The X-Files, une série qui s’amuse parodiquement à tourner en rond

Abstract

The X-Files episode “Bad Blood” (5.12) was broadcast on February 22, 1998 on Fox. Written by Vince Gilligan, it tells a voluntarily simplistic vampire story confronting the points of view of its two protagonists, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, who present one after the other their version of the events. Self-parody is played out in particular in the way the two investigators consider each other. Each agent simultaneously idealizes and mocks the other in their story, which is filmed in the same settings and from the same camera angles. The opposition produces a dramatic tension that is highly serial, between, on the one hand, the audience's familiarity with the omnipresent protagonists and, on the other hand, the redundancy of the “Monster of the Week” episodes, often accused of making the series go in circles and preventing its mythology from advancing. Yet it is the repetitiveness inherent to the serial form (even in its most serialized versions) that allows The X-Files to self-parody and renew itself while, paradoxically, treading water.

Keywords

• The X-Files
• self-parody
• pastiche
• satire
• repetition
• US TV series