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Take Two: THE X-FILES Season 6 (Part 2)

August 24, 2023 by  

THE X-FILES Season 6 (Part 2)

(Credit: Fox)

On Friday, September 10, 1993, Fox debuted THE X-FILES. Now, ahead of the show’s 30th anniversary, Give Me My Remote is looking back at all 11 seasons (and the two feature films) in a new daily series Take Two.

If you’ve read About Last Night, this will be formatted in a similar way: Each episode will get its own subsection/reaction, though in this case there may be slight spoilers or alluding to what comes ahead in the series. In the event a major spoiler is discussed, there will be a warning to be extra safe. Each Take Two will cover approximately 5 episodes and will wrap up the Friday before the show’s 30th birthday.

(I’ll also note how I’m watching the episodes, because some of the streaming platforms have utilized syndicated cuts of this show.)

Today, we’re continuing season 6!

(These were viewed on the original season 6 DVD set—released back in 2002. The episodes are also streaming for free on Freevee or with a Hulu subscription.)



“Dreamland II”:

This episode is just fun. With Scully finally acknowledging the elephant in the room—after tricking Morris-Mulder into thinking she believed/would be seduced by him—the episode got to crank it up to 11 and have even more fun (and also get more emotional) about the body swapping. Morris got to re-appreciate his wife, who thought her husband was preoccupied with, uh, special tramp Dana Scully. (To be fair to her, both Mulder and Morris were preoccupied with Scully.)

It’s also fun to think that maybe being a Man in Black isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. (Paperwork!)

Of course, we also have Mulder and Scully’s absolute hatred of Morris, while he’s just thrilled for the fun ride. I know I said this already, but it’s fun.

The thing is, I love season 6. I also watched it at a young age, and it does feel so tonally different than anything before it, for better and for worse. I remember some fans being unhappy with the lightness of the show, and I get it. But the show was also so flexible in what it could be, so it never really bothered me.

  • I know Mulder didn’t need to seduce Scully, but it is ridiculous two men in Mulder’s body did as much during the show and we were robbed of seeing the real thing. Sigh.
  • Also, Morris’ makeover of Mulder’s bedroom remains absolutely ridiculous.
  • “Baby me and you’ll be peeing through a catheter.”
  • The episode really was beautifully directed. I kept thinking about the camerawork they had to be doing to pull off the mirror shots and it breaks my brain, in the best way. 
  •  “I’d kiss you if you weren’t so damn ugly.” Okay, I know they forgot what happened right after, but Scully…come on. #JustDoIt
  • .“If I shoot him is that murder or suicide?” “Neither if I do it first.” – Even plotting a death together sounds like flirting.

“How the Ghosts Stole Christmas”:

This may be the episode of the show I’ve seen the most—at bare minimum, I rewatch it once a year—and it still makes me laugh out loud every time.

Before we get into the fun, I’ll say, yes, I love Mulder, but it’s inherently awful he did this to Scully on Christmas Eve. Does it make sense she’d be doing her shopping that night and not with her family yet? No. But Christmas means something to her, and to drag her out on a wild goose chase on that night is cruel.

(Do I wish the show had alluded to its history and Mulder made a comment about wanting to distract her, since it would have been a year since she realized Emily was her daughter/the girl’s untimely death? Sure. That would have changed his motivations entirely. But…instead, Mulder wanted to ghost-bust.)

They do accidentally repeat history as once again Mulder is tricked into thinking Scully was shot. (Hello to “Kitsunegari.” Entirely different motives there.)

It’s not a surprise the episode works as well as it does, when it’s confined to a small location and Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin are your guest stars. They’re magical together…and then you add in Mulder and Scully. The foursome is absolutely engaging to watch, in whatever combination they wind up in. And for as jaded as Mulder can be, his delight at Lyda using her ghost magic to pop books off the shelf is so pure and childlike.

It’s good that Mulder and Scully didn’t fall for their tricks, and of course Scully tries to rationalize it all away, but, hey, they visited a haunted house!

  • “All right I’m afraid, but it’s an irrational fear.”
  • “Mulder, she’s wearing my outfit.” “How embarrassing.” “Yeah, well, you know what? He’s wearing yours.”
  • “I don’t show my hole to just anyone.” “Why are you showing it to me?”
  • Mulder’s sigh at, “We’re not lovers.” Buddy, we know. We’re with you.
  • I may be in the minority with this, but I’m absolutely fine not knowing what gifts they gave each other. I’m sure it was weird and perfectly them.




“Terms of Endearment”:

I thought multiple times during this episode about how it might be changed in a post-Roe world. At the very least, it would be more controversial, I assume.

I really enjoy this episode, and not just because it introduced Young!Marisa to Bruce Campbell and Garbage’s “Only Happy When It Rains.” (Still an incredible song.) There’s a dark, heartbreaking throughline in the episode, as Wayne just wanted to be a normal dad and not pass his darkness down to his kids. Did he go about it the wrong way? Uh, yeah. Don’t kill your demon babies. And then the twist on the twist—Betsy is a demon and was killing her normal babies; she kept the demon baby she and Wayne produced—is delightfully messed up.

  • I do wish we had seen what Spender was doing while working on the X-Files. Was he turning down every case, shredding them like this? (How the hell was Mulder getting those shredded pieces back together?) Or did he really try to investigate anything?
  • I know it’s practically a trope, but Mulder sure jumped to WAYNE IS THE DEVIL!!!! with basically no evidence to support it. (It was, however, very funny he drew devil horns on a photo of him.)

“The Rain King”:

This episode is ridiculous. I love it.

It’s not the strongest case. It’s not the strongest anything, honestly. But love made a man so crazy he could control the weather, and it’s the closest thing we’re going to get on this show to a love story.

Also, we got to see Mulder, the man who notoriously does not date, attempt to give love advice. And everyone called out Mulder and Scully on their relationship. Of course it’s an episode I’ll willingly rewatch whenever.

  • Okay, this is on Fox, but HOW did this not air on Valentine’s Day?? XF had a 2/14 airing this year! (“One Son”…which, uh…not a romance story)
  • LOL to the flying cow. (Poor cow.)
  • “I do not GAZE at Scully.” Honestly, he’s lucky lightning didn’t strike him.
  • Sheila freaking out Daryl might hurt Mulder’s face…says so much about her “love” for Mulder.
  • Again, that bathroom speech is something I could spend 5000 words dissecting, but I will simply say it’s lovely to have Scully actually acknowledging her feelings, because so much of the verbal element of the Mulder/Scully relationship really has been one-sided. We’ve seen him give big speeches and joke-y half-proposals and declarations of love. She loves him, certainly, but she shows it in quiet, protective ways. (Relatedly, I’m dying to know when the switch flipped for her with Mulder and he went from friend to the only person she could imagine herself with.)




“S.R. 819”:

Skinner, in theory, is a character you can do a death fake-out within the teaser because he’s important enough for us to care, but also expendable—in theory—so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility they’d kill him off.

The problem with the episode, though, is that so much of it feels like an afterthought. Maybe you’re a normal level of fan and aren’t thinking of them constantly reusing the FIGHT THE FUTURE score in this hour, but it feels symbolic of the bigger problems. Does the music fit? Not really. Similarly, does the episode really fit into anything? Not really. Mulder and Scully aren’t working with Skinner, but there are a million ways he could have been worked into an episode. This felt like they needed/wanted to focus on Skinner (which, look, very deserved for Mitch Pileggi) and work Krychek in, and were like, “Maybe he almost dies?”

It’s not a bad episode. And it’s fun to see Senator Matheson again. It just feels like an afterthought.

What did you think of these THE X-FILES episodes?

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