’t just about allyship, it was also about protecting the broader IP so that they could both return to it as wanted/needed.

I watched the pilot episode when it originally aired, when I was 11. I mentioned here before that my 13 year old and I are rewatching the series (his first time watching), because they’re super hyped for the Coogler version of the show.

Their views on the series after a few months and entering season four:

“I know Mulder is supposed to always be right, but he should maybe think things through logically first before he jumps to conclusions! Nobody’s going to believe him if he’s like that meme of the guy going ‘Aliens!’ all the time.”

And there my friends, is the show in a nutshell.