re: X-Files > Fringe

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There was zero closure in the x files. Carter never really wrote beyond individual seasons and had no plans to end it.

However, 75% of x files is individual episodes. I' never watched the x files for the alien arch. If you get through it on DVD then I understand your disappointment, but week to week there wasn't a better show on television for 4 years. Plus they had to write around duchovny leavin the show and that made the overall story get even crazier and didn't allow time for then to properly close out the Samantha mystery.

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Just because it was on TV during a fairly slow time in TV history doesn't automatically promote the show either.

X-Files was a good show, it's actually the reason I love sci fi to this day.. it also taught me to get pissed at storytelling that didn't conclude or make sense.

The x-files is also a product of it's own undoing, because it was on American TV, it probably went 3-4 more seasons than it should have, kinda like how LOST went a few to many seasons as well, if it sells - they sell it, even if they run out of material.

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I would like to point out that closure is a big deal to me.. if you can't finish your story correctly, then you automatically lose a bunch of points in my book.

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The alien story was one story among hundreds. I never watched it just to find out about samantha and the alien conspiracy. X files isn't like lost or other shows. While you're invested in the alien conspiracy being uncovered (and it is during the movie) it's not central to enjoying the show

The only thing not resolved was Samantha. The alien conspiracy is fully uncovered in the movie and anything after that was carter tacking on new elements. The overall story should have taken a drastically different direction but carter just beat it to death.

And frick him for making scully a believer only after fox leaves and then making her a skeptic all over again in the new movie

/rant

I need 20 pages to fully explain the greatness and the shortcomings of the x files

The last episode of the x files should have been

1. Samantha mystery explained. Mulder gets real closure. Not that weird spirit crap they did earlier.

1a. (Optional) Mulder learns the date of the alien invasion

2. Scully gives a monologue while typing on her computer where she recollects how much she has seen and how much she has changed, and the last line should be her saying/typing "the truth is out there"

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It also was more government conpiracy than scifi



Other way around.

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In my mind the X-Files ended after the first movie. Especially early on the question natural vs. supernatural or terrestrial vs. extra terrestrial was often left up to the viewers imagination.

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The finale was awful.

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Definitely not the case with Fringe.

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The finale was awful. The only aspect I liked of it was that mulder uncovers the date.

But he is left in a fricking cave cowering. Could've closed with him finding out (while having a entirely different episode that was aired ) the date and we last see he and scully, now a believer, resolved to "fight the future"

See that's closure and not wrapping it up in a bow. How bad would it suck to see a mulder who no longer has purpose? What is he going to do now? That sucks.

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take some time and go finish up Fringe, it's really well done, you wont be disappointed.

Fringe did something I have wanted every American TV show to do since I started watching TV in the 90s.. they started the show with the ending already written.

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Basically, most endings were better than the one we got

frick seasons 7-9

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You are under-appreciating what this means to some people.. I can vouch for myself, if you screw up a story in the end, you have severely skewed how I feel about said story even before the screw up. Then again I see a story as a complete arc as well.. so there IS that.

ETA: I even see sitcoms that don't relate to each other as a story element as a whole.. If tomorrow Community were to suck, and keep going for 2-3 years, it would ruin the way I view community from that day on. It's a complete body of work

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But really the story ended in the movie

We learn the details and scope of the conspiracy. Then they just added shite on after that. There should've been a fundamental shift b/w seasons 5&6 regarding the secret government and the alien conspiracy. So really it d

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Bolded is why I view Fringe in a higher regard..
Fringe did this, they are actually one of the first shows I have ever watched that did this, in season 5, they couldn't be what they had been in season 1-4, so they "changed" completely, in order to finish the story.. and in the end we got some incredible story telling.

X-files could never do it, and they didn't.. so that puts them in a slightly lower tier in my head.

Fringe didnt lose its star. X files did. And it was kind of sprung on them