Shark Bytes

Mulder leaving the show. T-1000 just didn't do it for me.

THis show most defintely jumped after the third season. That's when they began defying the rules set in play about alien plot line, the unifying principle for the show. During season four and beyond you could never really trust the information that you'd get about the nature of the conspiracy/conspiritors because they were constently defying their own premises. The show was part mystery, with "the truth out there" for us to put together. But the writers kept changing the truth wherever they saw fit. The fun of seeing the answers revealed vanished when you realized that they were all out of answers.

Excellent show, but it evolved into a kind of well executed Night Stalker with a very silly and always shifting conspiracy thing skulking around in the backdrop.

it was obvious after the movie they had run out of ideas and the show began its decline. but it was so great in the early seasons, building up all this intrigue and conspiracy. my imagination ran wild as i salivated at the possible conclusions. but then there were about five or six events that made the conspiracy and building of plotlines completely irrelevant and the conclusions were contradictory, unsatisfying or too obvious. i thought by season 9 the agents would be completely focused on the conspiracy, but they were still out chasing killer horses and mental patients with psychic powers.

After the movie, The X-Files was just this melange of Scully-can't-admit-it and Mulder's-disillusioned episodes for the most part. It was really painful to watch from season 5 on, and after watching every episode (even season 4 which I didn't like), I finally just had to shut it off.

A shark took a massive bite out of the meat in the X-Files after the first film, and it showed.

As seriously in love with this show as I STILL am, and it breaks my heart to actually admit any jumping, but I feel like it jumped when Mulder died, was dug up and resurrected. Mulder leaving or the show in L.A. had nothing to do with it. The writing went downhill and so did the characterization of Scully.

I weep for what would have been had DD stayed on the show. But there are some good eps in S8 and S9 and Robert Patrick was a good replacement and I enjoyed him. They could have kept the search for Mulder, and created an XF rebirth, only with Doggett as the new Mulder. Why did the writers become stupid after DD left? The writing from 1-4 should have returned. Then central characters were treated with disrespect (Samantha, TLG, Krychek, even Scully!) Kinda wish it had ended after S8 because DD sure as hell didn't care about it anymore and it showed. However, despite the utter mess and stupidity of S8-9 still one of, if not the most, intelligent, innovative, iconic, entertaining, addictive show on television and still deserves its credit.

I've been catching up with the dvds in preperation for the new movie coming out this summer... currently in the Forth season and "Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man" was what did it for me... Just the idea that Cancer Man killed JFK and Martin Luther King, JR is more then ridiculous.

Never came back from the movie...

I was still an avid supporter of the show right up to the start of season 9, but it really did begin it's decline after the movie...

Too bad, really, cause it WAS such a fantastic show for 4 seasons...

Out of all the options there's no 'season 9'.

Season 7 was a big drop in quality from seasons 3-6 but around the level of 1 and 2. Season 8 was pretty good despite lack of Mulder in a lot of episodes.

Season 9 was where it did jump if it did. And not only because Mulder was gone. It's because the entire show felt stale and tired, and THE SUPER SOLDIERS ARC. THE WORST TV ARC IN HISTORY

When it was good it was great. When it was bad it was GOD-AWFUL!

At it's worst this show was better than 90% of the drivel on t.v. Never jumped, a great blend of sci-fi/horror/comedy.

I found the Christian and general mysticism of some episodes very touching. Roy Thinnes as the recurring Christlike figure. When Scully's baby is born Mulder finds her: "I saw a light in the sky and followed it."... and the Lone Gunmen - like the Three Wise Men - at the foot of Scully's bed, offering gifts to her child. Scully quoting Mulder's notion that souls live on in eternal starlight. Cartwright's (sp?) "Cassandra" character, who like the Cassandra of Hellenistic myth, is cursed with the power of prophecy which no one will listen to... and many other examples.

This so jumped the shark that, having been an avid viewer for the first few seasons, I am shocked to find it actually ran to nine. Maybe more. Who knows. It was tideous after five or six.

Jumped when Duchovney dissappeared...


I thought that it was cool how a lot of the actors that were on "Twin Peaks" showed up on this show...(the guy that played Major Briggs, Michael Anderson, the guy that played the one-armed man...)

It never came back after the movie. Basically, you have 3 seasons of unbelievable television, then a so-so season four, then it's all downhill from there--far, far past when I stopped watching, fanboy that I was. Basically, I know nothing of this Dogget fellow, and I'm happy about that.

The X-Files went from being a great show to a classic example of Jumping the Shark and then proceeding to overstay its welcome by a good two years.

In fact, aside from Happy Days itself, I can't think of a show that Jumped The Shark as egregiously as The X-Files.

I the moment it jumped shark was the Season 7 episode 'Closure.' It was early 200 and the show's ratings were sagging. Carter and Spotnitz felt the need to make a splash by finally revealing what happened to Samantha...only what happened to Samantha as told in 'Closure' COMPLETELY CONTRADICTED the entire Samantha mythology that had evolved for seven friggin' years.

I had long known that CC and Spotnitz were making it up as they went along, but 'Closure' really made it clear as day that they didn't give a damn about continuity.

Great show completely derailed by sloppy storytelling...too bad really.