The following is an in-progress list that Fred, Jay, and I are composing about the X-Files. Eventually, this will be everything you’d need to know about running an X-files investigation if, say, you’re a team of rogue FBI agents that includes a female redhead doctor and a mentally-insane monotoned man with the nickname, “Spooky”.
Rule number 1: Never actually solve cases. Nobody will ever be really convicted and punished in an X-file. If they are, they’ll get out on parole, have a mistrial declared, or even just be killed on the electric chair only to come back in someone else’s body. If some actual form of legal, FBI-like justice about to be served, the sweeping hand of the supernatural will free them. At worst, ignorant judges and lawyers will free them because Mulder will quickly demonstrate that he’s insane and Scully will deny everything.
2. If there are loose ends to be tied, Scully should sit at a computer and type the missing details in the fashion of Doogie Howser, MD, complete with cheesy music:
3. Even though they are well-trained by the FBI and carry real guns, Mulder and Scully cannot hit the broad side of a barn, even from the inside of the barn with the doors closed and really big bullets. If there actually was an episode involving a mysterious barn that they had to kill, they’d probably accidentally shoot each other.
4. Whenever shit’s about to go down, it’s time for Mulder and Scully to split up. This makes perfect sense when you both suck at self-defense, can’t shoot a gun worth crap, and are up against supernatural things in the middle of a foggy, dark night.
5. When the camera sees your family or friends, they’re probably going to die soon. The Evil Syndicate guys hate family and friends and prefer them to die as a way to get to you, as opposed to actually, you know, attacking you.
6. You must only drive an Oldsmobile Cutlass, Ford Taurus, or the closest analogue that the car rental place can provide.
7. No matter how obscure and buried the article is, out of the thousands of newspaper articles published daily in the US, Mulder will be able to find the single one that has a previously-unsuspected supernatural element to it.
8. Mulder’s hunches are never, never ever false. No matter how insane they are. No matter how contrary to science. The only exception to this is when the actual truth is much, much more insane than his initial hunch. For example, instead of a mundane UFO on the bottom of the sea, there’s sentient black oil that can take over people’s bodies.
9. The known guest-actor is the bad guy, or at least the most supernatural person on the show. If it’s a mystery episode, the known guest-actor will be the killer.
10. If something actually happens to Scully that should remove all of her scientific skepticism, that knowledge will soon be forgotten as she gets knocked out, has her memory erased, otherwise somehow ends up hospitalized, or just plain forgets what happened in just the last episode. As a last resort, she’ll maintain that somebody else, such as The Syndicate, wanted her and Mulder to see and believe what they just saw.
More to come later I guess.
