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Sep
30
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

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

https://twitter.com/anewdaysue/status/894999325788569600

 

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

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 & 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

#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

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?

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Sep
27
2017

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 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.

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Aug
17
2017

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

After their impressive multi-CD box sets with music from all Ten Thirteen shows, The X-Files in particular, soundtracks specialists La La Land Records released a set with music from the recent season 10 of The X-Files — or, as it is officially known, “The X-Files Event Series“.

lll_eventseries

The 2-CD set with music by Mark Snow was released on April 25 2017, just over a year after the series aired. Soundtracks for each season of television series have become common practice over the past ten years, so this should not come as a surprise. However, given how scarce Mark Snow XF material was until LLL started focusing on the franchise, it is some event!

2 CDs with a total running time of XXX just for 6 episodes means that this release is close to being a complete score — compare with 12 CDs for 89 episodes covered by the “original series” box sets, there’s a lot more material per episode here. Here is the track list:

[table id=4 /]

The music in the aired episodes is notoriously absent: it is there, but the audio mix has the music sound track usually turned low and the unusual amount of dialogue left very little space for the music to shine (and the episodes to breathe — one major drawback for season 10). This left me disappointed at Mark Snow, but my misgivings were wrong.

A mix of old and new

The music in this set is nothing short of excellent! Mark Snow shines by writing music that feels both modern and in continuation with his soundtrack for the ‘original series’. This is very much intentional: the series might not have been perfect but its clear intention was to try to be modern while attempting to recall the classic, early seasons of the show.

The tone of the music harkens back especially to the early seasons of the show, seasons 3-4 especially, rather than the comedic seasons 6-7 or the horns melodies-heavy seasons 8-9. There are some specific audio libraries that Snow dug up from some twenty years ago and reused them here: that very same paranoid piano melody from E.B.E. (in Founder’s Mutation: A Mother Never Forgets), those pensive horns like in Quagmire, these piano melodies on top of bass synth moods like in Little Green Men, these awe-filling choirs like in All Souls, that unsettling undulating drone like in Colony, even melancholic violins like in Millennium (in Home Again), there is plenty here that feels like home. Even the comedic cues sound like Small Potatoes or Bad Blood.

This is all mixed with the music style explored by Snow in the soundtrack for I Want To Believe: splicing his trademark synthesizer orchestral-like sound together with elements of electronic music. There is a lot of old-school Mark Snow synthesizer mixed with electronic pulsating rhythms and tempo beats here, similar to IWTB tracks A Higher Conscious or Mountain Montage/The Plow.

Six Episodes

Here is the breakdown of the set per episode:

[table id=5 /]

Mark Snow establishes a soundscape for the two My Struggle episodes, reprising some of the music of the first in the second, in particular the music for the teaser (which we might get a third time in the new season?); the sense of rising tension and world-spanning stakes as My Struggle II develops is very palpable and really is X-Files at its most blockbustery massiveness.

Founder’s Mutation alternates between action-oriented music, horror and warmer tones in the William dreams. The music for Home Again, like the episode, is an odd mix between horror music like in Home, and the warmer music of the “relationship” scenes of I Want To Believe. Home Again ending includes a soft rendering of the X-Files main theme; thankfully, Mark Snow didn’t overdo it by quoting that melody too much (unlike the show’s taglines in the dialogue!).

Very unexpectedly, even the music for Babylon was a pleasant surprise — outside of the short comedic cues of which I was never a big fan of (including a quote of Beethoven’s Letter for Elise)– what is there makes one think of a tense, dark episode. Were-Monster gets just a medley, and it is true that its music was not that memorable.

The set wraps up with Snow’s remix of the main theme, with heavy use of electronics, used in the end titles. The opening titles used the original mix of the iconic original theme.

All of this makes me look forward to Mark Snow’s score for the upcoming season.

 

 

Volume 4 and beyond

We are still waiting for Volume 4 of La La Land’s music for the original X-Files, after Volume 3 was released in 2013.

The massive list with requests for cues has been updated — music from 147 episodes!

What was covered in Volume 3 was removed, more requests were added (cues gathered at FSM or sent to EatTheCorn).

The latest news from LLL is that they are indeed considering a Volume 4 given the sales of previous volumes, however indications are that this would be the last volume. The focus is expected to be on episodes not covered in previous volumes, however requests for important cues that were skipped the first time around are so recurring that I hope LLL might reconsider.

Another idea that has been floated by LLL is that of complete episodic soundtracks: the complete score of episodes instead of episode selections, with one CD containing perhaps 2 episodes. This has been attempted before with, for instance, the episodic scores to Babylon 5; the limited edition would be fewer than the 3000 units for the Volumes releases. This approach would make sense once the “best of” Volume 4 will be out, given the amount of material out there and the dedicated fanbase of Snow’s music.

Volume 3 was an odd mix of selected cues and complete episodic soundtracks where precious time could have been saved for short cues that are considered of higher priority. Volume 3 featured a peculiar selection of music, with some excellent material from the first couple of seasons that many had asked for (Deep Throat, GenderBender, 3) but also spending comparatively a lot of CD space on episodes for which a selection would have sufficed (Small Potatoes) or that were not on anyone’s list (El Mundo Gira, Trust No 1) or giving select episodes the complete soundtrack treatment. For example Drive was covered in its entirety with 32 min (only missing: two very short cues that are actually samples of the released cues), and Field Trip and Essence were also very close to complete.

Despite these quips, LLL has been issuing high quality box sets with material that was only the stuff of dreams a few years ago, so the fact that LLL does have plans for more releases to come can only be good news!

 

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Aug
13
2017

The X-Files: Cold Cases review & podcast

The X-Files: Cold Cases was released on July 18 2017. It is an audio drama adaptation of the first half of the “Season 10” comics of Joe Harris (2013-2014). Not an audio book reading of prose, but an audio drama, featuring a cast of actors and audio effects that make it as if it were an audio recording of a theatre play or the sound track of a movie. Like the radio dramas popular up to the 1950s-1060s (the most famous of which would be Orson Welles’ 1938 adaptation of H.G. Wells’s The War of the Worlds, which genuinely generated panic that an alien invasion was going on!). There had been a previous attempt at doing X-Files audio dramas, by Broken Sea Audio Productions in 2009-2010, however it was unofficial and did not feature anyone from the original cast.

Hear Carl Sweeney and myself discuss X-Files, EatTheCorn and Cold Cases
in (quite fittingly!) an audio format, in The X-Cast podcast: here!

Cold Cases was produced by Amazon’s Audible, adapted by Dirk Maggs (also interviewed by the X-Cast here), directed by William Dufris, and featuring David Duchovny, Gillian Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, William B. Davis, Bruce Harwood, Dean Haglund and Tom Braidwood from the original series. Chris Carter gets a “written by” credit, although we know his involvement with the comics was very minimal; Joe Harris’s involvement in this was non-existent, as Audible must have just gotten the license to exploit X-Files products directly by the owner, FOX, and not by IDW comics (with some odd results, such as Harris not being invited on-stage at the Cold Cases panel in the San Diego Comic Con).

coldcases

It totals about 4 hours in length, broken down into chapters, each being a story arc from the comics that spanned from one to five issues. Here is the story, along with the detailed series of “Lowdown” articles analyzing each issue as it was coming out here at EatTheCorn — and thus there are no spoilers for future issues in each Lowdown:

  • Episode 1: Believers (1:10:13): Lowdown #1 #2 #3 #4 #5
  • Episode 2: Hosts (00:37:55): Lowdown #6 #7
  • Episode 3: Being for the Benefit of Mr. X (00:24:56): Lowdown #8
  • Episode 4: More Musings of the Cigarette-Smoking Man (00:23:21): Lowdown #10
  • Episode 5: Pilgrims (01:27:53): Lowdown #11 #12 #13 #14 #15

51WjHkKMTRL

Some remarks on Cold Cases:

The story: This is a page-per-page adaptation of the comics, surprisingly very faithful to the source material. There is plenty I loved, as my Lowdowns show, and although not perfect in many aspects this is a superior continuation to the one we got in the 2016 Event Series. However, experiencing 15 months’ worth of comics issues along with the awarding re-reading sessions and analysis that came with it adapted into a condensed 4 hours is very odd; I would say the medium does not invite one to ponder the meticulous mysteries in Harris’s new mythology and explore the connections with past mythology. That being said, it is difficult to imagine how one would receive this audio drama if he/she wouldn’t have read the comics; my imagination is certainly shaped by what I saw on the printed/tablet page.

Canonicity: Cold Cases follows the post-I Want To Believe “Season 10/Season 11” comics continuity of the Joe Harris comics that started in 2013, when there was no certainty that there would be more (live) X-Files, and are thus at complete odds with the continuity established by the 2016 Event Series (itself unofficially dubbed “season 10”). There is no attempt to reconcile continuities. As pointed out by others as well, it’s unfortunate and an odd starting point for an audio adaptation, but one has to deal with it.

511GAiUI07L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_

Differences with the comics: Some things are added in the audio that are good (better links and flow between episodes, things missing from the Event Series like FBI training for reinstatement, a particular rape scene in #13 was removed, some reordering in the scenes so as not to have much back and forth in the timeline) and some are…less good (some of the obligatory exposition, like some of the Lone Gunmen not remembering Scully had a child, more ambiguity as to who William’s father is, the CSM constantly being called “Spender” and all the Elders like Well-Manicured Man being called that in-universe, a very talky Mr. X…).

On the audio drama itself: There’s some excellent stuff here: W.B.Davis’ and Pileggi’s performances in particular are top-notch; there was extensive work on the sound design and sound effects (particularly Hosts; but the voices of all the shapeshifters and Black Oil-possessed people do sound silly); there’s even some moody background music, although you have to pump the volume up (and not using Mark Snow’s music is a missed opportunity); and although nearly all actors did their recordings separate the editing is well done. And then there’s some…less good stuff: Duchovny in particular was not into this, and Anderson is at times into it and at times not; as a result, some scenes that are supposed to have urgency fall flat (the climax to Pilgrims, for instance); and not all of the original cast is back and for substantial roles (Krycek, X, Deep Throat) this takes you out of the story.

XFiles_s10_v3-mini

Overall: It’s an interesting product, but one can’t shake the feeling that it’s a marketing product, a tie-in to a tie-in merchandise. The choice to adapt these comics in particular with very little changes is odd, though. There was no attempt to reconcile these comics with the live series continuity; there was no attempt to rewrite parts of it so that the Season 10+11 story would be a more cohesive whole (given that the Season 11 comics were cut short and several threads were left hanging, e.g. Krycek and the Acolytes); there was no attempt to flesh out the scenes between Mulder and Scully and give more material to Anderson and Duchovny given this unique opportunity (Joe Harris is a big, big fan of the mythology characters and of Mulder but his scenes where Mulder and Scully interacted were lacking in depth and feeling).

10X15_syndicate

Next: Cold Cases will continue with Stolen Lives, to be released on October 3 2017, which will cover the second half of Harris’s Season 10 (#16-25 and also #9: Chitter, which was skipped in Cold Cases). The recordings for both halves were done together around Autumn 2016, however Audible is releasing these separately. In order to wrap up the story, they would have to go back to recording and adapt the Season 11 comics, which ends the story in a satisfactory way. Given that Cold Cases became an Audible best seller in the first days of its release (!), that might just happen!

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Jul
31
2017

Social media archive: 2017 (part 4)

Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.

Jul 06, 2017 23:33

Tough times for the Martian Black Oil!…

The Guardian: Mars covered in toxic chemicals that can wipe out living organisms, tests reveal

Jul 11, 2017 12:28

The man-made Sixth Extinction is really happening right now!
– Nearly one-third of the 27,600 land-based mammal, bird, amphibian and reptile species studied are shrinking in terms of their numbers and territorial range. The researchers called that an “extremely high degree of population decay.”
– “we’ve wiped out 50% of the Earth’s wildlife in the last 40 years”
– “if we kept up with that pace, there would be no more wild elephants in Africa in 20 years.”

CNN: Sixth mass extinction: The era of ‘biological annihilation’

Jul 11, 2017 17:04

“X-Files: Cold Cases” the audio drama version of the Season 10 comics are coming out in one week! Another audio extract (adapted from the comics issue 11), DD & GA photos on the recording studio + a panel announced for San Diego Comic Con (the only XF-related event at SDCC, as s11 won’t have started shooting yet).

EW: Hear Mulder and Scully Go on a ‘Foreign Assignment’ in ‘X-Files: Cold Cases’

Jul 13, 2017 15:52

: #ColdCases audio drama launch yesterday, underground under Audible.co.uk’s offices, with Dirk Maggs (producer) and Nick Pope (“UK’s Mulder” UFO investigator) and an immersive audiovisual experience!
“The truth is out there, you just have to listen…” #IStillWantToBelieve

Jul 13, 2017 18:26

What XF comics after Joe Harris finishes his run in August?
“JFK Disclosure”! On the JFK assassination, a 2-parter written by IDW editor Denton J. Tipton, for October-November. Looks CSM and Bill Mulder -heavy. Also, “Origins” comics are continuing. So, IDW will be doing these specials from now on, with no connective tissue between them?

io9: The Next X-Files Comic Is Tackling JFK’s Assassination

Jul 14, 2017 16:58

@[1125066530909911:274:The X-Files\: The Video Game Project] is brewing!…

https://www.facebook.com/thexfiles.videogame/posts/1402241143192447

Jul 17, 2017 10:49

RIP George Romero AND Martin Landau! Romero was a master of horror and a big inspiration to the genre after his 1968 cult film Night of the Living Dead. He nearly directed a zombie-themed X-Files episode in season 7, what I guess ultimately became the episode Millennium. Landau portrayed Kurtzweil in the Fight the Future movie, among other things (Space 1999, Ed Wood)…

The Guardian: George A Romero, Night of the Living Dead director, dies aged 77

Jul 18, 2017 19:44

“Cold Cases”, the audio drama adaptation of the earlier “Season 10” comics, is out today by Audible! David Duchovny had high praise for writer @[136034229760285:274:Joe Harris (filmmaker)]: “I was impressed by the writing and the grasp of the character. […] they had a really good grasp of the character and of the kinds of stories, of the humor ”

EW: David Duchovny on how The X-Files: Cold Cases ’embraced the humor’ of the show

Jul 20, 2017 10:29

Mitch “Big Bald Man” Pileggi officially confirmed for season 11 – no surprise here, next will be WBDavis, but I do hope he’ll get more scenes than what he got in s10. With shooting starting in barely over two weeks, casting news should start accelerating now.

Deadline: ‘The X-Files’: Mitch Pileggi Set To Return For Season 11 Of Fox Series

Jul 20, 2017 12:00

s11: Duchovny explains he’d rather give fans more Mulder than spend time behind the camera on writing and directing. That’s considerate! He seems interested though, maybe by season 12 he will have fleshed out an idea.

EW: David Duchovny explains why he won’t be writing for The X-Files season 11

Jul 23, 2017 3:14

The X-Files: Stolen Lives” will be the sequel to the audio drama “Cold Cases”, out Oct-03! Covers the rest of Joe Harris’ Season 10 comics, including the stand-alone Chitter and a return of Frank Black!

Audible.com: The X-Files: Stolen Lives

Jul 26, 2017 12:51

Duchovny on “Cold Cases” and the upcoming season 11. “Chris seems to be happy with the arch or the central idea they’ve chosen for this season to play around in.”: so there *is* a central idea? Truth and lies? The season 10 retcon of the mythology was a “fake news” coverup?

IGN: Comic-Con 2017: David Duchovny on Exploring The X-Files in a Different Form in the New Audio Drama

Jul 28, 2017 13:17

A “Cold Cases” review.

“It is unclear as to why Audible and/or Dirk Maggs, in seeking to create some X-Files audio adventures, selected The X-Files: Season 10 as the source material rather than doing original material in the Revival continuity.”
“The script itself was approved by Chris Carter who led a new run of X-Files TV episodes that dismiss and ignore the Cold Cases content entirely and Maggs has made no revisions to the audio version to sync with the TV show it claims to lead into.” “Cold Cases is (eventually) convincing as an X-Files audio drama and Maggs proves correct in his assertion: at no point was I troubled by the Revival being at odds with Cold Cases. Joe Harris’ strong storytelling skills remain superb in this new format and the events and action are engaging and exciting.”

https://ireactions.tumblr.com/post/163420193881/audioplay-review-the-x-files-cold-cases

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Jun
30
2017

Social media archive: 2017 (part 3)

Archived from the Eat The Corn Facebook page.

May 03, 2017 18:46

A great interview with comics writer @[506008038:2048:Joe Harris]! Big news: current comics run to end unexpectedly in August with #17! (because of decreasing sales? pause before re-relaunch with season 11? change of writer?) + confirmation that the “Cold Cases” audio drama will be his whole S10 comics, incompatible with the revival TV canon.

https://www.facebook.com/xfilespod/posts/1370982509637408

http://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/id/5315032

May 05, 2017 11:00

Gillian Anderson approaches more X-Files hoping closure (again!):

“I actually don’t know, we know absolutely nothing, we have been working on the deal for many months and it’s really us taking an opportunity to maybe bring closure. I didn’t really feel like the end of the last season was a place for us to finish definitely. There was a lot of consideration about whether there really was an audience for it, whether it was something that we could improve on and how if we were moving forward, could make them even better. In the end, we agreed that we would like to have one more go at it. We know that the fans are still there. The surprising thing was that there are new fans. There’s a whole other generation of fans who discovered it through Netflix and I think to be met still by 13 years olds who are talking about how they have seen all the episodes or they just start watching a year ago and they obsess and they can’t wait for the new season. The show has a longevity beyond what we had ever imagined.”

Emanuel Levy: American Gods (Starz TV Series): Interview with Star Gillian Anderson

May 10, 2017 19:36

This is too good an opportunity to pass on! The optimistic version has Skinner finally getting a promotion!

May 14, 2017 18:08

X-Files comics to end their run soon (?) + review of the latest issues

XF comics update: Comics to end soon? + #10-13 review

 

May 15, 2017 16:41

The X-Files “next installment”/”NEW CHAPTER OF EVENT SERIES” (note: nothing “final” here) to premiere mid-season, i.e. around January 2018 — 2 years after the first revival event.

SpoilerTV: FOX Announces 2017-18 Primetime Schedule

May 15, 2017 22:58

Happy birthday, Rob Bowman! Hope you’re available soonish!

May 17, 2017 23:06

@[1125066530909911:274:The X-Files\: The Video Game Project] – a stunningly looking point-and-click game in the true spirit of the show, now in the making!

https://www.facebook.com/thexfiles.videogame/photos/a.1236884893061407/1347709865312242/

May 26, 2017 17:55

Under development: drama based on Project Blue Book, Dr. Hynek’s (real) 1950s USAF investigation into the UFO phenomenon. Very X-Files- and Dark Skies-like!

Deadline: Robert Zemeckis-Produced UFO Drama ‘Blue Book’ Gets Series Order By History

May 31, 2017 14:06

XF in the age of Trump. Joe Harris interview: “I’m a little bummed because I’d like to keep doing it, but I’ve got very few complaints. I don’t know what’s coming next, so I’m just trying to find some kind of resolution here.”
Comics to end with #17 — 25 issues were originally planned but it was cut short like with “Season 11”, no explanation why nor hints at what happens next. Confirmation that unused material from “Season 11” is re-used in this comics run. He approached the last arc as a series finale.

I don’t know what’s going on at IDW! 25 issues would have brought the series to an end in April 2018, more or less concurrently with the live season 11 so there wouldn’t be much of a conflict. Harris wanted to leave fast? Dropping sales? Behind the scenes disputes?…

ComicBook.com: As He Leaves, Joe Harris Offers A Vision For The X-Files In the Age of Trump

May 31, 2017 22:59

S11 news! Glen Morgan to write 2 episodes, Darin Morgan to write one! Great, great news!

Den of Geek: X-Files Season 11: Glen and Darin Morgan To Pen New Episodes

Jun 01, 2017 13:08

X-Files S11 shooting in Vancouver Aug-08 to Dec-21! 4 1/2 months, that’s very tight for 10 episodes! (compared to 3 months for 6 episodes last time) But that means we might get that rainy Vancouver atmosphere this time around in the later episodes.

Hollywood North Buzz: START: THE X-FILES Season 11

Jun 01, 2017 15:23

For anyone that was still wondering: the X-Files “Cold Cases” audio drama directly adapts Harris’s comics without any changes and is thus incompatible with the live series canon. Harris: “There are incompatible turns of character and plot, and the simple answer is, it really doesn’t. They really just straight adapted my comics in ways that, if you’re looking for it to perfectly line up as canon, you’re going to be disappointed I would say, but it needs to be thought of that way.”

ComicBook.com: The X-Files: Season 10 Writer Joe Harris Talks the Audible Series

Jun 02, 2017 18:30

More good news: James Wong to write & direct 2 episodes of XF season 11! That brings the total of known episodes to 6. Carter could write all 4 remaining for all we know (2-3 mythology + 1 stand-alone).

Den of Geek: X-Files Exclusive: James Wong Confirmed To Write, Details On Season 11 Plot

Jun 07, 2017 18:02

Welcome to member #500!!! Somebody among [redacted] [redacted] [redacted] [redacted]… Thank you for your trust and keep following this space for more things X-Files!

https://giphy.com/gifs/the-x-files-l41lFEkHkpNYFizOo

Jun 13, 2017 16:07

“Only 6 more months to season 11!”: Premiere in January 2018?

https://twitter.com/Annealiz1/status/873478345077522432

 

Jun 27, 2017 19:48

Season 11 complete writers roster hint at no resolution taking place and Carter pulling things to a season 12. New writers: Brad Follmer (with 1013 since 2000), Gabe Rotter (with 1013 since 2000) and Benjamin Van Allen (with 1013 since 2013). All were present during season 10, all were assistants that have proved their worth to the showrunner and are ascending the ladder — it keeps with Carter choosing people he trusts intimately, and I’m interested to see their work, however it implies a similar mythology/stand-alone mix as any run-of-the-mill season.
So we have:
– 2 Glen Morgan
– 2 James Wong (including one semi/mythology, à la Founder’s Mutation)
– 1 Darin Morgan
– 1 Gabe Rotter & Brad Follmer (episode was to be produced in season 10)
– 1 Benjamin Van Allen
– up to 3 Chris Carter, season opening and ending (mythology) and one in the middle (I can’t imagine he would pass the opportunity to do a stand-alone)

TVLine: The X-Files Season 11 Writers Revealed: Who’s Back? Who’s Missing?

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