X-Files: Conspiracy vs. Critter episodes
 

Which did you enjoy more? I always preferred the critter episodes because they had more character development and humor. My wife liked the conspiracy episodes better. What's your take?

I guess I would have to say "critter" espisodes, since, looking back at the show, my favorite episodes were "critter" episodes as opposed to the conspiracy ones. For a while there, they had a really good mix of the two to give the show a change-of-pace feel.

From what I recall, the final resolution to the conspiracy was so awful that, in retrospect, it taints all the conspiracy episodes a bit.

Yeah. The conspiracy fizzled out at the end. And the whole Mulder disappearing during the last seasons sucked too. They should have just wrapped things up a couple seasons earlier.

I also loved the critter episodes.

Some of my favorite were Ice, The Jersey Devil, and the Halloween one where they were in the haunted house.

I also liked the one with Jack Black and Giovanni Ribisi a lot.

Critter episodes. Back when they were in syndication, I would immediately turn it off if it was a "conspiracy" episode.

I stopped watching the show after the episode or two that was/were billed as the finale of the whole conspiracy arc. It was such a let down that I gave up. I think that was either just before Mulder left or when he I left.

I never watched any episdoes that had the T-1000 instead of Mulder.

I loved the one where Mulder and Scully posed as a married couple in a neighborhood with an odd HOA.

I was just thinking of that one. The head of the HOA is some monster and wants to kill Mulder for putting a pink flamingo in the yard.

or something like that.

That one was hilarious.

I really liked Quagmire, the one with Big Blue. Lotta humor in that episode.

The one where they ended up on Cops was pretty funny too.

My memory of the show is really fuzzy... But my favorite is still probably the one with Jesse The Body Ventura and Alex Tribec as the Men In Black with Lord Kimboat and all of that.

I also really liked the vamprie episode, the freak show one, the scariest episode ever with the that crazy, in-bred cannibal family, the one with the guy who could see how other people died, the two with the pusher, the one with the guy who could make himself look like other people was a classic, the Cheko Chicken one I liked.

There was also one where kids were getting killed at a highschool or something. I forget the particulars, but it was pretty funny.

In all these types of shows I always like the conspiracy more then the monster of the week.

I got out before it all went downhill, but I always preferred the conspiracy episodes. Cigarette Smoking Man was a classic villan.

The early conspiracy episodes were great, but once they got rid of Deep Throat, it started to go down hill.

The movies were both mostly crap too.

I think the problem with most shows that have broad backstories is that they rarely resolve in a satisfying manner. They are fun to speculate on along the way, but things get built up so much that it is hard to reach a satisfying conclusion that doesn't seem cheap.

No trout option for those of us who never watched the show.

Critter episodes were funnier and better. There were a few conspiracy episodes that were very good but overall I thought the fans really wanted the conspiracy as the show went along and the writers reacted to the fans and, ultimately, disappointed them because almost anything would have been disappointing after all the discussion about Mulder, his sister, the men in black, the cigarette smoking man, etc.

A lot of sci-fi shows have their "critter" and "conspiracy" episodes. With Stargate it was the "travel to a mysterious culture" one-off episodes, compared to the "global war" episodes, and with Star Trek: Next Generation it also had it's own "travel to a mysterious culture" episodes, and then it's "boring ass love story" episodes. Invariably I always prefer the one-off type episodes, where it doesn't really matter if you missed the last couple of episodes or not. That's why I like the original Star Trek so much.

From Outer Space and Dreamland. First one which I believe was written by someone on acid, second one was where mulder traded bodies with Michael McKeen. I loved the flat out bizarre ones. That fucked up one with the incest was cool as well, jaw dropping they had the balls to put it on TV.

I liked the early conspiracy ones when they were first on, but I go back and watch the funny wacked out ones now.

The conspiracy episodes got way too convoluted and ultimately boring. Critter episodes for me. The 2 that stick out are the Fluke-thing and the inbred family.

I kinda liked the conspiracy episodes... Doggett & Reyes were always great together.

Conspiracy for sure. I like shows with long story arcs that change the characters along the way.

Now there is a minority opinion!

Doggett was better than I was expecting. But the show and writing just seemed real dry without Scully and Mulder.

In my mind, the show is about Mulder. Removing him kills the show, because he drives the X-files. It annoyed me that they moved Scully into the Mulder role to keep it going.

I enjoyed both, but the conspiracy theory episodes did more for me overall. However, they did go a little overboard towards the end, and the first movie was not that good (never saw the second one).

Smoking man almost made me want to join the CIA or FBI.

Like I said, I stopped watching just before Mulder left. The only thing that annoyed me about the show, was that, outside of the conspiracy episodes, it too often seemed to lack continuity or any sense of history of what had gone on. Scully would be the skeptic going in, but no one would ever say, but what about the flying saucer we saw last month, or the guy who could fit through gates, or the guy who could read minds, etc. Too often it was as if they had never encountered anything really weird before each episode.