The File Room

Mulder is still trapped in another man's body and The X-Files continues to find fun ways to mess with him. Michaela and Ed round out this very entertaining two-parter, and also find time to talk about their recent trip to London, DIY and waterbeds.

Michaela's living her best middle aged life, Ed shares his bag-flotsam triggered Proustian rush, and then we have some thoughts about this surprisingly divisive episode.

Mulder gets sent back in time to 1939 (or does he?!?) in a technically remarkable episode, which utilizes both long takes and split-screen to dazzling effect. Michaela and Ed delve into the many impressive visual elements of this episode, as well talk about how good the current series of Taskmaster has been.

Ed drives almost as much as Mulder in one of the most consequential episode of TV of all time... while Michaela floats with some Jelly fish, and fan-girls.

What a season, what a season. As The X-Files prepares to head to Hollywood - both literally and metaphorically - Michaela and Ed look back on the fifth season and talk about their favourite episodes and guest performances, and try to determine whether the demands of the movie ultimately hurt the season leading up to it.

Mulder's seeing a giant bug man in an episode that is surprisingly tense and paranoiac, even more so when you learn about the troubled production. Michaela and Ed discuss how The X-Files crew managed to turn disaster into victory in post-production, and also talk about the novel Klara and the Sun for arguably too long.

This week Michaela reveals a big life change ahead, AI tries to turn Ed's D&D campaign into a business memo, and we discuss 'The Pine Bluff Variant', an episode of The X-Files with more double-agent turns than the last series of The Traitors*.

*or what I'd assume. Paul only made me watch the last episode.

The X-Files abruptly remembers that Scully's daughter died and tries to examine her grief through the prism of a case involving angels, with mixed results. Michaela and Ed try to make sense of it all, while also discussing video stores and spoiling the hell out of the forgotten Robert Pattinson vehicle Remember Me and the novel My Year of Rest and Relaxation by Otessa Moshfegh, so consider this a spoiler warning.

A major milestone in the UK year has been met with celebrations, meanwhile Ed has joined the Flimsy Wrist Brigade... Is this episode of the X Files a blinder? Did we see too much? 

Like R.E.M., The X-Files is exhuming McCarthy this week in an episode that goes back to the 1950s, an era of paranoia and persecution, when absolute psychopaths ran the American government. Hard to imagine such a thing, right? Michaela and Ed also talk about Ed "Velma-ing" on a late night run.

Michaela is mildly annoyed by holiday admin, Ed is uncomfortable about discussing BDSM and Mulder and Scully complete their Freaky Friday plot line. 

The X-Files tries to grapple seriously with Mulder's loss of faith but he just comes off as really moody, and the show introduces a couple of characters who will be important for the mythology. Elsewhere, Michaela goes under the sea and Ed accidentally steals valor.

Michaela and Ed convene in CYBERSPACE to discuss the first episode of The X-Files written by acclaimed sci-fi authors William Gibson and Tom Maddox. They discuss the episode's place within Gibson's body of work, how its vision of A.I. looks now versus in 1998, and the many ways that The Matrix managed to make cyberpunk cool.

There's some prime mid-90s pop cultural ephemera in this episode, but what else? Michaela and Ed try to figure out if there's anything worthwhile in an X-File often cited as one of the worst, and if the very title of the episode itself is a typo.