i recently splurged and allowed myself to purchase the season one dvd set of the x-files. like a lot of people, i basically grew up with this show, enjoying anything having to do with science fiction at the time. since i don’t have the space channel or anything other than basic cable, i haven’t been able to catch reruns of one of my all-time favourite shows. re-watching the season that started it all for me is like tasting a favourite food after years of being allergic to it. or a better analogy.

the reasons why i love the x-files are as follows:

mulder and scully: hello, sexual tension! i love the dynamic these two actors have together, even if they supposedly hated each other’s guts in real life. the characters of fox mulder and dana scully are cliché but not cliché at the same time. women on television shows are usually emotionally unstable beings, ruled by passion and feelings; men, on the other hand, are calm and think logically. the x-files twisted those common misconceptions, making mulder the seemingly irrational character and scully the rational scientist.

aliens: i loves me some sci-fi, so having a show about aliens that felt believable and realistic was enough to keep me hooked. i hated movies like alien and predator (two crappy movies which have recently been thrown together to make the mother of all craptastic movies, alien vs. predator) because i just didn’t believe that something like that could possibly happen. the x-files felt real to me. i wanted to believe. (cue x-files whistle theme song.)

vancouver: the show was filmed predominantly in vancouver in its prime (a.k.a. before the seasons that were filmed in california). so, it was cool to see places i’ve been to in some of the episodes. alan’s house was even used in one of the episodes as a crime scene! (“eve” in season one.) of course, i didn’t know alan then and didn’t get to meet david duchovny or play with his rubber gun. vancouver is such a great place to film a show like the x-files. unfortunately, the weather was a tad bit too “rainy” for david duchovny.

david duchovny: this man is hot! sure, he has a monotonous voice and his movie career hasn’t really ascended to great heights, but i don’t think anyone has ever made an fbi agent look so good. he’s studied at princeton and yale and he’s hilarious on interviews. i can sort of understand why a lot of vancouver x-philes disliked david duchovny after the whole “it’s too rainy in vancouver” incident and the subsequent relocation of the x-files to los angeles. i remember reading letters like this and seeing ads like this in the newspaper. while i did feel that duchovny was painting the city one drab colour by his comments, i also believe that the entire city took it way too personally. his comments that the vancouver climate sucked were bad jokes, at best, but not a direct affront to the city itself. if there’s one thing i can’t forgive him for, however, it’s that he married that talentless wench téa leoni. not that i’m bitter, or anything… i wish i had the idea of writing a song about him first, dammit!