X-Files mythology, TenThirteen Interviews Database, and more

Archive for September, 2017

Social media archive: 2017 (part 5)

Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.


Aug 01, 2017 16:59

“The X-Files: Cold Cases”: an article about the behind-the-scenes work on the sound effects, music and atmosphere of the audio drama production.

Audible Range: The X-Files Cold Cases: Meet the modern audio drama


Aug 03, 2017 00:06

Crispr-Cas9 used on human embryos: it is really happening! #XFilesScience My Struggle II

The Guardian: Deadly gene mutations removed from human embryos in landmark study


Aug 04, 2017 11:31

“3rd Floor Productions” is the new pseudonym for Ten Thirteen! XF season 11 shooting is starting in 4 days and fans are on the lookout!

https://www.twitter.com/melchirii/status/893234250635522049/


Aug 08, 2017 8:03

A step towards gender equality where it makes sense in XF s11: welcome to Carol Banker (1013 alumni in 1999-2002) and Holly Dale – both here to direct I guess the new writers’ episodes.

TVLine: The X-Files Season 11 Update: 2 Female Directors Join Fox Revival


Aug 08, 2017 16:47

Joe Harris interview. Interesting parts about Carter steering him away from using William as an antagonist in his comics, and on the current run of comics being cut short faster than planned. Again.

Re: 2016-2017 XF comics: “The publisher decided they wanted to give the regular publication a break and my overall idea of going 25 issues was truncated.”

Re: William: “Chris actually steered me away from using William in the ways I’d initially intended. Back at the very beginning of the planning stages, before Chris had offered to come on board and help us launch, I’d hoped to develop William into more of a long-range threat to Mulder and Scully. […] I had planned to build a big storyline around the hunt for young William Scully, who I’d envisioned as a very powerful and potentially neglected young man who resented being given away for adoption and who might have been compromised, or was even leading the effort to fuck with his mother and Fox Mulder. Chris Carter warned me away from this idea, expressly citing how personal a subject William was particularly for female X-Files fans.”

Cuarto Mundo: Exclusive interview with Joe Harris, writer of The X-Files (IDW)


Aug 08, 2017 18:09

XF setup by @[184646584899113:274:Jackorama]

https://www.facebook.com/jackoramacom/posts/1597200840310340


Aug 08, 2017 21:01

Official word from FOX #TCA: ONLY 2 mythology episodes bookending season 11?! Carter must be thinking: season 12, here we come?…

EW: The X-Files largely ditching mythology episodes next season


Aug 08, 2017 22:20

#TheXFiles 11X01 title: “My Struggle III” aka Event Series 2 Episode 201 (found on twitter)

 


Aug 09, 2017 00:26

Hear @[930414780360852:274:The X-Cast\: An X-Files Podcast]’s @[511473157:2048:Carl Sweeney] and me talk X-Files, EatTheCorn, and be impressed, but not too much, by “The X-Files: Cold Cases”!

https://www.facebook.com/xfilespod/posts/1468790759856582

https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5622730


Aug 09, 2017 14:33

Summarizing XF s11 info on writers:

11X01: My Struggle III, mythology (Chris Carter)
11X??: stand-alone on a monster related to nature, originally was to be done during s10 (Gabe Rotter & Brad Follmer)
11X??: stand-alone (Benjamin Van Allen)
11X??: stand-alone (Glen Morgan)
11X??: stand-alone (story by Glen Morgan, teleplay by Kristen Cloke & Shannon Hamblin)
11X??: stand-alone (Karen Nielsen)
11X??: stand-alone, comedy (Darin Morgan)
11X??: stand-alone (James Wong)
11X??: stand-alone with threads of mythology (James Wong)
11X10: “My Struggle IV” (title?), mythology (Chris Carter)

Carter might co-write one of the new writers’ script, but with so many writers it does look like his main contribution will be the two mythology episodes and overall supervision.

https://xfilesnews.tumblr.com/post/163958328856


Aug 13, 2017 15:01

“The X-Files: #ColdCases” audio drama: review + ICYMI @[930414780360852:274:The X-Cast\: An X-Files Podcast] podcast discussion #istillwanttobelieve

The X-Files: Cold Cases review & podcast

 


Aug 15, 2017 00:22

More casting news: “Barbara Hershey will play Erika Price, a powerful figure who represents a mysterious organization.” How recurring can she be, with 2 mythology episodes only? More interconnectedness between episodes? Signs carter’s modus operandi is changing?

Deadline: ‘The X-Files’: Barbara Hershey Joins Season 11 Of Fox Series


Aug 17, 2017 21:21

X-Files @[114444205294473:274:Mark Snow] soundtrack for the Event Series: a review + more on “original series” Vol.4 + “More Music” requests update with material from 147 episodes (!)

X-Files music: Event Series release + more to come

 


Aug 24, 2017 12:59

X-Files Basement: The X-Cast Podcast Fan Group


Sep 11, 2017 15:15

#TheXFiles celebrates 24 years – 1993-2017! Look at these season 1 younglings!

http://xfphotos.fredfarm.com/extras/promos/ms/ms_111.jpg


Sep 14, 2017 20:48

#TwinPeaks & #TheXFiles fans! Listen Mark Snow and other TV music composers discuss the music of “Twin Peaks”!

Studio360: The music of ‘Twin Peaks’


Sep 18, 2017 20:23

X-Files office in cardboard miniature, by @[617473121708468:274:Damien James Webb]!

https://damienjameswebb.carbonmade.com/projects/6563637


Sep 26, 2017 10:13

#TheXFiles #TakeAKnee

https://twitter.com/davidduchovny/status/912497003606810625


Sep 26, 2017 10:27

https://www.facebook.com/events/213979789136139/

From 30 Sep 2017, 23:00 to 1 Oct 2017, 01:00
Join us for a conversation with artists Nora Khan and Steven Warwick on occasion of their new project Fear Indexing The X-Files, recently published by Primary Information.

For their new staple-bound project, Khan and Warwick combed through the first 9 seasons of The X-Files television series—which ran from 1992 to 2002—gathering and indexing the various fears that appeared as themes throughout the show. The authors employ a documentary-style commentary to narrate how the show posited fear as an inherent quality of domestic life.

The original run of the series aired in the period nestled between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror—a time in which enemies of the state shifted, with aliens replacing Communism, and a fear of ghosts and the paranormal prefacing our current climate of Islamophobia.

Khan and Warwick take this index and link it to the rise of the World Wide Web and the global internet, which emerged in the same era. As the show developed, its characters became more adept at using the internet, as did its fans, many of whom visited chat rooms and dedicated forums to discuss episode content, speculate on theories, and come up with urban legends of their own.


Sep 27, 2017 21:22

#TheXFiles updated for today’s age: a review of @[506008038:2048:Joe Harris]’s unsubtle but necessary comics *final* arc! “Resistance”

What will we do now without waiting for XF comics every month?

XF comics end: #14-17 review

 


Sep 29, 2017 2:05

First official image of XF s11 and of 11X01: My Struggle III is out, and…it’s spoiler territory, but it will be impossible for anyone to miss that one! Scully is in a bad spot, Mulder looks fine. Let the theorizing begin: everyone’s healed and Scully gets retribution for developing the cure? Or My Struggle II was a sort of dream/premonition/time jump, and Scully attempts to prevent these events from happening?

XF comics end: #14-17 review

Once more after his Season 11 was reduced from a two-year arc to just 8 issues because of the unexpected live revival of the series, Joe Harris has been cut short. For reasons still unclear (but likely related to cost-cutting measures on behalf of IDW and decreasing sales for the XF comics title), IDW has decided to scrap Harris’s plans for a two-year story and stop the current comics series with #17. Had Season 11 continued, it would have approximately spanned the sum of the issues Season 11 and this “ongoing” series ended up consisting in, and we would be now discussing the end of Season 11!

Despite these constraints, Harris manages to provide a compelling story in #14-17 “Resistance” and goes out with a bang. Earlier reviews at EatTheCorn: #1-9; #10-13.

THEY have taken over!

The world has changed a lot since this title started in March 2016, when Donald Trump took office as President of the USA, and his photo started dominating Skinner’s office. It is impossible to ignore it.

National Security Councils and constant news updates on imminent nuclear war with North Korea, an empty Oval Office and a President off playing golf: it has been absolutely chilling reading these nearly-prescient issues all the while these same events have been unfolding in the real world.

When a general who stands up for the corruption of democratic values says “I have advised five presidents on national security matters without any regard for party affiliation or personal viewpoints“, how one could not think of ex-FBI director Comey testifying? When a corrupt Admiral Harkin (a reference to ex-Admiral Grand Moff Tarkin?) reverses the accusation of conspiracy and turns those who would stand for democracy into traitors (“There is a conspiracy at work against this nation and its leadership, forces intent on undermining our efforts to transform this country are out there.“), how one could not think of fake news and misdirection? Skinner’s line reaches a documentary-like level of realism: “The news media hasn’t been shy with some of the colorful ways they describe the situation in Washington these days. Sometimes I think they have no idea how tame they’re still being.

The evil alien conspiracy is no longer hiding in the shadows, difficultly discovered by the efforts of valiant honest FBI agents: it is now right in our faces, it has taken power, it is the one making the decisions in public, it is in the White House! Now is not the time for The Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the times call for a more direct kind of political science fiction. Joe Harris is anti-Trump and could not be more explicit, using the medium of The X-Files in a very partisan way, something never seen before for this series and losing tons of subtlety along the way — but how could he not be given the uncommon circumstances? Firas summarizes the situation: “This Cabal is operating with a mandate only they recognize now…gods above, watch over us all.” It will be interesting to see if and how the Carter-led X-Files tackle such controversial themes next year.

The Strughold connection

It is interesting that in this context, even the enemies of old can become potential allies. The old conspiracy/Syndicate, which in this comics and continuity survives as Firas Ben-Brahim-Strughold, had less-than-honorable plans for world domination, but has found a new and powerful opponent that has taken him by storm (akin to how outsider Trump overtook both GOP and the country by surprise?). Firas operates from his base in Peters Mountain, Virginia, which must be an acquisition
of what used to be the secret government’s base in Mount Weather Complex in 9X19/20: The Truth (same exterior looks, itself shot at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Clorado).

In an unexpected but expertly hinted at turn of events, Firas Ben-Brahim, introduced in the Come Back Haunted arc (#6-9), is revealed to be Conrad Strughold’s son. Strughold was the leader of the Syndicate, only seen and referenced in the movie Fight the Future in 1998 and vanished since (albeit obliquely referenced by a Tunisia connection in 6X10: S.R. 819 and 7X22: Requiem). Joe Harris resurrecting that most dangling of dangling threads is a testament to the attention to continuity and constant effort at quality that he has given to the X-Files comics since the beginning over four years ago.

Firas was thus the secret child of Conrad Strughold and a Tunisian “washwoman”, illegitimately begotten in those GMO corn crop fields in Foum Tataouine (that we saw at the end of FTF); Conrad must have had a liking for his progeny as he got passage for the mother and young Firas to Europe in 1982 and could have kept an eye on Firas from afar in the same way the Cigarette-Smoking Man was following his son(-apparent) Fox Mulder. Grown up Firas has taken a liking to his role and plays with his alter ego Mulder: “We are the children of visionaries. We are the heirs to a conspiracy, agent Mulder, the likes of which the world had never seen bef[ore].” “It’s awful, I think you’d agree, that which fathers sometimes do to make men out of their sons.” This revelation and this parallel with Mulder might have been more fleshed out had Harris had more issues to develop his story.

This self-aggrandizement goes so far as for Firas to request from the Old Ones some recognition and a ‘seat in the table’ in their plans for world domination. Ultimately, Firas appears to be absorbed willingly by the Old Ones and loses his bodily shell in this transcendental process; his personality contacts Mulder psychically one last time before moving on to wherever this faction of the Old Ones went. After so much teasing throughout the first issues of this arc, the level of ambiguity of what happens at the end is a bit frustrating. Again, this is a story that could have been told more smoothly or been continued had Harris been given more issues.

In addition to their ascendance, Firas and Mulder also share a liking to agent Scully! The Firas/Scully sexual tension is explicit since the Came Back Haunted arc and is reinforced here, complete with Scully wearing a black dress similar to that she was wearing while dining with the CSM in 7X15: En Ami, with Mulder hardly hiding his jealousy, and with Scully being dismissive and focusing on “the work”. The cessation/pause in the Mulder-Scully relationship established by Carter in the live revival gave Harris the freedom and the direction to play such games, as this is similar to the ambiguity around Scully and Tad O’Malley in Carter’s My Struggle I & II; given the comics follow Carter’s lead in characterization, this shouldn’t come as a surprise, however one hopes future live and comics developments be less soap operatic.

The Old Ones’ Endgame

With these closing issues, Harris connects his new mythology back to the very first issue of this comics run. We first met the Old Ones in issue #1 Active Shooter and Mulder had a very close encounter in #6-9 Came Back Haunted. Their resemblance to the Black Oil/Purity is made explicit here: Firas tells Mulder & Scully “You’ve known about the phenomena the “Old Ones” can be more properly likened to for over twenty years now. You knew its relative as Purity — the fabled “Black Oil” — which possessed human beings in order for the alien sentience to get where, and what, it wanted.

Like the alien Supersoldiers infiltrating the highest levels of government in seasons 8-9, the Old Ones have been infecting people and getting closer to power, manipulating policy decisions to their own gain and bullying anyone that doesn’t follow their new rule. They are the allegory Harris chose for the new Trump administration.

However, there are many sides to this game as well. An Old Ones-possessed Firas tells Mulder: “There is a conflict between those, like us, who would reach the holes in the sky and those who no longer wish to return through them. They hide within your government.” Later, the Old Ones (or an ascended Firas?) tell Mulder: “For millennia Old Ones have sought to leave this place. But not all of us wish to go.” Although one of them tells Scully “We do not care for control or for power, for us there are only the holes in the sky“, its faction was vying for control within the US government. So it is all left a bit ambiguous and hazy as to what faction was attempting what — however surely both factions didn’t seem to have humanity’s best intentions in mind.

And thus, certain Old Ones manipulate events so as to reach an underwater spaceship in the Sea of Japan and leave Earth (creating a hole in the sky) — nearly creating a nuclear conflict between North Korea and the USA in the process: another example of Harris cleverly using real-world events to propose an alternative X-Files-y version of history.

Certain other Old Ones apparently have other elusive plans but that do involve a conspiracy for controlling human destinies as well: an arch-enemy for another day. Firas hoped to reveal the “bad faction” Old One’s conspiracy inside the government; he is outpaced by the power in place, in the form of Attorney General Jeff Sessions himself (!), accompanied by the two Men In Black from 3X20: José Chung’s From Outer Space (!!), there to brainwash or blackmail Skinner into obedience. The comics series leaves Skinner in his classic seasons 1-6 role of ambiguous ally. Mulder and Scully are left to collect what weak evidence they have, ever the heroes doing the never-ending good fight, and only have each other. In the same issue #17 we get both some friendly camaraderie with a punch in the shoulder and some love declarations in which only the word “love” is missing — and a forehead kiss straight from Fight the Future.


In short, what one could expect from The X-Files. The ending is nothing groundbreaking, being a return to status quo of the inescapable “golden age” of the series (around seasons 2-5), but is fitting enough: the adventures of these characters never end. It is certainly less of a conclusion compared to the resolution in the last issue of Season 11 but more of an open-ended final arc. It is a good enough ending to a 17 issues series that hit quite a few bumps in the road, and overall the stories and the fan reception for this series have been lesser than what they had been for Seasons 10 and 11. Perhaps it is due to a general loss of interest in these tie-ins ever since the 2016 live revival de-canonized the comics and made it clear that “canon” is only to be found in the live incarnation of this franchise.

And so after four exciting years, the excellent Seasons 10 and 11 and several dozens of comics issues starting in June 2013, Joe Harris’s run on The X-Files does end, though! For penciller Matthew Dow Smith and colorist Jordie Bellaire, perhaps it’s not the end yet. Apart from the young adult series “Origins” and a two-issue special “JFK Disclosure”, IDW’s plans for any more future X-Files for 2018, if any, should be revealed soon.