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I watched the pilot episode recently (no, I'd never seen X-files before, though I distinctly remember the theme tune, so ... *shrugs*).
And it was ... not bad, actually, but there was one thing that bugged me:
And it was ... not bad, actually, but there was one thing that bugged me:
See, I get the thing where Mulder is nuts but usually right, and Scully's there to ground him (and even from the pilot - is it just me, but does he actually want her there for exactly that purpose, even so early on?). But. Um. The pilot doesn't show that too well. Because it kind of makes him look like a crackpot even in the context of him being right.
The stopped watches thing bugged me, you see. Mostly because the conclusion he jumped to was 'localised timestop'. Which ... no. See, no. Even in the context of aliens, that should not be your first thought, since it doesn't actually fit the evidence.
The victim's watch stopped at 9:03. Mulder's watch didn't, even though his brain apparently did, or he couldn't have known about the missing time in the first place. That does not imply that time was locally stopped, so much as that Mulder's brain and/or consciousness was stopped for the eleven minutes of missing time. Since his watch was physically unaffected by whatever happened to him and Scully, but the victim's watch was stopped by what happened to her, I would have gone more for 'the aliens have something that blanks human consciousness and/or short-term memory acquisition within a certain range, with severe electromagnetic interference at point-blank range (hence stopped watches)'. NOT, 'the aliens have the technology to stop time'. Given the rest of the episode, there wasn't actually any evidence of stopped time at all. Right aliens, wrong method.
Seriously, as freaked out as Scully was, she really should have yelled at him some more for that one. There's a difference between calculating for aliens and other unexpected powers in your interpretation of events, and jumping automatically to the most outlandish conclusion available even in defiance of the evidence. I don't know if it's just this episode, but Mulder definitely leaned more towards the latter. Even if he'd been totally right, that's the sort of dodgy logic (or non-existant logic) that's going to get him into trouble. And Scully in trouble, for ignoring logic gaps that big, though she gets a pass here because it's her first time around with the weird shit, and she was sort of freaked out.
Um. And I'm twenty years too late noting this, I know, but someone who's watched the series: Is he always like that? I know pilot episodes can be funky sometimes, but does he usually actually ignore evidence and logic that much?
Because I think I liked the show, but I'm going to be getting twitchy with it if they keep failing to point out logic gaps that freaking big.
The stopped watches thing bugged me, you see. Mostly because the conclusion he jumped to was 'localised timestop'. Which ... no. See, no. Even in the context of aliens, that should not be your first thought, since it doesn't actually fit the evidence.
The victim's watch stopped at 9:03. Mulder's watch didn't, even though his brain apparently did, or he couldn't have known about the missing time in the first place. That does not imply that time was locally stopped, so much as that Mulder's brain and/or consciousness was stopped for the eleven minutes of missing time. Since his watch was physically unaffected by whatever happened to him and Scully, but the victim's watch was stopped by what happened to her, I would have gone more for 'the aliens have something that blanks human consciousness and/or short-term memory acquisition within a certain range, with severe electromagnetic interference at point-blank range (hence stopped watches)'. NOT, 'the aliens have the technology to stop time'. Given the rest of the episode, there wasn't actually any evidence of stopped time at all. Right aliens, wrong method.
Seriously, as freaked out as Scully was, she really should have yelled at him some more for that one. There's a difference between calculating for aliens and other unexpected powers in your interpretation of events, and jumping automatically to the most outlandish conclusion available even in defiance of the evidence. I don't know if it's just this episode, but Mulder definitely leaned more towards the latter. Even if he'd been totally right, that's the sort of dodgy logic (or non-existant logic) that's going to get him into trouble. And Scully in trouble, for ignoring logic gaps that big, though she gets a pass here because it's her first time around with the weird shit, and she was sort of freaked out.
Um. And I'm twenty years too late noting this, I know, but someone who's watched the series: Is he always like that? I know pilot episodes can be funky sometimes, but does he usually actually ignore evidence and logic that much?
Because I think I liked the show, but I'm going to be getting twitchy with it if they keep failing to point out logic gaps that freaking big.
