"Visitors from Down the Street" discussion

[ruuger]

This is the discussion post for "Visitors from Down the Street". Spoilers for the whole of the series, including the spin-offs and tie-ins, are allowed here so newbies beware. If you have any fanworks related to this episode, you can also leave links to them in this post.

Summary:
Two alien stowaways claim that humans have visited their world in the past and that their own government has simply covered it up.

Extra reading:
The article for "Visitors from Down the Street" at The Lurker's Guide.

Comments

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. Slightly disappointed.
I'm not entirely sure why, but all the potenial the idea had somehow just didn't seem to make it into the script. I ended up a bit bored (which I had not expected).

Then again, maybe I'm just not enough of an X-files aficionado to get the myriad subtle jokes ...(!??)

[alexcat.livejournal.com]

I thought it was cute. There were so many subtle and unsublte references that I spent most of my time looking for them. The plot was ehhh. My favorite part was the 'do you smell that' bit because that's something I do quite a lot.

We got to see how hard John is working to stick to the new regulations concerning telepaths in this one. I love the back and forth between him and Gideon.

This one added nothing to the search story arc but it was a bit of fun, I suppose.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I'm very fond of this one and very much enjoyed rewatching it, though I did wonder whether anyone who wasn't around in the 90s when the X-Files were the biggest thing in genre tv would be as amused. (I mean, they even worked in the theme in the soundtrack...)

Without X-Files knowledge, I think the story still works, as a "humans as the aliens, typical "alien" mythology used for humans" type of story (Farscape did one of those, but actually I like this one better), and while Gideon and Matheson are the only regulars to get extensive scenes, I really like the back-and-to between them, the wry rapport they have. Plus the final visual of Gideon enjoying the breeze provided a great scene for andrastewhite's Crusade vid.

Of interest: JMS' take on conspiracy tales here, as basically opiate for the masses so they don't realize and take action against who is really to blame for their problems. I see his point, but given the myriad of conspiracies over at B5...

Ironic in hindsight: Gideon's "If something like this had been going on, I'd know". Well, Matthew, we don't know how much you knew back in the Clark days, but there is that bit with the supersoldiers coming up, and of course the long term plan for Crusade involved EarthGov being involved in even more dirty deeds, so...

[widsidh.livejournal.com]

Maybe my relatively casual knowledge of the X-Files really is the reaon why it did not work for me. I did watch it at the time, but not regularly, and wasn't dedicated enough to remember all manner of deatil.
Having said that, I found some of the jokes that I did get a bit lame too.
The cigarette made me smile, though.

[ruuger]

I spent my teenage years doing nothing but watching The X-files and this episode has never worked for me either :) A little more subtlety would have made it a much better episode, I think - as it is, the jokes were just too obvious to be funny for me.

[dragonladyk.livejournal.com]

I loved the ep, but I had a buddy in HS who was a huge X-phile and kept me informed (whether I liked it or not), so. Yeah. It was funny to me. ^^

DragonLady