MFRW’s Week 39 Blog Prompt: Favorite TV Show of all time? Why?
I’ve become hooked on a number of TV shows over the years – and have even become moderately obsessed with others. I went positively gaga over The Walking Dead. I watched every season of Orange is the New Black. I witnessed Walter’s downward spiral in Breaking Bad and felt a number of emotions including outrage as I feverishly watched the first three seasons of The Handmaid’s Tale (and am currently experiencing a ridiculous amount of frustration as I impatiently await the next season).
I don’t have a particular genre that I enjoy more than another. As long as there’s good storytelling, acting, and dialogue, I’m all in. However, there has only been one show that – in my opinion – has had it all: drama, original storylines, humor, cooky conspiracy theories, an intelligent, fiery heroine, and her handsome, somewhat eccentric wise-cracking partner – and at its core an untouchable friendship comprised of an underlying sexual tension. I am, of course, talking about Special Agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder and the formula that cooked up The X-Files. This formula has since been replicated, but not as successfully. Every week, I was on tenterhooks
waiting to see what sorts of shenanigans Mulder and Scully would get themselves into. Every week, when presented with an unsolved case, Mulder would present a crazy theory backed by no evidence, Scully would scoff and roll her eyes, tell him he was ridiculous, and by the end of it, Mulder’s crazy, ridiculous theory would turn out to be correct. It was predictable in this manner, but it was fun all the same.
Perhaps the most enjoyable part, other than the creative, paranormal storylines, was Mulder and Scully’s interactions. Their chemistry was obvious, but it was deliberately downplayed by creator Chris Carter, who insisted that Mulder and Scully would never become romantically involved. Eventually, however, even Carter couldn’t deny the onscreen romance he’d created, and he jumped onboard the ‘Ship Wagon. When Scully became pregnant on the show, it was only confirmed later that the characters had, in fact, been carrying on an off-screen romance for some time. Perhaps, in retrospect, it was a calculated move on Carter’s part: The more he told fans a romance wasn’t in the cards for their favorite characters, the more they’d want it!
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K.A. Raines 
Ah, but he was a wise director! So many shows have been ruined when the two “friends” become lovers. Moonlighting was great until they hit the sheets–then it got boring. There have been more shows like that. That sexual chemistry, that “will they or won’t they?” keeps the fans coming back. Let the fans write their own fan fiction if they want the nasty details, (Hello, Captain Kirk and Spock, M/M action fans! Toss in Dr. McCoy and you’ve got a testy menage! )
BTW, I used to love X Files until one episode where someone infects bees with smallpox, then sets them loose near a school ground filled with little kids. As an oldie, I’ve got the scar (now under a tattoo) from my smallpox vaccine. Not sure if it’s lifetime guaranteed, but I got it when I was very young. But my kids have never been vaccinated against something that’s been considered wiped out, except for the samples kept on ice in the CDC in the US, and “somewhere” in the former Soviet Union,. All of my kids were still little then, so I couldn’t even finish watching the episode. I got up and left the room, and never watched another episode to this day.
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Haha, I don’t even know where to start! Firstly, I love fanfiction – I’ve actually read tons of it (The X-Files introduced me to fanfic!), but Kirk/Spock/McCoy?? That idea makes me giggle more than makes me hot. I love that trio, but maybe not in a sexual way (even if I always secretly found Spock alluring).
I agree about the sexual tension thing. Something similar happened in “House” with House and Cuddy (I’m still disappointed with the way that show ended), but I’m happy knowing that Mulder and Scully are still in love years later. While people might not have liked the rebooted seasons a couple of years back, they made my little nostalgic ‘shipper heart glow! I also loved that they used the original title sequence. So awesome!
I can understand why that episode might have turned you off to the show as a parent. I was only a teenager when the show originally aired and wouldn’t have viewed the show through the eyes of a parent. Yeah, kids aren’t commonly inoculated against smallpox. I was inoculated when I was in the Navy, but they inoculated us for everything – even anthrax.
I really enjoyed your comments. Thanks for stopping by!
Kari
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I’m with you! I never missed an episode. Great choice! I usually drop out of watching a show when they start a story line that goes on and on, from one week to the next. I guess my attention span is too short–I like a show that wraps up at the end of the episode and The X_Files usually did.
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Haha, well the X-Files did have their over-arching “mythology” episodes, usually marking season finales and premieres and such, but they had more than enough stand-alone episodes that you weren’t completely lost if you missed one or two!
Thanks for stopping by, Dee! I enjoyed your comments – and it’s always nice to meet a fellow X-Files fan!
Kari
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