Transcription
Hello, Dennisens. I'm presenting another blast from the past green light or not episode. Most of us have heard of the Axe Files TV series. It lasted for 11 seasons, and while I had watched it on and off over the years, I had never seen the pilot episode. The challenge with uh doing Greenlight or not uh for older shows is that it's easy to be influenced by their success. I promise you my 10 questions are based on the empirical information a network executive needs to make a decision. They can convey to network suits. The intangibles of course are hard to measure. As I always say, your TV doesn't have a quality knob, but it does have a volume knob. Let's dive in.
Number one, easily understood and engaging premise. Chris Carter called it a combination of Colchack the Nightstalker and Watergate. The XFiles follows two FBI agents, Fox Moulder and Dana Scully, assigned to investigate unsolved cases involving the paranormal called X-Files. Moulder believes in aliens, government conspiracies, and supernatural phenomena. Scully, a medical doctor and skeptic, is assigned to scientifically debunk his work. Together, they uncover cases involving UFOs, monsters, strange diseases, psychic powers, and unexplained events. I I I don't think a premise could be much clearer or more engaging than that. It is what we call in the business a high concept uh concept. I'm giving this a 9 out of 10.
Next up is unique characters. Fox Moulder with his belief in the unexplained springs from the claimed alien abduction of his sister Samantha Moulder when when Moulder was 12. He wields a sardonic sense of humor. Scully is a woman in a man's world, dresses sharply and sees everything like a clinician. She's ambitious and not entirely thrilled to be asked to babysit uh Moulder in the X-Files. The relationship is certainly unique based on the pilot. I can't be sure that the senior FBI men who assign Scully the task of babysitting Moulder will be regulars. uh they're not set up to be regulars in the traditional weekly kind of way, which does concern me that our heroes might be spread a bit too thin. I I'm sure we will be seeing the smoking man again. Eight out of 10.
Number three is an engaging cast. The pilot does a great job of bringing Moulder and Scully together. The show is a two-hander. I I would say that David Dukovny is oddly good-looking, but but he has a rugged uh geeky disheveled quality that fits the role. His laconic droll delivery was perfect. Uh it would have made no sense to cast someone extremely dashing because the FBI wouldn't have then stuck them in the basement otherwise. Uh Jillian Anderson is radiant. Uh who doesn't love red heads? You you can tell she's a smart actress. They clicked. The two of them clicked right from the word go, which is a difficult trick to pull off. Eight out of 10.
Home base is next. While they're supposed to be working out of the Jay Edgar Hoover building in Washington DC, it's clear their home base is going to be rental cars and motel, at least based on the pilot, as as they, you know, jet around the country. The fresh weekly locations does give the show a bit of a novelty, but that doesn't count as a home base. So, strictly I got I got to give it five out of 10.
Number five is Great Stories Wellritten. This this is an extremely well-ritten pilot. Unsurprisingly, the episode revolves around an alleged alien abduction and mysterious deaths in the forest. What would we do without bright white light being shot through smoke hovering in the forest? My favorite part is the introduction and and how the show is set up. Lots of clever shorthand that lets us get right into the action without a ton of introductory exposition between Scully and Moulder. The pilot gives nons supernatural explanations for the events. Uses autopsies, medical findings, and red herrings to give scully grounds for skepticism. Avoids showing aliens directly, maintaining doubt. It intentionally avoids definitively proving aliens exist. We also get the sense that the smoking man knows more than he lets on. So, let's add government conspiracy to the mix. I found the story engrossing while um a little hard to follow at times, but it set the tone, the relationships, and the philosophy of the show. Eight out of 10.
Now, we get into production values. The pilot uh well looks cheap and uh and not without its rough edges, but I I think it's also part of its charm. Lots of location shooting and good walking and talking tracking shots. say I never felt like the show was lacking in pace even with all the exposition. Six out of 10.
The question about returning to equilibrium is a challenging one. Uh in this case, Scully is assigned to be the skeptic. The show has to strike a balance between questioning Moulder while admitting that she can't fully explain what she has experienced. Still, the show has to return to the believer skeptic equilibrium or you don't have a weekly show. The pilot did a good job of that by by using Scully's report to the FBI. She can only tell them what she saw, not what she believed. This is an excellent device. 8 out of 10.
Number eight is longevity. Uh, does it have legs? Here we envisage season five and can they really maintain the believer skeptic rules? I I it would have to evolve. I think you could take it on a case-byase basis where Moulder believes everything like he always does all the time. And in this case, Scully could be incredulous as needed in a more selective way. As a supernatural police procedural, I I can't see them running out of stories in year five, but I can envision it getting sillier. Eight out of 10.
Coming to the business bonafida end of the show, the creative team. Well, that's Chris Carter, the creator of XFiles. Well, I mean, he was an associate editor of Surfing Magazine. Where else can you get such such experience? But he was also writing screenplays while he was there. He worked at Disney as a screenwriter on television films and then he moved to 20th Century Fox where he was hired to develop new series. This led to the creation of the X-Files. Since this was 20th Century Fox, the production company pitching Fox the network, I'm sure there was enough confidence in Chris to produce the show. I mean, why would 20th Century Fox hire him to develop shows in the first place? So, I'll give this an 8 out of 10.
And finally, the last category. Did the pilot encourage me to watch the next episode? Absolutely, without question. 10 out of 10.
That gives us a total of 78 out of 100. That's a high passing grade in of itself. I'm a fan of this kind of show, but I could also see some Fox execs being extremely skeptical of it. Colchack and Watergate is not what you call your typical Hollywood comp that network executives could easily comprehend, but since in this scenario, I'm the network executive, I'm giving this a green light without hesitation. But I'm I'm sure you guessed that you Dennisens out there have lots of fond memories of XFiles and I'm sure I will hear from you in the meantime. Be seeing you. [Music]