Fox Mulder, You're A Mook!

I think it's about time I disrobed my literary fists of their televisual gloves and say what must be said. I'm compelled by the ghosts of Alwyn Kurts and Lucky Grills (okay, perhaps they're not dead, but as Australian TV investigators - viz Homicide and Bluey - they beat the FBI hands down) to right a popular misconception, propagated by the Channel 10 bigwigs.

Yes, you guessed it...The X-Files is crap.

At this point I wish to point out that no, I'm not in the pay of SBS, the ABC or Channels 7 and 9. I've also never had any links with the shadowy military-industrial complex that supposedly runs the world (although I did have a fairly extensive collection of Airfix model airplanes when I was 12). And no, the editorial staff at Sofcom know nought re my true identity, gender or inside leg measurement, so they can't help you if you want to firebomb my residence.

So where do I get off telling you about my misgivings re the quality of The X-Files? How can I be right when so many people watch this hourly dose of drivel week-in, week-out? To paraphrase Scarlett O'Hara, frankly my dear, I couldn't give a babboon's backdoor.

My evidence is not as ridiculous as Fox's so-called cogent facts re alien/government conspiracies. Nor are they as ludicrous as the shots taken of Gillian Anderson wilst she was preggers, and Chris Carter had to devise a camera angle that hid that oh so obvious midriff bulge (and a plot line that could explain her absence). No...most of what I'm about to reveal can be related to your own experiences as well as my own, or patently obvious observations we can make about the 1990's that even Pauline Hanson could understand.

Tackling the big 'un first, is "the truth out there"? And if so, can two hunky agents from the FBI locate it? I don't think so. After all, how many people do you know that have been murdered/impregnated/cloned/invited onto spaceships by aliens? No one has come up to me and said 'Hey Andrew, guess what? I just got propositioned by that three headed reptilian acid-blooded insectoid being over by the Cafe Bar'. And why is it that Americans always seem to be the ones interacting with folk from outer space. Agents Mulder and Scully aren't the only Yanks who've seen how stupid Americans are when it comes to supposed aliens, vampires, the undead and the unknown. After all, how many of us remember Don Lane's fixation with Doris Stokes?

Another thing; where's the truth in two gorgeous federal agents linking up with some geeky computer nerds, some so-called Deep Throats and other societal cast-offs? Hey, I could be wrong, but isn't the US attorney currently trying to get Bill Gates to stop being the cyber-monopolist that he's striving for? How come Fox and Dana aren't beating down the door on Gates' Seattle mansion saying 'Okay Bill, we want all the viruses that aliens installed in Windows98 now...what's that...you put them there?'? The FBI has a greater history of having its boss wearing slinky cocktail dresses as opposed to smothering conspiracy.

Then there's the unrequited passion between agents Mulder and Scully. As I've pointed out in earlier columns, we the TV audience have been down this road before. At least in Moonlighting David (Bruce Willis) got Maddie (Cybill Shepard) up the duff, and they showed it on the series. Plus they had a Shakespeare episode and a black and white episode. I think it's about time to out Chris Carter and say proudly "Look at Moonlighting, look at The X-Files...I can't tell the difference".

My biggest gripe with The X-Files is that it portrays the government (i.e. the US) in some kind of grey cahoots with the military and big business. As far as I can see, no government, no army, no company is that efficient that it could even try to develop or hide any facts or conspiracy. For example, look at our very own Australian government. Can you imagine Alexander Downer or those jokes in the Dept of Foreign Affairs covering up an alien invasion from the Australian Federal Police. First up our cops wouldn't even get the funding for a Mac II, then the mandarins and politicians would probably say to the aliens 'Look, we'll give you East Timor if you go on A Current Affair and say that John Howard is a bold and vigorous leader'.

After all, how can anyone believe that 'the truth is out there' via The X-Files when the US government can't even hide the purported phallus length of Bill Clinton (as reported by Paula Jones). Mulder and Scully should be finding that 'the incompetency is out there' instead.

As for the army and such like, ever heard about the most notable oxymoron in the English language? It's called military intelligence.

In closing, The X-Files is one of my least-watched shows because it panders to a crappy vision of TV which has been recycled before, and anyone who can give any credence to this show probably also believes in those TV alien autopsies, The Tele Tubbies and that Peter Luck is a hard hitting journalist. Credulity, cynicism, and suspicion are the rallying cries of today's TV audience, and instead of imagination folk want to see tripe dressed up as entertainment.

But I do concede...Gillian Anderson looks far sexier than Roger Climpson.