the character work in the X-Files pilot is exquisite. the first time I watched this episode, when Scully grips her arm rests on the plane and Mulder just rolls over to look at her while he lounges across a whole row like it’s nothing, I was like OH it’s like that? in that moment I got them both. the X-Files overall is great at making Mulder and Scully full people by giving them traits that are just part of them, and they’re almost never remarked upon or central to the plot, they just are. and that’s the whole pilot. Mulder reads his future partner’s senior thesis to get a sense of her. he makes every space his own but can never get comfortable. he takes runs but would like a running partner. he never seems to sleep. he’s wild eyed, but he still wants to back up all of his ideas with proof. Scully admits when she’s scared. she’s curious and she works late and she laughs when she encounters something she doesn’t understand. but she has Mulder figured out immediately, and she calls him on it. (“better than you expected, or better than you hoped?” like hello!!! that’s PERCEPTIVE, babe.) and it is remarkable that Dana Scully, skeptical scientist doctor, wears a cross necklace and it’s never commented on. no dialogue about what a mystery she is because she has religious faith but doesn’t believe in aliens. Scully’s just Scully. she isn’t someone to be solved. (neither one of them is treated as a puzzle to be solved; because they just get each other right away, and because the show gets them right away, the x-files doesn’t waste time making us ask who these people are. the question is always “what will they find out there?” they are the constant, not the variable, which is why they’re the heart of the show.) they’re going toe to toe the whole time, but every challenge they throw at each other only makes them like each other more. the pilot just gets immediately that these two people recognize integrity in each other. honestly Chris Carter made a faustian bargain to write eight good episodes of television and the X-Files pilot is one of them
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