Back in 1997, when S and I started dating, I was not much of a sci-fi fan. Sure, I grew up loving Star Wars, but just the movies. I was not into the fan-fiction and continuations of the stories that a lot of Star Wars fans were into. My love of the trilogy sent me in the direction of loving Carrie Fisher and her books and her sense of humor. I couldn’t have been any less into sci-fi if I had tried.
Also, I was not so much into conspiracy theories, with the exception of the JFK assassination, but I think that was more about politics than dark, looming conspiracy. I did not spend my days thinking about the secret group of men who “really” ran the whole world or black helicopters or one world government. I thought more about how laws are made and the legislative process and back room deals and Tammany Hall. That seemed complicated enough…
But then I started dating S… She worked in a science themed store, watched X-Files religiously and had friends who believed in the Illuminati and such. During the whole “getting to know you” phase of the relationship, it was like she was speaking a foreign language or perhaps came from a different country with a whole different culture than I was used to. I had never spent time around someone who was into those kinds of things. Science, yes… But science like becoming a doctor or a pharmacist, not science like alien autopsies and life on other planets. It was a crazy time. And if she hadn’t been so damned cute, I don’t know that we really would have gotten past the first few dates.
As we were starting to spend more and more time together there were evenings when we hunkered down in my apartment to rent movies or watch television. That was an odd experience. When she picked the movies, they were those crazy Japanese animation movies or bizarre science fiction movies that were poorly written and poorly acted but “classics”. I don’t have a problem telling you that I was in Hell on the nights that she chose the movies. And I have no problem telling you that she was in Hell when I made her watch “Love Story” and “The Paper Chase“. But then she introduced me to The X-Files.
Yes, I was aware that there was a television show that was cultly popular, but I had never watched it and really didn’t know anything about it other than it was “weird”. But, Gillian Anderson was hot and sometimes that is all it takes for me to have interest in a television program. We would watch the current shows together on Sunday nights and in between, we would rent the videos of seasons past so that I could get caught up. At first, I agreed to watch X-Files because it pleased S so much and I was really into pleasing her and then there was the Scully hot factor and then I was introduced to the overall conspiracy of the show. A secretive syndicate of people who ran the government and pulled the strings of the FBI agents who threatened their power. Okay, I always thought the alien stuff was silly, but I tried to suspend my disbelief.
After a year or two of living together with X-Files posters on our apartment walls, we got less and less engaged in the show. The cast changed and I never really cared for the “weird” episodes as much as S did. And at some point I sucked S into The West Wing and that became “our” show. We did race out and see the X-Files movie when it hit the big screen and we bought the video when it came out. S watched it more than a dozen times, but we were never as obsessed with the show as we once had been. People change.
We’ve had the Sci-Fi channel for a couple of years now, but I rarely ever watch it. Sometimes, when S is in charge of the remote, she seeks it out. They run old X-Files episodes, which she still loves to watch. About a month ago the channel had a mini-marathon, running the last three episodes of the series, which neither of us had ever seen because they came after we had lost interest in the show. They turned out to be disappointing but at the end, there was a commercial for a new X-Files movie, which took us by surprise. So, for the past month of so we have had the opening weekend date for the X-Files movie on our calender.
We had no idea what the plot of the movie was about. The movie trailer didn’t give any real clues. We searched the internet but the plot was being kept under wraps although we read that the plot would be along the lines of the most beloved X-Files episodes. So, we went to see it on Tuesday and while it was a good and entertaining movie, it was more along the lines of S’s beloved episodes, not mine. See, no spoiler here. If you loved or even just liked the television show, go see the movie. But go to an early show for the cheap price. That’s all I’m saying by way of review. It was well worth $6.50. I don’t know that it was worth $8.50.
Oh yeah, and Gillian Anderson is even hotter now that she is older.
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