Uneven X

I'm currently using X-Files episodes as the entertainment while I run on our treadmill. [I'm sure I've mentioned that before. Yep. Wow, it's been 17 months since I started!]

One of the drawbacks of using X-Files in this way is, in my opinion, X-Files was a very "uneven" show. There are certainly some enthralling episodes, and there are some very imaginative ones as well. Mix in some truly scary suspense, and there are plenty of episodes worth watching -- that's why I bought the seasons, after all.

But then there are the clunkers. I just saw one. "Fearful Symmetry." It starts off promising - an unseen force shakes buildings, breaks windows, smashes cars. Cool. Let's see what they do with this. But before the opening is even done, we see an elephant running down the road. An invisible elephant? OK, now it's going to be harder to make things interesting. But hey, if you do something sci-fi Fringe-style, I might be interested. But no. Before long, Mulder deduces that aliens are abducting the animals. Alien animal abduction? In the episode immediately following one of the primary arc alien episodes (which was in the "enthralling" category I mentioned above.)

So why would I say using the X-Files has drawbacks because of this kind of episode? Well, here's the thing: if I am truly interested in the show, running for 30 minutes feels like I'm running for 10 minutes, but if I'm watching a clunker like this? Well, I can't blame it all on the show, but I didn't run longer than 10 minutes at a time. I just keep looking at the clock when the drama is as lame as this, and clock-watching is not conducive to maintaining the motivation to keep up the pace.


Further, the number of clunkers (I really like that word today, don't I? Clunkers. Clunkers. It just fits!) means that I feel like I have a good chance of hitting one any time I step on the treadmill. This tends to stifle my motivation to get on the treadmill and hit 6.2 MPH. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (my previous treadmill show) did not have this problem. Sure, there are some bad episodes in DS9, but they are fewer.

It's probably also true that the horror/suspense story is harder to become immersed in while running. I suppose I have to give that some of the blame. Nevertheless, I am considering alternating between X-Files and something different, and the uneven nature of the stories in X-Files are a large part of the reason. After all, it took me only two years to make it through seven seasons of Deep Space Nine, and I'm still seven episodes from the end of Season 2 in X-Files after almost a year and a half. If the show is causing me to skip exercise, I need to do something different.