Why'd they stopped making tv shows as good as x-files?

sighofannoyance@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 18 points –

The special efx haven't gotten more expensive, cameras haven't risen in price, writers don't seem to be demanding particular high prices, netflix takes anything that you can pitch without saying the word disney.

So what in the world happened? X-files was an amazing show and watching it you are not only entertained but you care about mulder and scully. The show is genuinely a great time. Why did they stop making them like this?

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I'm middle-aged, and Xfiles was great, but some of the best shows I've seen have been in the last decade

some of the best shows have been in the last decade

like what do you recommend?

For example, Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul are two series I could watch on repeat. Absolutely solid.

First few seasons of Orange is the New Black (really ran out of steam after that imo)

Now, sci-fi specifically ... it's been a while since I've seen a good one. Some people I know really, really like The Expanse, though for me it just didn't connect. Black Mirror is hit and miss, but when it hits, it's amazing (the stinker episodes are real stinkers though).

I mean ... Game of Thrones. Just not the finale lol

The Expanse

Funny, this is another one of those shows I hated after watching an episode.

maybe it's me. maybe I should move on to maybe comics or cartoons or something idk anymore

The expanse starts with very little background in my opinion, they barely give you enough info to figure out what is going on.

I'd recommend trying to stick out a few more episodes if you like sci fi, it gets really good.

I've also only watched a few episodes, but I hated every single character. Does that get better?

I don't have Netflix anymore, but there are some good cartoons on it. I can't recommend Kipo enough.

The Expanse spent the first three episodes setting things up; it got much better after that, although eventually it stopped being as good to me; kind of like Battlestar Galactica in the day.

Give The Expanse another try; it does truly get good before it gets derivative in later seasons.

A lot of people didn't like season 1 of the Expanse (I enjoyed it) and said it got much better after that. I will say the Amazon seasons aren't too great either as it looked and felt more like a low-budget soap opera.

Better Call Saul and Breaking Bad were both made by Vince Gilligan who worked on X-Files as well so they're a good choice assuming you're one of the few who haven't already seen them.

I tried Breaking Bad - hated it. I never gave Better Call Saul a chance as there is nothing that seemed promising about it. I guess I could watch an episode of Better Call Saul, I just don't see this being a good idea. Now I can't hate it because I never watched, it once I watch an entire episode, I have a hunch I won't remain so indifferent... :/

It might not be your thing, and that's okay.

Like I said, I'm surrounded by people who love The Expanse, yet it just isn't my thing.

yeah it's the worst when you hate something and society insists it's the best thing since sliced bread...

Ok then... can you explain (in detail prferably) what got you hooked oh X-Files, the things you live about the show?

I like it too, but saying Breaking Bad is a bad show, just... IDK... doesn't sit right with me. And I don't watch just any show, I've probably watched like 5 or 6 in my entire life (I'm 38 BTW).

edit2: I hate HATE HATE game of thrones with a passion, I gave it a shot twice! (2x) What's worse is the entirety of society gaslighting you into it not being an awful show.

Admit got is no-where near as good a time as x-files. I just watched a humanoid leech escaping through a system of sewers. I witnessed alien abductions. Intrigue within the fbi. Secret allies, even more secret conspirators and classified government units on even more classified government missions.

got is like a bad off brand xenia warrior princess....

got is like a bad off brand xenia warrior princess…

It has nothing in common with Xena other than being in the fantasy genre.

You may not like GOT, but that doesn't make it awful.

Things like good an awful are subjective, so yeah. Sometimes I feel like a lot of people insist something is good based on their own connection to the media, but nothing is really objectively good or bad.

People warned me against playing Final Fantasy 15, the critics trashed it, yet it's one of my favorite games in the franchise.

what's so great about final fantasy 15?

why in the world are there 15 games in that series???!??

There are 16 actually, and that's only including the mainline games.

Each game is standalone, but shares certain attributes. Think similar to the Legend of Zelda series.

For me, 15 was just a great escape. I often call it my "bro roadtrip simulator" because it's a lot of driving around an open world and getting to know the characters.

The last segment was rushed in development, and it shows, but for me it works because by the time I enter that segment, it's because I'm ready to be done.

I've played through it 3 times.

Did you just compare Final Fantasy and Zelda??

I'm sorry but i just can't stand the lack of imagination Zelda has gotten after Majora's Mask (which i absolutley love 🖤)

I didn't intend it to be a direct comparison. It's just that both are similar in that the games tend to be standalone experiences rather than sequential. They share certain characters, themes, and archetypes, but you can pick up any game and play it on its own.

In spite of my username, I actually haven't played LoZ since Wind Waker, though I did enjoy that one a lot

I get it, sorry if i was a bit rash.

But what really pisses me off about current Zelda is the incredible amount of missed oportunities it has.

Like, why can't we customize Link? (And if we can't, why don't they give him an actual dialog?)

Why can't we have mainstream titles with playable characters other than Link?

It's those kinds of things that prevents me from giving Skyward Sword and everything that came after a proper chance.

I love ALL Classic Zelda (yes, even Zelda 2 and the CD-i games for all the wrong reasons xD)

Not only the gameplay was fun, but you could see the developers really gave their best considering the limitations of their time.

Windwaker and Twilight Princess are... odd special cases.

The 2000s was a experimental era, and let's be honest, Nintendo shot themselves in the leg by limiting the Gamecube to 1.4GB size discs.

But once the Wii arrived there really was no reason to keep on the same "silent yet uncustomizable" main character trope.

I like videogames when they are fun, yes.

But showing a good, creative design is also a big part of the inmersion for me.

And that seems to be the last thing on the list for Modern Zelda.

People will say that Breath of the Wild had beautiful graphics and was wonderful design.

And to a point, they're right.

But when i see Windwaker, Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild side to side i can't avoid to think that they feel a bit... same-y.

I'm not saying i want a realistic Zelda, but again, i would either a customizable, path branching Zelda game, OR a Zelda game where Link has something other than button inputs on the script.

I'm in the middle of rewatching X-Files yet again. It's really hit and miss, even in the good seasons. I think people remember all the good episodes and forget about the bad and average ones.

You looking for a new X-Files type show? I can't think of any good ones but I don't really look for that type of show anymore either.

I'd have to agree. I'm working my way through it again and got stuck on season 5 because I'm not really interested in the whole convoluted "aliens abducted Scully and Mulder's sister but also maybe they weren't really aliens" plotline. The monster of the week episodes were the best. I didn't remember til this point how much I disliked this part of the show last time, and I'm really not looking forward to hearing "Agent John Doggett" 42 times per episode a couple more seasons from now.

Might be that it is hard to make good art.

And even the X Files got bad after about 5 seasons.

It's also not like good stuff has stopped being made. And back then there was also plenty of bad stuff. You just remember the good shows.

Because good is an entirely subjective measure. Ask a 5 year old what the best tv show is and you’ll get a different answer than if you asked a professional critic. There have been loads of shows since X-Files ended that are entertaining and have engaging characters. It’s okay to have a favorite.

Ask a 5 year old what the best tv show is and you’ll get a different answer

I get it everybody has different tastes, that doesn't mean cooking can be of various levels of quality. Just because you like tamales and i prefer borito doesn't mean there is good and bad attempts at both. However you would expect the frequency of well made boritos to be more or less constant over time. With the 5 year old at least you know whatever they'll say is genuinely the best show available to them for their age bracket. A lot of the critics' opinions just don't add up.

Do you actually like serialised content? Most TV is now serialised, as opposed to being episodic like X-Files.

I am not sure, I guess I'll find out soon enough ...from what you said it's the only show in town...

OP, have you watched:

  • Doctor Who
  • Black Mirror

I'll add another one, "Dark".

OMG, Dark! I pride myself on being the one that found and introduced this show to all my friends, who now all agree that it is the best time travel story ever told.

Now the question is, captions or dubs? Most people who watched it are hardline Captionists, but my wife hates reading dialogue so we watched with dubs. I think they did a great job with them.

Caption definetly.

There are very few pieces of media where the dub is equal if not better than the original language.

Network TV still does police and medical shows that have a 'monster/crime of the week' style, but it's rare now.

I’ll be honest, I’m not really sure what you’re getting at with the food analogy.

Your question is like asking ‘Why hasn’t there been another good band since Green Day?’ Some people don’t think they are a good band, some people like them but think other stuff is way better, ect. Again, because good is a subjective measure and (artistic) taste really isn’t quantifiable.

Episodic vs Serial.

Everything is a serial now. They're not bad, but you can't just pick any random episode and have a good time. I prefer episodic stuff for that very reason.

The idea is to have you itching for the next fix. More money that way, you don't cancel subscriptions, etc.

Sure... If they did 1 episode a week. But when they dump the entire season in one day, I can just watch the whole thing over a weekend and cancel my subscription until the next season.

Oh, wow... I'm really out of touch with how shows are "aired" nowadays.

Whelp, better go back to the cave, have no intention of getting back on that saddle.

It's mostly Netflix that dumps it all at once.

HBO, Apple TV and Prime still usually do staggered releases.

I find myself enjoying episodic shows more than serials like star trek TNG, Voyager, House MD, etc. I tend to get bored with non episodic shows because with episodic ones I can look forward to watching a new story every episode. Keeps me interested.

Have you seen Fringe? It's a tv show from about a decade ago, very similar vibe to the X-files.

If you don't like that and combined with all the other stuff in this thread, then I think you might just not like TV as a medium anymore.

Fringe ended weird though. I chalk it up to JJ Abrams getting bored (yet again) with his wildly successful project and letting it sputter to an end instead of letting it go out with a bang.

I watched Fringe when it came out and loved it but for whatever reason never saw the final season. Last year I finally went back and finished it. I will concede the ending was a bit rushed but also I'm grateful it did get an ending. A lot of great shows get axed and don't get to wrap up anything. So while not perfect, I'm going to say it was decent enough and does wrap everything up.

It's a great ride along the way too.

I'm going to interpret the question more as "why don't they make shows like "The X-Files" any more than on specific quality.

The 90's was the last hurrah of quality serialized television. You were seeing a lot of improvements in the quality of writing and willingness to push against norms and standards. You could still make a shallow serialized series and they still do today, but you could make a show back then with a lore tied together from callbacks.

So why did these kinds of shows stop? DVD sets and ubiquitous time-skipping technology meant that writers could shift from good serialized content to longer form and continuous stories. You started seeing shows filled with "previously on..." because it became the expectation that viewers watched all the episodes up to then. Streaming make it the default.

There has been a recent push to go back to a serialized model, but the economics of the industry has changed. Writers rooms able to churn out 26 shows a year have been whittled away. You also have some actors that don't want the work schedule that comes with it. You also had a time where a show that lasted a year found it easier stay on air to get to the 100 episode minimum to make syndication valuable; there isn't that profit motive any more.

Because they have started making better ones.

In TV there is a watershed moment. Before sopranos and after sopranos.

The shows that came before were specced to the particularities of broadcast television. Season length, episode lengths, budget, guest appearances, were all determined by the details of how broadcast television was organized in the late twentieth century, with seasons and sweep weeks and all that crap.

HBO was the first TV producer to bin all of that, and enable TV to reach its creative potential.

X files was a very cool show, but its late 20th century broadcast pedigree is on full display.

The BBC did it first, in part thanks to a lack of ad breaks and shorter seasons.

Eg. the UK version of House of Cards is genuinely excellent and arguably better than the US version, even before Spacey.

were all determined by the details of how broadcast television was organized in the late twentieth century, with seasons and sweep weeks and all that crap.

Another thing is the production schedule on some of these shows. They'd be doing 12 hour days, 6 or even 7 days a week, sometimes writing shows that were going to be released within days. Far harder to create a coherent arc or plan stuff, when you have to write and direct far more episodes in a limited time frame.

Agree so much on HBO. We just moved to the US and got the "Max" subscription and we're finding gem after gem, some of it a decade old. Like TV that rivals any great movie, amazing storytelling/directing/music/concepts. Still plenty of filler to sort through, but some genuine art in there.

Yup! Now we get cheap crap shoveled out six episodes at a time once every couple of years! If we're lucky.

That's mostly Disney content. Most series are 8-10 episodes long still, and there's more series made than there was in the 90s and 00s.

I haven't watched sopranos, but after all the mafia/gangster movies, i felt the genre was done with, the god fater 1 to 3, once upon a time in america, good fellers, casino, scarface, the list goes on and on. I'll give sopranos a shot but i am not holding my breath...

That's.... not what the poster was saying. Prestige TV extends much farther than the mafia genre, sopranos was just the turning point when higher budget dramatic things were more commonly greenlit.

The Wire, Breaking Bad, Watchmen, The Expanse Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Mad Men etc all absolutely blow X files out of the water. And while I do love X files, the monster of the week format is not even in the same ballpark as those long form character dramas.

I think you might be letting nostalgia blind you to how great television has become.

It sounds like the OP wants 'monster of the week' stuff

Watchmen - holy shit. I decided almost on a whim that I’d give it a try and I was totally unprepared for the awesomeness. It took a few episodes to kick in, but once it did, I was like OH MY GOD THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST SHOWS I’VE EVER SEEN WHY DID IT ONLY GET ONE SEASON THIS IS A CRIME AGAINST HUMANITY

bro you are seriously telling me walking dead is better than x files? I had to stop walking dead after 5 episodes because i couldn't bare it anymore. Xfiles you get excited about every episode you watch. Don't get me wrong i love zombies, but walking dead just aint it...

I mean, I am not a huge fan of the show and didn't finish it. But the first season was stellar. But that aside, reading your other comments it seems like you don't like a lot of modern shows. Which is fine, but personally I find older stuff I watched when I was a girl just sorta meaningless. X files had so many skipable episodes without serving the overarching plot. I'm honestly kinda baffled that you would prefer monster of the week instead of expanse and breaking bad, but you are allowed to think as you please. Just seems at odd with two of the most higely praised shows of recent history.

And I don't super appreciate being called bro... >_>

I've never watched the X-Files, but the crossover episode with the Simpsons is one of my favorites.

Since you seems to be a big fan, i'm gonna ask.

Does Mulder always show people a photo of him wearing a speedo?

Shows like that are still happening.

The real issue is that instead of 5-15 channels, there are dozens-hundreds, plus a dozen streaming service, and intellectual property is constantly pinging back and forth between them all.

No media has a reliable "home" you can consistently access it from. And when it does you still run into the discoverability issue. So many shows are made that you can't reasonably scroll through all of them, so personal recommendations and algorithms ultimately dictate what we find.

If you want unusual and stand-out sci-fi then I'd recommend Twin Peaks: The Return, assuming you've seen Twin Peaks.

Also the show "Dark" on Netflix is incredible.

I still have a cue of newer stuff I haven't gotten to because there's so much to try.

I think what we've really lost is the social element. When FAR fewer things were on, and everyone had to "tune in" to see new episodes, it meant a ton more people would be watching the same thing at the same time.

Now the default has become everything on demand, and released in full seasons at a time. "Dark" is actually from several years ago, but became big in the US just a few years ago, and I just found it last year.

The viewing and Fandom experiences are just more fragmented and scattered now.

They still make amazing shows, it's just a matter of taste and preference.

You can try Fringe, it's obviously inspired by X-Files. I even prefer Fringe but I don't think it's a popular opinion.

There's also From, it's like the only mystery horror TV show that gets horror right in a series setting. It gave me some similar vibes though it's a very different show.

Updoots for Fringe. Season 1 is very monster of the week but it's laying groundwork for everything that's coming. It's a fun ride all the way through and it got a decent conclusion. Watch it if you haven't already.

Mr. Vicepresident!!

Someone is talking about the X-Files!

OP, are you sure you’re not conflating the X-Files being your favorite show with it being good? Because Breaking Bad exists and that came out after X-Files. Also is arguably better than the X-Files lol

I hate breaking bad. Take that for what it's worth. I hate it even more after people recommended it to me specifically praising how good of a show it was.

Fair enough - everybody’s tastes are different. Fwiw I didn’t really enjoy the X-Files that much when I watched it, but I have heard the same thing that it’s a really good show.

Maybe you don't want to believe... and there is nothing wrong with that. Just know the truth is out there....

😂 🤣 😜

there have been good shows since but ill admit there is a lot of crap to wade through as the various media streams pump out anything they can.

I think a lot of shows are AWESOME, but then late-stage capitalistic enshittification happens and they become... far less so, and often quite TERRIBLE even, though ostensibly still have the same title, even though nowhere near being an identical show.

One super-good example is Stranger Things, where the first season was really quite good! So many homages to nerd culture like E.T. and D&D - it was fantastic!:-) As I read though, the pair of creators had 2 rules: never use CGI, and absolutely do not "sell out", i.e. a story should want to be told, not sold merely for the sake of cash. So after the first season where they made it b/c of their love for the craft, you can guess how the subsequent seasons played out (I believe one of the pair even quit over it).

Arguably a better example is The Walking Dead - it started off REALLY good, but then... well... it too "sold out". Actually I keep trying to force myself to get through it, I even started watching it over again from the start (a couple times now) thinking that would help, but have yet to accomplish this feat.

Another is Designated Survivor. It had some big-name actors, most of whom quit (I think the show was sold to a different network... or something?), and the last season was just terrible, limping along before they finally put it out of its misery and ended it.

The really fantastic shows - like Star Trek - had to prove themselves, then the creators were given leeway to subsequently make great sequels and spin-offs and even entirely unrelated titles. Fun story: Gene Roddenberry even created shows after his death, as his wife took his unfinished notes and lead their creation under his vision, like Earth: Final Conflict.

TLDR: why offer you a good show when they can offer you a crappy show that they made for a tenth of the price, yet charge you the full amount?

(though stupidly enough, they also seem to be trying to offer us even more terrible shows that cost 50x the price to make, and yet somehow suck all the more for that!? anyway it all seems to be based on greed + arrogance - they want to make money, but they do not want to put in the effort to actually earn it, e.g. by paying the actors a decent wage)

I’d just like to point out that the Stone Angels episode of Doctor Who came out after X-Files.

Less money in tv nowadays, the whole medium is dying. Plus they figured out they don't need to put in nearly as much effort for reality tv stuff. Streaming wars might have been able to drive quality stuff, but most places did a scatter shot approach instead.

What? There's tons of TV shows, many high budget, released in the last year

I think TV will still last for some years.

In my country (Chile 🇨🇱) we still aren't giving up Analog TV until April 2024.

What TV shows do you like, OP?

xfiles, star trek (kirk, picard), twilight zone from the 1960s, twin peaks (first season), honey mooners, I did like the first season of true detective with mathew maccaughnahey and woody harrelson. I watched the first season of apple invasion before giving up after season 2 started (I just couldn't do it anymore). I am a big fan of broad city though, a show that is very underrated, also workaholics was fun.

Reading through all your comments, you have tastes like my dad. He didnt like thrones or breaking bad, but he does like the expanse.

I'm gonna throw some things out here for you.

Mighty Boosh (comedy)

Lexx (absurd sci-fi)

Voyager (give it another shot you might like it this time)

Severance (low sci-fi)

Barry (dramedy)

Faulty Towers (comedy)

Farscape (sci-fi)

The OA (if you watch this, you need to just Believe everything you are being told, question nothing and accept it)

Dark

American Crime Story (season 1 and 2)

I love your OA caveat. So true.

If everyone could just do that when they watch it - they would see how good the show is. I mean the OA says you have to trust her at the start of the show - so just do that and enjoy the ride.

I never watched x-files when it aired.

I tried to watch it a few years back but only made it to season 2. Maybe it gets better later, but the show was so formulaic that I grew bored of it pretty quick.