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chicafrom3Season four! We know what we're doing now.
Confession: I skipped Home. I've seen it one time in my life and it was one time too many.
The season gets off to a disappointing start. Nothing else is as horrifying and traumatic as Home, but Teliko through Sanguinarium is basically a run of blah episodes.
But then there's Musings Of A Cigarette Smoking Man, which is amazing. It would be worth it just for the "life is like a box of chocolates" speech alone, and yet there are so many other great moments in it.
It's followed by the Tunguska/Terma two-parter which isn't great but is pretty good and has a lot of Nick Lea being sneaky and backstabbing.
And Paper Hearts! Paper Hearts is spectacular. It's a little too intense to be in my regular episode rotation but I should really rewatch it more often. Mulder's blasé "you're in the wrong house" still kills me.
Plus the Scully cancer arc is done really well throughout the second half of the season, with several episodes focusing on it (Leonard Betts is deeply disturbing) and most of the rest touching on it in meaningful ways. Never Again is dark and cynical and it's really easy to see why Gillian Anderson frequently cited (cites?) it as her favorite episode; it's an excellent look at a side of Scully we don't get to see much.
I remember liking Tempus Fuguit and Max a lot more than I did on this rewatch. I'm still very fond of Max Fenig as a character, but the episodes themselves are just not that great. Which is disappointing.
I didn't even remember Zero Sum existed before this rewatch, tbh, but it is excellent. One of the best mythology episodes, I think, and a really good look at Skinner.
And then it all culminates in the double punch of Demons, aka possibly the best Mulder!whump episode ever and one of my favorite episodes hands down (the flashbacks are so surreal and disturbing and they have the ring of truth), and the utterly devastating Gethsemane, one of my favorite season finales.
In conclusion, a shaky and uneven start but if you power through, the second half makes it all worth it.
(And yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Small Potatoes in this review, but I don't know what to say about it. It's brilliantly written and amazingly acted and I find it deeply unpleasant to watch for reasons I can't figure out.)
Next up, season five, and the introductions of some incredibly important characters!
Confession: I skipped Home. I've seen it one time in my life and it was one time too many.
The season gets off to a disappointing start. Nothing else is as horrifying and traumatic as Home, but Teliko through Sanguinarium is basically a run of blah episodes.
But then there's Musings Of A Cigarette Smoking Man, which is amazing. It would be worth it just for the "life is like a box of chocolates" speech alone, and yet there are so many other great moments in it.
It's followed by the Tunguska/Terma two-parter which isn't great but is pretty good and has a lot of Nick Lea being sneaky and backstabbing.
And Paper Hearts! Paper Hearts is spectacular. It's a little too intense to be in my regular episode rotation but I should really rewatch it more often. Mulder's blasé "you're in the wrong house" still kills me.
Plus the Scully cancer arc is done really well throughout the second half of the season, with several episodes focusing on it (Leonard Betts is deeply disturbing) and most of the rest touching on it in meaningful ways. Never Again is dark and cynical and it's really easy to see why Gillian Anderson frequently cited (cites?) it as her favorite episode; it's an excellent look at a side of Scully we don't get to see much.
I remember liking Tempus Fuguit and Max a lot more than I did on this rewatch. I'm still very fond of Max Fenig as a character, but the episodes themselves are just not that great. Which is disappointing.
I didn't even remember Zero Sum existed before this rewatch, tbh, but it is excellent. One of the best mythology episodes, I think, and a really good look at Skinner.
And then it all culminates in the double punch of Demons, aka possibly the best Mulder!whump episode ever and one of my favorite episodes hands down (the flashbacks are so surreal and disturbing and they have the ring of truth), and the utterly devastating Gethsemane, one of my favorite season finales.
In conclusion, a shaky and uneven start but if you power through, the second half makes it all worth it.
(And yeah, I would be remiss if I didn't at least mention Small Potatoes in this review, but I don't know what to say about it. It's brilliantly written and amazingly acted and I find it deeply unpleasant to watch for reasons I can't figure out.)
Next up, season five, and the introductions of some incredibly important characters!
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