Today, we look at when (or if) you folks believe that The X-Files “jumped the shark.”
This is “Just Can’t Jump It,” a feature where we examine shows and whether they “jumped the shark.” Jumped the shark means that the show had a specific point in time where, in retrospect, you realize that show was going downhill from there. Not every show DOES jump the shark. Some shows just remain good all the way through. And some shows are terrible all the way through. What we’re looking for are moments where a show that you otherwise enjoyed hit a point where it took a noticeable nose dive after that time and if so, what moment was that?
Since I launched this feature, I had been doing just shows since Jon Hein sold off the original Jump the Shark website, but it occurred to me recently, “Why am I doing that? That website is long gone, so people CAN’T actually easily check older shows, so why are you limiting it to recent shows?” So, well, now I’m opening it up to all shows. Since that means we have a LOT more options, I’ll do more of them (figure two a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays). I’ll do two today to start.
I’ll alternate dramas and sitcoms, so our first drama will be The X-Files.
The X-Files was about a little-known division of the Federal Bureau of Investigation known as, well, you know, the X-Files. The two main agents throughout the nine-season run of the original series (plus two more revival seasons over a decade later) were Fox Mulder (David David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). Scully was famously the more skeptical of the pair, while Mulder was the “believer” (hence the tagline, “I Want to Believe”). Each episode they would investigate paranormal and unexplained phenomena, and the whole series had a bit of an overall myth arc to it, as well.
So first…DID IT JUMP THE SHARK? Yes, I think it is fair to say so.
WHEN DID IT JUMP THE SHARK I’ll go with my wife on this one, as she’s The X-Files expert in our family. She says that while it was getting worse before this point, it was when Duchovny left the series that the show really jumped the shark, even though his replacement, Robert Patrick’s John Doggett, wasn’t actually bad (he was now sort of the skeptic to Scully, who had been around long enough at this point to no longer be so skeptical), but the show’s myth arc was way overblown at this point, and it just wasn’t as good.
Let me know what you think in the comments or on social media!
Feel free to e-mail me at brian@popculturereferences.com for suggestions for shows for us to do in future installments!
The alien super-soldiers definitely jumped the shark though I don’t remember when they started showing up.
My vote would be The X-Files: Fight the Future. I think the huge alien conspiracy just ate up any suspense the show had. On the one hand, I understand that the show felt the need to provide some answers to the big questions, but on the other, I felt like a lot of the charm of the show was some of the random phenomena that Mulder and Scully faced, so when they had an actual “big bad,” the show became more about that and became less interesting.
Never. X-Files was always great, including the movies and revival seasons. Some episodes, some storylines were less good than others, but I actually really liked the role reversal with Doggett being the skeptic and Skully finally buying in (even though I definitely missed Mulder and Duchovny). I never didn’t enjoy the show even if I didn’t prefer the direction it went sometimes.
I think in the years after The X-Files we’ve seen shows reach a similar turning point like David Duchovny’s departure and pivot knowledgeably into new ground by acknowledging the show needs to grow and change to keep going. Chris Carter seemed unwilling to consider that here, so some of the early Doggett stories are focused on finding Mulder and bringing him back instead of writing a graceful exit for Duchovny. When the on-screen content constantly yearns for what the show can’t be, it’s trouble. (The Doggett non-mythology episodes are by and large excellent content and if the mythology had moved on from Mulder the show could’ve found a fresh audience.)