I've been a long-term fan of the show; my first episode was "Darkness Falls". I loved everything about that story: those swirling green bugs, the ecological arguments between the logger, the Forest Ranger, and the Earth-Firster stand-in, and the movie- quality look of the episode. I've always enjoyed science fiction, and for Fox (the same network that brought us "Married with Children" or "Beverly Hills 90210") to be airing this little show with a story of this high caliber, was a real treat.
But I was most astonished and delighted that, for once on television, we had an attempt to portray a true male-female partnership between two professionals. Mulder wasn't afraid to admit that he had made a mistake, that Scully was right, and it didn't diminish his manhood, whatever that means. (The only woman to actually go into a man's drawers with a metal implement and "diminish his manhood" was Lorena Bobbitt. Sorry, that just leapt out.) Anyway, Scully wasn't a simpering little female, but a true investigator (the scene where she reached into the nest to begin examining the desiccated logger for clues without squealing or hesitation just blew me away) who also wasn't afraid to admit she was frightened, and wasn't set up on a shelf by her partner (here, little woman, let us big men take care of the bad green bugs) afterwards. As a woman in science, most of my colleagues are men, and I've developed working relationships with some that are much like what we saw that first season between Mulder and Scully.
I tried to catch as many re-runs of the First Season as I could, and was delighted to discover that, minus a few clunkers, each episode was like this. We had a little horror / science fiction gem of a story. The two leads were portrayed as these deeply- committed professionals who treated each other as equals, and seemed to genuinely (after some initial suspicion on Mulder's part) like working together. In addition, we had a long-term arc of some lurking conspiracy, whose dimensions remained to be determined, and continuing revelations about the two agents' pasts and characters.
Now, I know that it wasn't CC's intention for us to focus on, or even notice Mulder and Scully much; they were supposed to be middle-men, our guides, as it were, to all things paranormal. But, regardless, by writing Scully as a professional who happened to be a woman, and the hard-headed, logical Skeptic of the two, he created a nearly unique female character, for television. Also, whether it was Duchovny's and Anderson's desire to have more interesting characters to play, I don't know, but their interactions were another of the reasons the Files were fun to watch.
Mulder's and Scully's working relationship developed into a complementary partnership, almost a prosecution and defense, a yin and a yang type of thing. I say almost, because we were dealing with a television show, after all, where the man has to be a little better than the woman, or Joe Sixpack will tune out altogether. (The Fourth Season had done entirely too much catering to Joe Sixpack, with the new, improved ActionMulder, for my taste, but that's another long post.) Also, since the X-Files was originally a show where the paranormal is sometimes real, Scully did get put down by Mulder, but nearly as often, in the First Season, she set him straight. It is, after all, a show created by a man, where most of the writers are men, so it was about as good as we could hope for in terms of the male-female equality, especially for Fox TV.
I had no access to the Usenet at this time, in fact, I'm not even sure it existed, as such, in 1994. I'd only used the Net as a convenient protocol to exchange information and data electronically with my colleagues at work. Those of you who have never had to hand-carry magnetic tapes from one institution to another, then spend weeks aligning tape drive heads and writing software to be able to read the data on them, really haven't lived.
I enjoyed the Second Season, even though I knew we would see less of Scully until after Gillian Anderson had her kid. The long-term arc with the closing of the X-Files, the separation, Scully's abduction and return was, I thought, superb; each episode (except for "Blood") was better than nearly anything else on television. I even liked "3", but then, I'm not a 'shipper; I just saw it as an interesting treatment and updating of the vampire myth.
I liked what they did with Mulder and Scully, showing them keeping their connections open, even though they had been separated. Once again, I've done the same thing with male colleagues I've enjoyed working with, but who are no longer at the same Lab I am: long talks on the phone, getting together for dinner when they're in town, many E-mails, Fed-Exing data and papers back and forth, often at our own expense. I never saw their relationship as a Romance, just as two people who liked working together, and who were more productive as a team than on their own, Mulder especially ("3" again).
The second part of the Second Season, I thought was less spectacular than the first, leading off with "Firewalker", a pale imitation of "Ice". Then, there was the increasing reliance on an absolute acceptance of the existence of the paranormal for the stories to work. I had enjoyed those First Season episodes like "Beyond the Sea" or "EBE" with the "is it or isn't it" tease, and the great story either way. We still had some of those in the Second Season, with "Irresistible" or "Humbug", but there were fewer of them. Once again, I saw the reduced use of Scully and her skepticism as a result of Gillian Anderson's recovery from her pregnancy. I assumed that once she was up to speed, we would return to those balanced stories I enjoyed so much.
Then, came "Anasazi", and in the Third Season, the rest of the Trilogy. I was just amazed by those three episodes. They had everything: a great, intricate storyline spanning decades, revelations about Mulder's past and Scully's abduction, the introduction of the Consortium (that I remembered from "EBE") even, almost, the whereabouts of Sam. We saw Mulder realize (in the boxcar in "Anasazi") that not everything to do with the Conspiracy was about little grey men in flying saucers. Mulder and Scully were spectacularly reunited, with promises that they were "bound together in dangerous purpose", pursuing the "Truths that aren't on that tape". I saw the hug that closed "Paperclip" as a sign of the increased respect and reliance the two agents felt for each other, having been bonded by the traumatic events each had just endured. I thought that with Gillian finally over having the kid, we would be treated to some really great episodes again, with Scully and her skepticism contributing equally to the storylines. I expected we would see more development of Mulder's character, now that he had a few of those answers he had been looking for. I also expected we would see a continual unfolding of the arc story as we had in the Second Season, delving further into Mulder's past and Scully's abduction.
Instead, we had a run of really dismal MOTW episodes ("Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "War of the Coprophages" excepted), where Scully was always wrong, Mulder was always right, and the paranormal had to exist for the stories to work at all. I still, to this day, don't understand what "Oubliette" was about, BTW, other than an opportunity for DD to polish his acting skills. The one exception to the "Scully is always wrong" rule, "Revelations", where Mulder was wrong because he disbelieved the paranormal, was a far weaker offering than "Beyond the Sea", both plot and character-wise. Stuck in the middle of all this was "Nisei"-"731", a near-repeat of the Trilogy, with the addition only of these women with cancer (What about Duane Barry? Why was he taken?).
I was increasingly discouraged by the Rift as it proceeded. We, the viewers, were shown no reason for the growing distance between the partners. Mulder and Scully had worked very well together in the past (the First Season), had gone out of their way to stay connected ("The Erlenmeyer Flask" through "One Breath"), and had enjoyed each other's company so much once reunited ("Firewalker" through "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose"). Now, they were avoiding each other at every opportunity, and howling at each other whenever they were together. Whatever happened to "bound together in dangerous purpose"? Why was Mulder ditching Scully constantly? Why were Mulder and Scully taking separate flights and different cars to investigate their cases? Why, in "Nisei", is Mulder totally uninterested in Scully's whereabouts, so much so that Skinner chews him out about it? Aren't partners supposed to keep tabs on each other? Why, in "Revelations", did Scully send her partner off to the airport with a passel of policemen, then go alone into a life-threatening situation? It's his JOB to back his partner up, especially if she's going into an encounter she believes might be putting herself in danger. After all, isn't that exactly what he's always expected of her? That whole horde of officers ought to have been able to nab Simon Gates without him.
The absolute rock-bottom for me, the last straw, was "Syzygy". Not only was this yet another story that required I accept unquestioningly the existence of the paranormal, but it was a paranormal that made no consistent sense whatsoever. Mulder and Scully were sniping away at each other, par for the course for their interactions at this point in the Third Season. Only, we were supposed to believe their minds and actions were being controlled by the evil planetary alignment, that this was somehow "out of character".
Now, I had discovered the alt.tv.x-files and alt.tv.x- files.creative groups while surfing the Web with my husband back in September 1995, and Vincent's (our first valiant archivist) Gossamer archive shortly thereafter. Back then, you could actually have some pretty intelligent threads on the ATXF group, not like the insanity that seems to rule there now. It was the post- "Revelations" discussions that first brought out Mulder's possible Jewish heritage, as an explanation for his behavior in that episode.
The first story on the Creative Group I read was Sheryl Martin's "Downtime II". I enjoyed it, so I began reading the backlog of stories in the archive, spending hours in the evening, just working my way through the author lists. I was delighted that we had such talented writers who knew Mulder and Scully so well. The story that stands out clearly in my mind as showing the potential of the fan-fiction was a little short entitled "Kaddish" by Jael Ellsworth. She placed Mulder and Scully in a synagogue, initially to conduct interviews for a case, but there's a service ongoing, so Mulder pins on a skull-cap and they participate in the worship. Mulder gently and graciously explains the Hebrew to Scully, they both do some thinking about the events of the Trilogy, and a point of disagreement is turned into something of a reunification.
Since we had such perceptive writers, I expected we would have some really wonderful case files. I started looking around for stories containing the elements of the X-Files I enjoyed: complex plots, an interesting monster, or a fun Conspiracy story, the development of Mulder's and Scully's pasts or characters, and a positive spin on their partnership.
I found some of that (I think more actual case files were being written back in the Fall of 1995 than there are now), but more and more, I found Romances (lots and lots of Romances), Angst and Muldertorture, or far too many Mulder or Scully dies things. Back then, unless the author made a notation up front, you had no idea what type of story you were reading until you were well into it. The summaries and ratings are two of the things I think are great improvements with the new distributed Gossamer, BTW. I've felt safe cutting back on the length of my introductions once we had the ratings/ spoilers/ summary system in place.
Now, the Romance, Angst, etc. are all just wonderful, if that's your cup of tea, and ought not to be removed from the Net by some group of meddling do-gooders. But a steady diet of the same wasn't, and isn't, mine. Further, with all these talented writers, I expected someone could come up with a reasonable explanation for the Rift that CC denied existed, and/or a way to close it forever. The only solution I kept reading, BTW, was that Mulder and Scully should, shall we say, take the Eros cure, regularly and often. I didn't think that was the problem, though. All I could see was that partnership-wise, here were two people who had lost their respect for each other's abilities, and needed something to convince them to work together again.
Thus, between the missed opportunity to develop Mulder's past, explore Scully's abduction, and a desire to close the Rift, I had the genesis of the idea for "Sins of the Fathers". So after some thinking, I started typing, and two frantic weeks of effort later, I had the first three parts of "Sins..." written. I had initially planned to stop after the explosion of the Palazzo De'Medici, but, I gave the story to my husband, who had also watched the show with me, to read. He got through the first two sections, grunted "Thugs who read." and handed it back to me. I was crushed. After tossing and turning, I came downstairs at 1:30 in the morning, and kept on writing, until I had the story that's on the Archives right now (not all in one night, though).
I worked out in my own mind, at that point, that what Mulder and Scully really needed to close the Rift and keep them working together as friends and colleagues was some hard evidence that they hung onto, without getting killed. It would shift the grounds of the debate between them from the personal, that neither seemed capable of dealing with very well, back to the professional. Mulder wouldn't be seem like such a kook, Scully would go back to respecting his ideas, and Mulder could see that Scully's analytical skepticism was good for something. But, it wasn't a Romance, it wasn't dripping with Angst, and nobody died in the end. Expecting nearly everyone's reaction to be more or less like my husband's, I decided, oh, heck, just put it up on the Net. If it's ignored or flamed, I'll go back to lurking, perhaps even unsubscribe altogether. Well, it wasn't. I'm still getting messages about that story, BTW.
So, with all the positive responses, I sat down and worked out the plot for "Xibalba". Having done a Conspiracy story, I wanted to try a MOTW, but one that, unlike "Syzygy", was actually grounded in a little history and scholarship. I'd read about the Maya, knew that there was all this new information out there, so started writing, and after another few weeks, had "Xibalba" ready to go. Once again, no Romance, no Angst, and nobody, not even Mrs. Mulder, died in the end. (That's not entirely true, I did ice the shaman, the CIA agent and the assassin from the Conspiracy.) "Xibalba" garnered two public accolades, one from Sheryl, another from Jennifer Lyon, with private admonishments to write more.
So I did. I decided on three Trilogies, one reuniting Fox and Caroline Mulder, one on Dana Scully and her family, and one, well, that's a surprise. All of them would be case files with interwoven character development, not just pure character studies. All of them would be based on some aspect of actual history, archaeology, mythology or science (for the science fiction), not this hokey Hollywood stuff. In all of them, we would see the respect and trust between Mulder and Scully that two professionals, working in dangerous situations, need to survive.
Anyway, that, in short, or more properly, in long, is what made me write my first story, and go on to finish it. "Thugs who read." The best motivation in the world, adversity, I suppose.