Timelessness

First week of a new year is generally one of reminiscence and this one has been no different. Sometimes good things, sometimes not so good, but this one has been one of the better times. Two coincidences got me seriously thinking about some serious and not serious things. Well, serious for nerds and dorks, not so much for others. But I've never claimed to be more than a nerd so... Firstly, BBCA began showing The X Files. Secondly, Ovation TV did Firefly all week. Two shows that I loved and were critically, if not popularly acclaimed during their run. But watching the first few episodes of the X Files just made me shake my head. Everything seemed so dated and out of touch, so different from the groundbreaking show of the time. Yeah, it was the only American Sci Fi on TV at the time so that made it stand out. But everything just seemed so bad looking back. Fun, but bad. On the other hand, Firefly is just as new, fresh and mind shattering as watching it the first time. This got me thinking about what the difference was in the two shows. Why does one hold up while the other show its age?

The first thought was the setting. The X Files starts in the early 90's and is very much set in that time. No cell phones, big bulky computers, no laptops....the devices of moder life that are so hard to imagine life without. Firefly is set in the future, space travel, all kinds of flashy stuff imposed over the old west...just crazy stuff. But then I discarded that from watching Buffy. Extremely time set, just as corny as the X Files, but somehow it holds up much better. MASH is kinda the same. Set in Korea, the lack of things is just as foreign, but most episodes are just as hilarious now as they were when it originally aired. So setting isn't the difference.

Writing then? Yeah, every episode of Firefly is a masterclass in writing and it took the X Files a while to reach their stride. Could it be that just good writing makes the difference? That's probably 99% of it. Those early episodes of the X Files were just not creative and pretty blahly written. But they tapped into something that had been untapped for such a long time. There were other bad sci fi shows out there when the X Files started, but none tapped a moment in time better than the X Files. And that moment then passed.

I guess that's 90% of what was going through my mind. Yeah, still working on getting myself better with words. I had this whole big idea in my head about what makes something good and bad and everything in between. But it all boils down to some things are just good and some things aren't. lol Oh well, hopefully with practice the loquaciousness will return. Feedback is always welcome.