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The (X) Hamster Files - Deep Throat (featuring Agent Nathan Bottomley) · A Hamster With a Blunt Penknife - a Doctor Who Commentary podcast

1:05
Hello Nathan, how are you doing today?
1:07
I am very well. Now I've got a big question to
1:11
ask you before we even talk about episode 2 of The X-Files.
1:15
Deep Throat today. An intriguing title.
1:18
And that is, what is your relationship with The X-Files?
1:24
Because I've talked with you a lot about Doctor Who and I've
1:26
talked with you a lot, plenty about Star Trek.
1:31
I don't really know how much you've seen where you came in.
1:35
So I think I come in quite early.
1:37
I think I'm, I think I'm probably not here for the pilot
1:41
or episode 2 when it is broadcast on commercial
1:45
television in Australia. And I am just one year younger
1:53
than Gillian Anderson. And so that means that I'm
1:57
watching it in my early to mid 20s and I'm watching it at a
2:04
time when Doctor Who isn't on and Star Trek and has up until
2:12
this point been kind of like a substitute for it.
2:16
And then this, which is just incredible genre TV is as well.
2:21
And so for a long time I thought.
2:23
You go Oh my God, this is what actual directed genre?
2:26
Television. Looks like.
2:28
This is what happens when you go outside, right?
2:33
Atmosphere, my God. Yeah, yeah.
2:37
And, and so I was convinced if Doctor Who was going to come
2:40
back, it should come back like this, you know.
2:43
But in any case, like, I have really strong memories of
2:46
watching it really regularly. I was telling you off Mike
2:51
earlier on that it was the end of Series 3 that I remember
2:56
really, really well watching with Series 2, watching the end
3:00
of Series 2 with my then partner Robert and kind of realising
3:06
that we weren't going to get an ending this week.
3:10
We would have to wait until the next season for this plan.
3:13
The irony was, I don't think you ever got that explanation or.
3:16
No. No, no, it's ongoing in 2025.
3:22
And, and I think that I watched it pretty much all the way
3:28
through. That's not true.
3:31
I watched it pretty much until Robert Patrick.
3:37
And is it Robert Patrick? Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish
3:41
came in. And, and in the last year,
3:43
that's a shame. You know, that'd be great to.
3:45
Give up. I did see them initially and I
3:49
did try to like them, but I think like it was also, you
3:53
know, like do coffee leaving and all of that sort of thing.
3:57
And I sort of started to wonder what the whole point was then.
4:00
And I think too, by that point, I was a little bit weary of the
4:05
kind of it became very clear, and this isn't necessarily a
4:11
fault, I think, but that there wasn't an overall plan and that
4:16
they were just throwing things at the wall and that there
4:20
wasn't going to be a satisfying explanation.
4:23
And I don't think that's true. There is a satisfying
4:25
explanation at some point. Isn't that like like at the end
4:28
of series speaks or something? They give, they wrap everything
4:32
up. In the middle of six, they wrap
4:34
up the first conspiracy, you know, or the yes, government
4:37
people, and then they murdered them all off.
4:40
And then in seven they give you the explanation as to what
4:44
actually happened to Molder sister Samantha.
4:46
So they wrap up those two things, but then everything
4:49
else, then they start this whole sort of super soldier.
4:51
Super soldiers thing. Arc yeah.
4:53
So then that sort of runs on. And the nerve of them at the end
4:56
of Season 9, you know the truth. The episode's called finale.
5:01
Yeah. And the twist at the end of that
5:03
is the alien invasion is going to be in 10 years.
5:07
Oh, well, thanks. It was worth waiting around for
5:10
that. So I did TuneIn for the Truth,
5:15
but I didn't really kind of get what was going on from memory
5:18
and it did seem very talky. And then of course when it came
5:21
back for those last two seasons, is it 2 short seasons?
5:25
I don't think I saw every episode of those, but I
5:27
certainly saw some of them and was pretty impressed by them.
5:31
But it's one of those things that I haven't revisited.
5:34
And even though it's sort of massive, just huge, you, you
5:38
know, can't overstate what a big deal it was.
5:41
It was like a genre TV show that literally everyone was.
5:45
Ripped the world? Really.
5:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you know, Star Trek The Next
5:49
Generation was sort of that, but it had nothing like The Reach
5:53
that Next Gen. X-Files did.
5:55
Gripped the UK and the US didn't it?
5:58
I think. But The X-Files was just
6:00
everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
6:03
yeah. So, so like it was so huge, but
6:06
then it seemed to have kind of vanished without trace.
6:08
It wasn't the sort of thing that people talked about anymore.
6:11
We went for sort of quite a long time without even really
6:14
thinking about it. And it, it struck me as
6:17
something that that had been great and huge at the time.
6:21
And, and I also think that it it reads really weirdly right now
6:26
because now in American politics, you have one political
6:30
party and it's followers who pretty much are kind of, you
6:36
know, gripped by insane conspiracy theories of the type
6:42
that The X-Files deals in or. They were trying to, you know,
6:48
when The X-Files was on, they were trying to stamp it out, you
6:50
know, in within the fiction. Now they're perpetuating them.
6:54
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But there's also those sort of,
6:56
you know, like Q and on stuff and, and all of that sort of
7:00
thing, you know, and that's the thing that America has had is
7:04
part of it's sort of DNA for a long, a long time.
7:08
You know, you think about witch trials and all of that way back
7:11
in the day, all those sorts of strange conspiracy theories and
7:14
the Satanic panic in the 1980s and stuff.
7:18
So it, it, it is odd. It's hard to know how to feel
7:21
about the politics of it now, but it never seemed to be.
7:25
Time was it? Yeah.
7:27
Oh, look, I don't think we looked at conspiracy theories or
7:31
paranoia of the government and stuff like that in this sort of
7:35
detail. I don't remember coming across.
7:38
I mean, Rob Schuman said in his wonderful book, he does like
7:42
capture reviews of all the X File episodes and as you can
7:44
imagine, just smart and brilliant observations.
7:48
But what he says is post 911, suddenly looking at the American
7:53
government in a sort of paranoid way isn't very fun anymore.
7:59
Whereas before then it was quite a fun notion to play about when
8:03
when they got 9 series out of it.
8:04
So. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
8:07
yeah, that's true. I think that's right.
8:10
So you for this, I know we're covering Deep Throats today, but
8:13
you watched the pilot and Deep Throat, didn't you?
8:17
One as a refresher and then one. Yeah, yeah.
8:21
I mean, I'm sort of tempted to go back and look at it too,
8:24
because like it, it sort of arrives nearly fully formed and,
8:28
and it, it doesn't quite know yet just the extraordinary kind
8:35
of breadth of things that it can do.
8:38
It does look like it's going to be a little bit of sort of
8:41
police procedural with aliens sort of every week or monsters.
8:47
And of course, it, it discovers that it can do just the most
8:51
insane, crazy things. And, and you get writers like
8:54
Darren Morgan coming along and we discover, yeah, we can do
8:59
comedy. Do you know what I mean?
9:01
And like certainly like some of the episodes that I just
9:05
remember really well, like Clyde Buckmans Final Repose, War of
9:13
the Copper Phages, bad blood, you know, like the ones that the
9:19
ones that do these incredible formal experiments, the ones
9:23
that are just funny. And, and you can see it in a
9:28
nascent form here, just because the relationship between the two
9:31
leads is so great sort of straight away.
9:36
So watching the 1st 2 episodes today, the thing I was struck
9:39
most by was just how fucking amazing Gillian Anderson is.
9:43
Just how extraordinary, how extraordinary she is.
9:47
There's one moment in the pilot, you know, they, you know, they
9:51
get because it's episode one, they have to be abducted by
9:54
aliens in episode 1. Like we go right to that.
9:58
And so she thinks that she has detected the two marks on her
10:01
back. And she comes into his room,
10:06
having only just met him, you know, like having only just
10:09
spent a couple of days with him. And she just drops.
10:12
She says, I need you to look at something.
10:14
And she drops her robe and she's just wearing her underwear and
10:18
yeah. And mum pants.
10:20
Yeah, yeah. But but there's a way in which
10:23
that, like when I first saw her bra and her pants and stuff, I
10:27
thought, oh, we're doing that, are we?
10:29
Do you know what I mean? Because we've got an attractive
10:30
young woman as the lead, but just the level of kind of like
10:34
there's a, she makes herself vulnerable, but there's a just
10:38
an immediate trust. Do you know what I mean?
10:41
Like she just trusts him. There's no, no sort of question
10:44
about that. And it's a really revealing
10:47
moment. And then when he says they're
10:49
just mosquito bites, she hugs him, you know, just, and then
10:53
we're sort of back to business and stuff.
10:56
But she's so charming and she's so captivated by him.
11:00
She likes him. She thinks he's ridiculous.
11:05
And in this episode, in Deep Throat, the second episode,
11:09
she's a little bit more annoying at him.
11:11
I think all the way through, there's a little bit of a kind
11:13
of, you know, she expects to be doing a particular thing and
11:17
then discovers that she's just been dragged along because he's
11:20
interested in doing UFOs. And so she's a bit pissed off
11:22
within this episode. But but nevertheless, there's
11:25
just these incredible moments of warmth where she really kind of
11:29
where she just smiles at him. I think Carter must have
11:33
rejoiced when he saw those rushes coming in of like, fuck
11:36
me. It doesn't matter how good we
11:38
make the nuts and bolts of this show.
11:40
People are going to want to watch this pair because they're
11:44
electrifying on the screen together.
11:45
And Can you believe? I mean, I still can't believe it
11:48
to this day. The network didn't want Gillian
11:51
Allison because they didn't consider her traditionally
11:55
attractive. They wanted a blonde with big
11:58
jugs. You know, they wanted somebody
12:00
who's statuesque and then income sort of this slightly mousy
12:04
redhead at this point, you know? She's got.
12:07
Freckles. I know she's I think she's
12:10
stuck, but she more importantly, she's an extraordinary actress.
12:14
I think that's wrong. And Carter literally had to
12:16
fight for her because they weren't taking no for an answer.
12:19
And he said, well, I won't do it then if you don't have her.
12:22
And and he must have seen these rushes coming in and gone.
12:25
See there it. Is yeah, yeah, she's incredible.
12:28
Wonderful bit in Deep Throat where he drags her out to the
12:32
base to UFO Sport and he said she falls asleep in the car And
12:37
I'm like, Yep, that's your relationship for the next 9
12:39
years. But I do love as well.
12:44
And there was a moment in Squeeze as well, which I've also
12:47
watched already where she just gives him like sly grins.
12:52
And it's just like, do you know what?
12:53
I'm going to let you pull me along on this string because I
12:56
just like being with you, you know?
12:59
When when they're in the diner and he wants to buy the picture
13:05
25 she just says sucker, I'll be outside.
13:10
But see, that just shows the dynamics brilliantly because she
13:13
thinks he's been sucked into spending money on this crappy
13:16
print. And then he comes out with the
13:17
map of where the base is, and he just goes, yes, sucker, Yeah.
13:22
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and the, the reversals
13:26
within the relationship, like I think they get a good six
13:30
seasons out of the two of them. I think in the 7th, everyone's a
13:33
bit bored and that's why we need to shake up.
13:36
But that isn't bad. Going 25 episodes a year for six
13:40
years, you know that's where you're going.
13:43
Yeah, yeah, and and of course that that relationship just
13:46
becomes even more and more important as they start writing
13:49
to it. You know, that's why you know,
13:52
Bad Blood, for instance, is one of my favourite episodes is
13:54
because it's so I. Can't decide whether her version
13:58
of the story or his is funnier. His version where she's going.
14:03
Oh, Malta, I do it all for you, for God's sake.
14:09
So great just how kind of low level pissed off they are at
14:12
each other at that point in their relationship.
14:15
But. She imagines him.
14:17
Do you remember? I was like, come on, Scully,
14:18
we're going to go do this, and I'm pretty.
14:20
Super annoying. Oh, it's just blissful.
14:25
But you know, as time goes on you can have fun with it.
14:27
Obviously they have to set up the foundations here, but I
14:31
think they do that really well, certainly in the opening 4
14:34
episodes. And the thing I love about their
14:38
relationship is obviously he's the believer.
14:40
She's a skeptic and sometimes it feels like she's pushing back
14:44
too much, but she makes him work harder at the answers that he's
14:49
looking for. You know, she almost like keeps
14:51
him focused, which I really like.
14:53
So there's points here where she's really, so you're right,
14:56
they're sort of getting in the car and she's going out and
14:57
going well, why the hell are we here?
14:59
We've got no further than when we first arrived and all this
15:02
stuff. But that just that just means
15:04
that he sort of, he takes risks here, doesn't it?
15:07
He goes off on his own and and sort of leaves her at the hotel.
15:10
But yeah, I think she keeps him real.
15:13
And that's that's. Good.
15:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he's just inclined to
15:17
jump towards sort of alien things.
15:19
And she's making it super clear that that she's not going to
15:25
accept that that's not going to be something she's going to
15:29
accept without specific evidence about it.
15:31
It's not just that it's an explanation that covers the
15:34
facts. You've got to also demonstrate
15:36
that it's actually happening. And I think.
15:41
Where do you fall? Are you the molder that will
15:43
literally believe any old theory?
15:44
Is going on. Are you the Scully?
15:47
Unless I see it in front of me? Because I'm definitely the
15:51
Scully, right? My mum.
15:52
Yeah, me too. Was absolutely spiritualist.
15:54
I tell this story all the time. She had a spiritualist circle.
15:57
I'd come home and they'd be sitting there in the dark
15:59
humming away to themselves, talking to the dead.
16:02
And I'd be like, well, whatever floats your boat, mother, you
16:04
know? But without actually proof of
16:08
that, I, I would just mock it relentlessly.
16:10
So I think I do often fall down on the side of Scully, which is
16:14
why it's interesting later on in the series where there is
16:17
usually one or two a year where she is the believer and he is.
16:22
It's usually like a really just themed episode because she's
16:25
Catholic, but they can play with that as well.
16:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that works really well.
16:31
It's it's excellent. And she never seems mean
16:33
spirited. And she is amused by him.
16:36
She likes him. She, you know, but like, it's
16:42
just a perfect dynamic, I think. She's, well, it's it is almost
16:47
like the moonlighting dynamic as well when it is because I think
16:50
secretly we all kind of want them to get together, but we
16:53
know that if they do get together, that show is kind of
16:56
over. So they flirt with they have the
16:58
odd kiss on New Year's Eve, Millennium, New Year's Eve and
17:02
things like this. Or there's one episode that ends
17:04
with Maldika. He's sort of delirious.
17:06
He goes, oh, Scully, I love you. And she goes, oh brother, I just
17:11
walked. But here, I think the warmest
17:18
scene is just a pure exposition scene, but it is sort of played
17:21
for character stuff where we first learn about what happened
17:25
to Samantha and he it's just there, you know, in the hotel
17:33
room and it's late at night and he's just talking to her and
17:36
they're getting to know one another.
17:37
And it's not primarily about the characters in the sense that, I
17:42
mean, it's reveal about, you know, Mulder's back story and
17:45
stuff like that. But it tells you something about
17:47
the relationship that at this point, you know that so early
17:51
on. And it has been, I don't think,
17:53
I think this is set at weeks or months after the first episode,
18:00
but you know, he is now just talking really personally about
18:04
what makes him tick to her. And and that says something
18:07
about the relationship as well. She is still calling him Agent
18:10
Mulder at the start of this. So I was like, it's not that
18:13
long afterwards because eventually, I mean, in that last
18:16
series where she's doing monologues and calling him Fox,
18:19
I'm like, how do? We ever get here, that's
18:22
terrible. We should never have made that
18:24
decision. But I mean, once they're kind of
18:25
banging and stuff, I think probably.
18:29
I thought within this episode as well, I messaged you and said
18:32
it's an unusually direct episode of The X-Files in that like,
18:36
they often just skirt around the pertinent questions and throw
18:41
set pieces at you. The X-Files, you know, and
18:43
they'll dangle a little carrot and you'll be there chasing
18:45
after it and entertained at what you're seeing along the way.
18:48
And then you realize the carrot's been snatched away and
18:50
you never had it in grasp in the 1st place.
18:52
But actually, here you get her saying, doesn't the government
18:56
have the right to protect its secrets?
18:58
Which I loved that conversation. But then I liked him saying,
19:02
well, yeah, but at what cost to the people?
19:05
And that's one thing I think Deep Throat does extremely well.
19:07
And again, it's something we forget later down the line when
19:10
this show gets bigger, more expensive and more epic is the
19:14
cost to the people. What I think setting it on this
19:17
air base and seeing the families of all these people and how
19:20
they're affected by the alien technology, it gives it a
19:25
beating heart, which I thought was was a really sound move.
19:29
And, and that guest star, the, you know, he plays Buddha Hass's
19:37
wife, Anita. I think she's magnificent.
19:41
She's really, really good. And she's required to do quite a
19:43
lot. Like she's, you know, where's my
19:45
husband? And then she has to do the same
19:47
where he's come back, but he she doesn't recognize him.
19:52
And she's great. I think she's really, really
19:55
good. I liked the other woman that we
19:57
go and see as well because it suggested that sort of American
20:02
suburbia on the base where we don't talk about this stuff.
20:05
Yeah, and I like all of that. You know, the dark underbelly of
20:09
American Society. We do it quite a bit on The
20:11
X-Files. There's one wonderful episode
20:13
where Mulder and Scully pose as a couple and literally go and
20:16
live on a suburban St. and you see all the the horror isn't.
20:21
The monster, it's what's going on in the houses.
20:24
And that woman literally just goes, you know, really bringing
20:26
the FBI Broad house. The FBI, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
20:29
yeah, yeah. And in fact, that's where that's
20:32
where Anita ends up at the end, isn't it?
20:34
Like she, you know, they decide they've, they've concluded that,
20:39
that the, the military have got to her.
20:41
And even though she's unhappy, it doesn't seem like
20:45
everything's OK and kind. Of God, isn't it?
20:47
Yelling at her from the backroom.
20:50
Do you know what I mean? From from inside the house,
20:52
she's yelling and she's saying, oh, you know, everything is
20:56
fine, go away. And and so clearly that's been
20:59
reinforced because so the first, the first episode has like kind
21:02
of where are we? We're in Oregon in a small kind
21:05
of coastal town, and it's a conspiracy with the, you know,
21:09
like the medical examiner and the, and the head of the like
21:13
the sheriff or something. I.
21:14
Swear it's tapping into Twin Peaks that first.
21:16
Episode, I think so, yeah, yeah, yeah.
21:19
And and and and then here it's the military, the US military
21:23
who, you know, are doing something.
21:27
And I guess, I guess also we're already like, we already get the
21:32
Cigarette Smoking Man establishing last episode and
21:37
then we get Jerry Harden's Deep Throat, Deep Throat in in this
21:41
one. What a name.
21:44
So. So here's the back story of it.
21:49
So Deep Throat was a film in 1972 and it was a porn film.
21:56
It was X-rated, but it was screened in cinemas and it was
22:01
very, very famous. And it's a ridiculous premise.
22:04
Linda, Linda Lovelace I think is the name of the main character
22:09
and the actor and she ha, she isn't enjoying sex and she goes
22:16
to a Doctor Who discovers that her clitoris is down the back of
22:18
her throat and so she has to learn to Deep Throat men in
22:24
order to get sex satisfaction and she does.
22:28
And that's what happens. And I have never seen it because
22:31
it's not for me. It's for other people to enjoy.
22:36
And I did try and find bits of it on online today, but it was
22:39
huge. And there were protests out the
22:41
front and, you know, police would storm cinemas and, and
22:43
confiscate the projectors and stuff like that.
22:46
Like it was a bit of a scandal, but it was a period of time
22:49
where pornography was getting a little bit of kind of pop
22:53
cultural interest and, and, and so on.
22:58
At the same time, Nixon is in the White House and he is, you
23:06
know, involved in that break in at the Watergate Hotel, right?
23:11
And the deputy deputy director of the FBI is meeting with a
23:19
journalist called Bob Woodward, who's still around.
23:22
He's written books about Trump and he's leaking information
23:27
about the Watergate break in to Bob Woodward, who is a
23:30
journalist at the at the Washington Washington Post and
23:38
the the managing editor of the Washington Post calls that the
23:45
source, the unnamed source. And we don't discover who that
23:47
is until the after the 2000 like it's 30 years and no one knows
23:52
who it is when The X-Files is out.
23:54
No one knows who this source is, but the managing editor of the
23:57
Washington Post called him Deep Throat.
23:59
And when Woodward and Bernstein released their book All the
24:03
President's then in 1974, they everyone in America learns that
24:10
he was he was called or referred to as Deep Throat.
24:13
That that thing. Now, The X-Files never mentions
24:17
Deep Throat that Deep Throat who is named after the porn film.
24:23
It's the same thing, right? It clearly is.
24:24
A reference for that. In fact, there's a film of All
24:28
the President's Men, which comes out in 1976, and we see, we see
24:33
Woodward meeting, meeting Deep Throat in a car park, in an
24:40
underground car park. And I think we once see Mulder
24:44
Mate Jerry hard and steep Throat in the same context.
24:49
After that, we're in and out of car parks like you wouldn't
24:52
believe. Big finished photo shoots, you
24:55
know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:57
So I mean, he's huge, isn't he? Like he's not even a massive
25:00
number of episodes. It's about 5 episodes I think a
25:02
lot but. People never forget him and I
25:05
think he's always the the most memorable informant, probably
25:09
because of how he exits the show.
25:10
It's a great. Yes, there's that terrifying
25:13
black guy X, isn't there? Who?
25:16
Oh, he's his replacement. Yes, Stephen.
25:17
Wood, yeah. I mean, he's great as well.
25:19
Very. He's pretty good.
25:21
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He.
25:22
He dies by scrawling the name of his successor in his blood.
25:26
In blood. Yeah, I remember that.
25:28
I remember that. True.
25:29
So wonderful style. This is who you need.
25:32
To go and see they're, they're, they're capable of a bit of
25:38
melodrama in this show, you know?
25:39
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I mean, I think he's really
25:42
great. And so he tops and tails the
25:44
episode and I think he he makes it more dangerous.
25:51
So the, there's not that much they're not in that much danger,
25:55
are they in in the pilot? I mean, they're threatened off
26:01
the, you know, out of the woods by the by the sheriff guy who
26:04
has a big gun and, you know, they get abducted by aliens for
26:08
10 minutes. But here, like Deep Throat makes
26:14
it very clear that they're that Mulder shouldn't do this.
26:19
He shouldn't investigate this because the military will not
26:24
like it and of course when he goes off to the base he ends up
26:28
being horribly kind of operate. He's very dazed, isn't he, when
26:34
he's given back to her at the. End.
26:35
Yeah, we don't. Really know he doesn't go into
26:38
any detail about what he's been through but I'm assuming probes
26:40
and things have been involved. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:44
A drill. We'll get to the trail, win
26:47
Series 2. Wayne Barrett fucking I'll never
26:51
forget that. Do you remember that, that laser
26:54
drill? Oh Christ, boy, oh boy.
26:58
But what's great as well is that in the first episode, you know,
27:02
we see as in the audience, we see that the cigarette Smoking
27:06
Man goes off to the Pentagon and puts that little.
27:09
Thing with up her nose and. In a truly iconic moment, that's
27:13
that's a great moment at. The end shutting.
27:15
The door and you realise it's the Pentagon, you know an actual
27:19
American institution, but really all mold and Scully know within
27:26
their their office is that he's one side of this argument.
27:31
She's the other and either one of them could be right now
27:34
you've got somebody coming in saying to mold and no, no, you
27:36
are right. There is yes or no and and I
27:39
think This is why in this episode he's even hungrier for
27:43
the answers. He puts himself, you know, in
27:45
danger to go and get them. And I do think, I think as well,
27:50
I thought the direction of the first episode was great.
27:52
I thought the direction of this episode was better.
27:56
And I think those sequences where he goes into the base and
28:00
I can still remember seeing that shot of him on the tarmac as,
28:06
and I know it's like ACSO shot, whatever you want to call it,
28:09
green screen. But I remember seeing it at the
28:11
time and I just hadn't seen images like that on television
28:16
ever before. And I still got that tingle this
28:19
time because the marks going snowy music's playing and then
28:21
the light captures him on the tarmac and it's really striking.
28:25
And then you cut the sequences of him sort of coming in and out
28:30
of consciousness looking around him and you get to see the
28:33
spaceship under like a tarpaulin.
28:36
And it's almost like it's enough for him to know that that stuff
28:40
is there for him to grab at, but he's just far enough away that
28:44
he never quite gets there in the episode.
28:47
Well, and in fact, at the end of it, he doesn't remember that.
28:50
And that's that's what they they do.
28:52
And so we see it, we get to see it.
28:55
But at the end of the episode, he actually says, you know, and
28:58
it got taken away from me. I don't know, you know how I got
29:01
that here? I don't, I don't know what
29:03
happened. And it's the same thing that's
29:05
happened to Buddha has, you know, that he can't remember
29:08
anything about piloting, which is what freaks Neater out.
29:12
And they have that conversation with Scully where it's just
29:15
like, yeah, it's not like erasing files from a hard drive.
29:18
We can't do that yet, but it turns out we can.
29:22
And it happens to Mulder. And, and part of The thing is
29:25
because the audience needs to know what sort of show this is
29:31
in the 1st 2 episodes, they get closer to the truth than they
29:36
tend to get subsequently kind of later on.
29:40
And so it's actually a little bit shocking to see the pilot
29:42
where it's like he's a dead alien corpse.
29:45
You know, he's like, clearly we've abducted by aliens for 9
29:50
minutes. And for a second, Scully even
29:52
believes that's happened. You know?
29:54
That's wonderful, isn't it, when she's laughing hysterically
29:58
because she can't believe she's believing this nonsense?
30:01
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So all of that stuff has to be.
30:03
But here they they find a way of walking up back in story, he
30:07
gets very, very close to the proper discovery that the the US
30:13
Air Force is using alien tech from the Roswell crash.
30:19
But he has his memory wipe. So we see it, but he it's not
30:23
completely, you know, there for him.
30:26
Well, we see it. Molder sees it.
30:28
One of my big complaints of Series 1 is how they managed to
30:31
keep Scully out of the action, so she never quite sees.
30:34
So in the first episode, she's just over the hill.
30:37
Do you remember? Molder sees the abduction and
30:39
then Scully comes running over the hill going Molder.
30:41
What happened? In this one.
30:43
Of course, she goes molder. I've had enough.
30:45
We're going back to Quantico. I'm sorry, I've had enough of
30:47
this. And he goes right fine then.
30:49
Then he goes off on the car without her, so she doesn't see
30:51
any of that. Here.
30:52
Come squeeze. I'm very pleased that the
30:55
horrible genetic liver eating mutants, as played by the very
30:59
cute Doug Hutchinson attacks her in her house.
31:03
And I'm not pleased she's attacked, but finally she's got
31:05
some. Proof that something.
31:09
She's taking a lot of this stuff on faith otherwise.
31:12
Can I say, though, I do think that that, like, separating the
31:17
two of them and having her rescue him, I think is
31:22
excellent. You know, and it needed to be
31:24
established really early on that she is a incredibly formidable
31:31
and competent FBI agent. And so we get the guy who is
31:37
introduced to us as a kind of local news reporter.
31:40
Yeah. And.
31:41
Really well done like. That yeah, it'd really be.
31:43
Subtle for Chris Carl, so I. Must Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:46
Did you notice actually one of the news when she's using the
31:50
microfiche to look at previous stories about?
31:52
We're talking about these fucking.
31:54
Microfiche. The microfiche we're freezing.
31:57
Now all right. Yeah, yeah.
31:59
So. So she's looking up news stories
32:03
about the previous pilots who've gone missing or whatever, or
32:08
have disappeared. And one of those articles is by
32:12
Chris Carter. Oh, is it really?
32:15
Yeah, yeah, it's. The script for the pilot.
32:20
That's right. But but like in she's amazing
32:24
the way that she overpowers him and just, you know, has him at
32:26
gunpoint doing whatever she says, isn't she?
32:29
Yeah, yeah, yeah, she. Jumped out of his face.
32:31
It's really like, it's kind of shocking because she can't get
32:35
to the gun in time and all of that sort of thing.
32:37
Like it's, it's really good. She's really right.
32:40
She's not helpless. You know, there, there are
32:42
plenty of times later on where she'll be being rescued or
32:46
whatever, or, you know, where she's kind of sidelined during a
32:49
pregnancy because, you know, Anderson's pregnant or whatever
32:52
do. You remember the one with Donny
32:54
Fastow collected the nails and the hair.
32:57
Yeah, and he had. Her tied up for half the episode
33:00
and terrible things to her. Awful.
33:03
They occasionally go down that rabbit.
33:04
Hole and Dwayne Barry kidnapping her as well, you know.
33:09
Well, that's true. Although she was off to have a
33:10
baby, they had to get rid of her.
33:12
Some. No, that's right.
33:13
No, no, I know that's right. Yeah.
33:14
Yeah. So.
33:16
You went to you see her face at the start of episode series 2.
33:20
Honestly, it's twice the size of it is.
33:22
It. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
33:26
So, so here she's just super capable and just not flappable
33:31
and stuff. And it's really great to watch
33:33
and thinking about it, you know, like it's 1993 and she's, you
33:38
know, and I guess I mean, because we had Silence of the
33:43
Lambs in 1991 and that's a massive influence on this, isn't
33:47
it? Like a huge influence.
33:49
They do Silence of the Lambs at least five times in the Exiles
33:53
run. With the.
33:54
Serial killer that they go and consult.
33:57
Yeah, yeah. But I mean the whole set up is
33:59
is that isn't it she? Looks a bit Jodie Fosterish and
34:03
what she's wearing, you know, is that it's all very deliberate.
34:06
And the age, do you know what I mean?
34:07
Like, I think Jodie Foster's a couple of years older in in
34:13
Science of the Lambs, but, you know, having a young woman in
34:16
her 20s who work, you know, who's an FBI agent.
34:20
I do wonder, you know, at what point they realised that she was
34:24
utterly capable of doing this role without any kind of
34:29
romantic interest because the pilot had three scenes excise
34:34
that they shot where Scully's boyfriend is in it and they
34:38
quickly decided no, no, no, this is much more interesting as
34:41
she's and very. But then in an episode that's
34:45
coming up, I try to forget about it.
34:48
The Jersey Devil, that's the one about the Neanderthal woman
34:52
who's going around the streets of New York.
34:53
For some reason, Scully. Scully is written out of the
34:58
episode and just goes on a date for out of it.
35:00
And it's like, why are we doing this?
35:02
But we're still sort of stuck in that mould with female leads a
35:06
little bit. But very quickly they just
35:08
abandoned that completely. I think the only other time you
35:11
see her is when she finds out that she's got cancer in Series
35:16
4 and actually reckless. Yeah, with a man from space
35:21
above, but a very hot man. She goes and has a tattoo and
35:24
has it off with him and that's a great.
35:26
Yeah, yeah. Because she thinks she's gonna
35:28
die, you know? But apart from that, they don't
35:30
really go there. No, that's good though.
35:33
I like that. I do like that a lot.
35:35
And it just making her super competent.
35:37
And because, you know, so much of, I mean, it's not quite the
35:41
same because obviously she's got a likeable male partner.
35:47
Whereas Clarice Starling is surrounded by men who just kind
35:52
of look at her all the time in a way that's like super creepy and
35:56
confronting. Like I, you know, I went and saw
35:59
that at the cinema at the time because I was old enough and it
36:03
was, it was a hugely difficult watch.
36:06
Like it's not the sort of thing that I normally like, but I
36:10
thought it was incredible just I've met.
36:12
Him now obviously people can be in different moves on different
36:14
days before I say this I'll just establish that I've met I like
36:18
two people now that have met Julian Anderson and.
36:20
And one was a very positive meeting where she was just
36:23
delightful and happy to talk about anything and this fellow
36:27
was a mad fan of The X-Files so they had a lovely conversation
36:30
and another was my friend who's a hotel receptionist at a hotel
36:33
she was staying at in the country and apparently she was a
36:35
total monster and. Very demanding.
36:40
I mean it was her time off. If she was being bugged by fans
36:43
and things, I could imagine she was, but it was just such a
36:48
great choice. It was just such a brilliant.
36:50
Choice. She's so amazing.
36:52
She's so amazing. And it's telling, isn't it,
36:54
given her career after this? I had to.
36:56
Shop his. Career.
36:58
After Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can never quite get is.
37:00
It. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:04
Like like yes I'm surprised I lured her back for the reboot.
37:09
Well, I think the reason that it doesn't do a third series
37:11
because I mean, think about all those reboots.
37:13
It's not really a reboot is it's like remounting it.
37:16
But things like the Connors or Will and Grace and stuff went on
37:20
for seasons and seasons. And this did two seasons and it
37:24
was because she didn't want to come back and she.
37:27
Did you hear she read that last script of Chris Carter's and she
37:29
went, oh, this is the worst thing I've ever read before
37:33
this. I'm done.
37:35
They were pulling that bullshit with the pay again.
37:38
They were paying him more than her and.
37:40
She's much bigger than him. No way.
37:43
No way, you know, And he, it wasn't him.
37:46
It was his agent. But he went.
37:48
No, yeah, we should get paid the same.
37:50
Of course. Jesus Christ, Of course she's
37:53
done the crown. You know more than.
37:56
That That's right. Absolute madness.
38:00
Well, anything else to say about the episode as a whole?
38:03
Do you think it was well executed episode?
38:06
Yeah, yeah, I thought it was really good.
38:08
It is really quite straightforward, isn't it?
38:10
Like it is, It's it just sort of tells the story very
38:14
straightforwardly. And it introduces to them the
38:17
idea that the governments involved in some kind of
38:20
conspiracy which we hadn't had before.
38:23
And I think it's sufficiently different from the previous one.
38:28
Like the two are both kind of, we go to, you know, we go to
38:32
Oregon in one case and Idaho in the other.
38:35
And you know, some weird happenings are going on, but
38:38
they are. They aren't.
38:40
Summed up The X-Files there. Yeah, yeah.
38:42
But no. But they're sufficiently
38:43
different from one another and then next week is substantially
38:46
different from them. And so even though it's very, it
38:50
is very basic and very straightforward, it's really,
38:53
really enjoyable to watch. And I think it just looked
38:56
amazingly good, just astoundingly good.
39:00
So different from like Trek, isn't it?
39:02
Trek which is just so set based, you know, and so artificial
39:06
looking. They really have.
39:08
They've gone to stress that this has got 1 foot in reality in The
39:13
X-Files, Yeah, even though it's dealing with crazy stuff.
39:15
And I think that's why it kicked off.
39:17
I think that's why the audience took it to their hearts, because
39:19
it was a genre show you could sort of watch and not be
39:23
embarrassed by. But it also has things to say
39:26
about America, I think during its run.
39:28
And it, you know, it looks at all sorts of different aspects
39:32
of America and stuff. So it's absolutely grounded in
39:35
the contemporary world. It's said in the world that we
39:38
live in, I think, in a way that Star Trek obviously never can
39:43
be. And while Star Trek does deal
39:45
with contemporary things, it does it in a weird way.
39:48
Whereas X-Files just exemplifies some of just the weird gothic
39:52
you know, like once you leave the cities, that America is a
39:57
profoundly weird place. And the only reason?
40:01
I can catch it. So many places in America in a
40:05
pop quiz is because of those it tells me at the bottom of the
40:08
screen. Although it is uncanny how all
40:11
of those places look not unlike Vancouver.
40:15
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they do look a bit.
40:17
I mean it's. An atmosphere to it though, all
40:19
that the forests in Vancouver. The night shoots as well.
40:24
The fact that they can shoot at night, which they do in both
40:28
episodes, I think is really, really great.
40:30
But just that it's. Fabulous one.
40:32
Later in the season, darkness falls when the horrible green
40:35
bugs come out of the trees and they're trapped in that heart
40:38
with one light bulb and the generator is going down.
40:41
It's like a great Doctor Who based under siege all shot at
40:44
night. That's expensive.
40:46
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it looks good.
40:49
Like, it just looks good that, you know, and, and the
40:53
simplicity of things as well, like doing things in camera, you
40:56
know, just like the shocking opening scene where we first see
41:02
Colonel Buddha house, you know, in his pants.
41:05
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:08
Terrible once again, Yeah, but also, but also just the, you
41:12
know, the agents breaking down, the, you know, breaking down and
41:17
her saying this is my home, you know, and we're in suburbia and
41:20
stuff and there's this terrible thing happening in American
41:22
suburbia, you know, it's the. Bit the bit where Scully ran to
41:27
the car and locked the door. I thought that was brilliantly
41:30
shot. You're suddenly inside the car
41:32
with her. He's tapping away at the window.
41:34
Suddenly the window smashing. Yeah, yeah, you know, for the
41:38
second episode in a row like they.
41:41
Can't have been this confident about the show and yet it just
41:44
feels like they're very confident in what they're
41:46
presenting. And they do.
41:48
I think mid season you get a good handful of middling
41:54
episodes where some of the directors are probably like this
41:59
script gender Bender. What on earth am I supposed to
42:01
do with this? You know, And they
42:03
overcompensate sometimes and over directs it.
42:06
So it feels like weirder stuff is happening than is actually.
42:09
Going. On in the script.
42:12
But I think, like, if you look at The X-Files as a body of
42:15
work, it's peak television insofar as it's as good ATV as
42:21
they could make at the time at every part of its run.
42:27
Sorry, I've got a motorcycle going on.
42:30
Yeah, I think it looks like. I think, you know, it looks
42:33
incredible. It's so atmospheric.
42:34
Mark Snow, who just left us the legacy you.
42:39
Left Mark Snow. Every episode and just creates
42:43
this incredible atmosphere and just the sort of weird dark
42:48
mirror it holds up to America. I think he's he's absolutely
42:52
brilliant. What's so striking is I think,
42:54
you know, I did the pilot and and I thought that it had some
42:58
plotting issues. I mean, I still can't figure out
43:00
how they work out that Billy Miles is the one.
43:03
Moldy just says it and the script goes with it.
43:06
OK. All right.
43:07
Yeah. And Scarlet's like, all right,
43:09
whatever, you know? And then suddenly that's the
43:10
answer to that. Even though no one has explained
43:12
how or why. I do think this is a more
43:17
competent piece of scripting because I think he just adds so
43:21
much heart to this script. So you really look for the
43:24
characters within it and just as a structured piece is better,
43:29
but they are two of the same thing.
43:30
They are two of the Whereas when squeeze starts and suddenly
43:37
those eyes are coming out of the oh God, what's it called in the
43:41
pavement? You know where the what the?
43:42
Drone eyes. Looking out the drone and it
43:45
goes into black and white and the person that's being hunted
43:48
is in colour and you're suddenly in a completely different ball
43:51
game. So what you've had in those
43:53
previous two weeks. I think, I think the first one
43:56
does a thing that it kind of has to do, which is not answer too
43:59
many questions, you know, like it.
44:01
And we still come away not knowing what, you know, exactly
44:05
what's happened. I learned today that the young
44:09
woman who comes and asks them for help in that episode comes
44:13
back in the final episode. In the final episode of series
44:17
7, Series seven. Yeah, I'm Billy Miles as well.
44:21
Really. Mars is a recurring super
44:23
soldier then throughout the last two series.
44:25
For God's sake. I mean, you're so hot.
44:27
I don't object. I mean, I came away from this
44:33
one with the sort of one line thing of I just love the fact
44:36
that enough is seen to suggest that everything that Molder
44:43
believes is true. But yeah, there's nothing there
44:45
to absolutely confirm it either. No.
44:48
So, so you still want more even though you're just almost there.
44:53
And you're right, it's probably as close as we get in the first
44:56
series. Yeah, yeah.
44:58
Because they have to egg like over egg it a little bit just so
45:02
that we know what we're dealing with, I think, and then they can
45:06
pull it back. The episode EBE that's later on
45:09
this season and that they're chasing around after this alien
45:12
corpse and Deep Throat is basically diverting Molder
45:17
throughout. Yes.
45:19
And at the end, yeah. It's it's inside this in this
45:23
base Molder goes down and it's a massive long action sequence.
45:26
And then there's the window of this one part of the base and
45:30
the camera sort of comes up. Oh my God, we're going to see
45:33
it. We're going to see it.
45:34
And then Deep Throat walks in and goes, it's gone.
45:37
You know, like they really, they play with this.
45:42
You know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:44
So this is not where we exactly where we end up.
45:48
It's a little bit kind of too, definitely so.
45:52
But it is we need to be told, I think, even if the characters
45:55
don't need to know yet. Well, I'm going to ask you
45:57
because I'm doing this at the end of each one, and I'm going
46:00
to put up a little page with all the scores for the episode.
46:02
I know you don't like doing scores, but we're not doing out
46:06
of 10 because that's kind of boring.
46:08
We're doing a plus to F and we settled on sort of AB for the
46:13
pilot and B for. So we both give a score and then
46:19
we'll try and find one between us, a middle.
46:21
Ground So if you did B for the pilot, there are ways in which
46:27
it's better than the pilot because you identified them.
46:29
You know, like Ed cohere is a little bit better and and we
46:33
have to kind of take less on faith.
46:35
A lot of things are happening like we don't know what those
46:37
dots are. We don't know how anything's do
46:39
you know what I mean? Like how does he get out of the
46:42
hospital without anyone noticing all of that sort of stuff?
46:44
Who's burning the thing down? Like we just don't quite know
46:48
everything and there's it's a little bit too much, I think
46:53
like having them abducted by aliens in the first episode, you
46:57
know, just to think, OK, we're doing that.
46:59
So I think this is a little bit more, I think this is a little
47:02
bit more coherent and, and straightforward.
47:10
But, and, but I like the relationship between them in the
47:17
pilot a bit better than the relationship here where she's a
47:21
little bit pissed off with him. And so I think on balance, I
47:29
would give this the same grade as the pilot because I think
47:35
it's better in some ways. B.
47:36
Plus. Yeah, I think AB plus is
47:39
actually pretty good. Like I think B plus might be a
47:41
bit high for both of them, to be honest, but only just grading on
47:46
the curve because I know that there are going to be just gob
47:49
smackingly spectacular episodes coming.
47:55
And you know, the show is going to go into sort of weird areas
47:58
and do these strange formal experiments and just, you know,
48:02
be absolutely unlike anything on TV before or since.
48:06
Whereas this is very kind of, you know, like it's a
48:09
straightforward kind of procedural with aliens.
48:12
And so I think it's very good and it's very well done, but I'd
48:16
be tempted to give the both AB to be honest.
48:19
I would probably give this one AB.
48:22
I'll tell you why I would kick it up to AB.
48:23
Plus it's just that scene. It's that scene with Mulder on
48:27
the tarmac. Just because it's burn in my
48:30
memory. That's such an iconic image.
48:32
And it's only a second that you see him in silhouette, the light
48:36
coming down the triangular ship above him.
48:38
But God, if there's a if there's a single shot to sum up The
48:43
X-Files that that's that would be 1 of it, mind you.
48:45
Then you get 2 his eyes in the next one and there's.
48:48
Another, it holds up. Don't you think that shot holds
48:51
up? I don't think that shot looks
48:52
terrible at all. There's one bit where the
48:54
cameras down below looking up and they they've sort of and I
49:00
can sort of. But I just think it's
49:02
incredible. Yeah, it's fine.
49:04
And the actual special effects of yeah, is really impressive.
49:08
And I thought, I mean, there's two spotlights in the sky.
49:10
I was like, well, that's clearly a pair of spotlights, isn't it?
49:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But and when they come, it's in
49:15
the dark. To make the helicopter light,
49:18
that was wonderful. And then the helicopter was
49:19
coming out. I'm like, they must have had
49:21
some money here. The helicopters and night shoots
49:24
are not cheap. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
49:27
Well, should we settle? Do you want to settle on AB then
49:30
or AB plus? Yeah, I'd be happy with AB or AB
49:33
plus B. AB OK, let's let's give it ABI
49:37
shall sort of be seduced by your ranking of this one.
49:41
But you know, I mean and squeeze got a happy B plus as well.
49:45
So that's not doing too bad out of the game.
49:47
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's not been a true budget.
49:49
Now you're coming back for the next episode to record.
49:53
That's Conduits, which is episode 4.
49:56
And would you believe it's all about someone being abducted?
50:01
My goodness mate, I actually can't remember that one.
50:03
I'm sure that when I see it, it will be familiar, but I can't
50:06
remember it offhand. It's considered a bit of a dog.
50:11
I really like it and I've always really liked it.
50:15
And we'll sort of go into why, but I'll be interested to see
50:18
which way you fall actually, because I think there's an
50:20
argument to be made in both directions.
50:22
But essentially it's doing the abduction story, but you're very
50:26
close to the family that has lost the person being abducted.
50:31
So it's far more domestic than what we've seen so far.
50:35
Presumably that's why we hear about Samantha in, you know, so
50:40
early on just to like, properly establish that I.
50:43
Think and this picks up that baton.
50:45
And sort of runs with. It with a very moving last
50:48
scene, but we will get there. We'll get there.
50:50
Well, I suppose that just leaves me to say now look, this is
50:53
going out under the hamster banner.
50:55
Every fucking person listening knows who you are.
50:58
But, but by pure chance, if someone's looking for an X-Files
51:01
podcast and doesn't, where can people find you?
51:06
So I guess you can find me the podcast that the biggest podcast
51:12
that I've done is Flights for Entirety, which is at Flights
51:14
for entirety.com. And we've gone through all of
51:18
Doctor Who from what, 1963 to 20, 2017.
51:27
No, that can't be right. When does that, when do we
51:29
finish out a lot and to the end of the Capaldi era anyway.
51:34
And and of course we can both be heard, I think on Untitled Star
51:41
Trek Project, where we watch random episodes of Star Trek and
51:46
talk about them, which is pretty good fun.
51:50
We have great fun. Yeah.
51:51
Much less superior genre television than what we've
51:54
talked. No, I'm.
51:55
Nice. Sometimes it is.
51:56
Sometimes it's very extraordinary, frequently it's
52:00
quite middling, but. That's right.
52:04
But we love it. So that's an untitled Star Trek
52:06
project.com. Sometimes they're complete dogs
52:09
and we love those. Ones the best.
52:11
That's so great. Yeah, I mean, I can't wait a
52:13
week to week because I think, you know what, right.
52:15
Star Trek is really boring. I don't think.
52:19
I think Star Trek very often, if it's bad, it's hilarious.
52:22
If it's great, it's wonderful. And if it's middling, you can
52:25
usually find some characters moments or, you know, Yeah,
52:29
yeah, terrible direction or something to talk about.
52:31
I think The X-Files, when it's great, is some of the best
52:35
television you're ever going to watch it.
52:36
But when it's bad, it's really dull.
52:40
And there are really dull episodes of The X-Files in the
52:43
run. And of course, you know, I can't
52:44
just cherry pick all the bangers for you.
52:46
You will have to. Do no no, I'm happy to do some
52:48
dull on the. Run.
52:49
I mean, I'm just assuming right now you're in for the 11 season
52:54
run of doing, yeah. Absolutely.
52:57
Log into retirement you know you'll still be.
52:59
Watching. Yeah, but maybe, maybe we won't
53:04
head to Dole just. Yes, yeah.
53:07
Yeah. Well, thank you very much for
53:10
your time today and you better get on to the next abduction
53:14
quick. Yeah, I will.
53:15
I will. Thank you for having me.