X-files reboot?

So far I am confused.

 

Anyone else's HD feed of the episode look like garbage?

 

Chris Carter seems to be flailing.

 

Yes, and the volume was really low compared to the commercials. They would come on almost knock you out of the chair.

 

Haven't watched X-Files for years, and wasn't sure what was going on tonight. Some of the characters were totally new to me. And I had totally lost track of such personages as Mulder and Scully's child...

But I liked the opening setting with such contemporary references to post-truth culture.

The episode must have been very short, judging by the outrageous number of commercials

 

Mulder turns to Scully and asks "What year is this?"; Scully screams; fade to black.

 

I thought the climax of the PTS with the

Spoiler

faked moon landing

was meant to show we've been in a post-truth state for quite some time now.

Plus the unnecessarily long car chase.

P.S. you can't follow a car from D.C. to Spartanburg (478 miles) nonstop. And I-85 doesn't look like that from the NC border to Spartanburg.

 

Indeed!

 

Damn near rave reviews out there for the new season:

"The 26-year-old science fiction series returns to television Jan. 3 with a far more satisfying season than its last effort in 2016... It’s not just the vivid backdrop that makes this season of “The X-Files” work, though. The episodes released for critics are just better episodes than the first time around — episodes that continue to stage adventures in an inexplicable world, some standalone, some not."
TV Review: ‘The X-Files,’ Season 11

"Like the country club that still turns out a good porterhouse, “The X-Files” still produces excellent stand-alone TV episodes — tremendously entertaining hours with the show’s familiar blend of spookiness, self-deprecating humor and cleverly conceptual in-jokes that only the initiated can really appreciate."
Review: ‘The X-Files’ in a Familiar Groove

"This new batch of episodes is considerably stronger. Even the ones that don’t really do much but spin their wheels do so with feeling, and when the show is great — as it is, yet again, in Darin Morgan’s episode — it’s downright sublime."
http://www.vulture.com/2018/01/the-x-files-season-11-review.html

 

No problems on DirecTV.

I've always felt this is a network problem and not a show problem. They don't keep a close enough eye (or ear) on the level of commercial audio, despite the FCC's "CALM" act. There used to be actual human engineers at the networks who would listen out for problems like this and manually solve them, just turning down the commercial level when necessary. My big issue is generally with the promos, which are louder than the programs and the commercials. But the CALM act does not specifically include promos.

 

I enjoyed it. My wife bailed out on the series during the last season. She just wasn't interested after 2 episodes. Which was odd, we watched X-Files back in our college days when we were dating. But I enjoyed it last night and looking forward to more. Yes, it did seem a little short, lots of commercials. I was 30 min behind so I don't know about the volume as I had it on the DVR.

Spoiler: Question - Spoiler about a character or two

I don't seem to remember how Reyes hooked up with the CSM. Did it happen last season? Apparently I forgot. I would also like to see Doggett returns, I always liked his character.

 

Spoiler

last season he offered her the cure in return for her service, ala Skinner

41 minutes without commercials; that seems pretty standard for network TV if I'm not mistaken. The episode actually worked pretty well in my opinion and was better than any of the mytharc episodes last season.

 

Also standard, and kind of annoying, is how they space them out. You get a solid 15-20 minutes of show before that first break. Then maybe ten minutes. After that, they come more frequently, so it gets progressively more annoying as the show wears on.

 

Dear God, that is utterly absurd; years ago, it used to be 51 minutes, then it incrementally went down to about 43 until recently... now it's 41???

In ten years, it'll be a half-hour show with another half-hour of ads...

 

Yeah that was what I always said when I used to watch 24 on Fox. This just reminds me how much better premium TV is than network TV these days.

 

I also got the show on DirecTV and it not only had a much lower volume level (I had to really increase the level to hear the dialogue), but the show also looked pretty poor for a HD broadcast. I would attribute this to the local Fox station which DirecTV carries in this area.

 

The sound level was so low it was nearly unbearable.
I had to have it almost 10 decibels louder than all my other normal channels. And then Mute every time commercials came on!

 

Can't confirm, but it sure seemed a heavier dose of commercials than most of the few programs I watch. Plus that car chase!

 

Yeah, the advertisers must think we are just like frogs, being boiled !

 

Exactly what I was forced to do.

 

Which was basically an extended Ford commerical

 

I liked the car chase!

I wish they would just hold onto the tail of the mythos and go for a long ride. I dislike the monster of the week stuff these days and just want the big paranoid mess that is the mythological arc. So I liked this one but am prepared to be disappointed. . . .

 

• 
  I always thought the freak of the week show were so much better than the dull mythology shows, which were obtuse and frustrating. The only good mythology episodes were the black oil ones. The later ones with Scullys cancer were just tedious and none could compare to the best stand alone episodes.
  

 

Well, we're allowed to be different. I used to like some of the monster of the week but last year's were weak and the mythos episodes the best, and this year I just don't want to see the monster of the week . . . . Obtuse and frustrating. . . well maybe but that's better than what the monster of the week became. . . and I like my X-Files confusing. . . makes it more realistic.