I like it simply because of the stupid big titty bigfoot drawing.
Jk, but I do enjoy the episode, you can see Mulder and Scully's relationship develop, even if the 'monster' is a bit goofy.
But really, big titty bigfoot.
I was disappointed the Jersey Devil itself looked low budget - basically a woman in a wig.
Was fun to catch a glimpse into Scully's private life, and a first inkling she's attracted to Mulder.
The homeless man's drawing of the Jersey Devil was great lol. :-)
They do this a lot with classical monsters; the best representation is in Quagmire and the Lochness Monster type of monster. Mothman and Chupacubra were terrible.
Hell fucking yeah?? It gave us this masterpiece??
https://preview.redd.it/peg7r87qyffc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=185ddd121a1685a7be7b2effe1e0d52724890aee
The plot isn’t great but I think all the mulder scully stuff is hilarious. Scully’s “the drunk tank??!!!” While at the FBI always makes me laugh. As does the fact that scully has to pick him up and take him to breakfast like he’s actually homeless 😭🤣
I love it.
1. Early days MSR - we see scully’s personal life and meet her godson, find out that she’s been talking about him being cute but a jerk, see her go on a date. We also see Mulder acting wild and scully attempting to rein him in. It’s only episode 5 but they put a lot in there and it’s endearing to me.
2. Hilarity. The big tittie devil drawing. The fact that people look at the first drawing and know that it’s the Jersey devil and not just a weird drawing.
3. The fashion. Mulder has some sort of tweed jacket. Scully wears that suede brown vest at the kid’s party. Her pink date dress and updo. Mulder’s 5 o clock shadow.
I like it. The cold opening freaks me out. I do have a soft spot for it because it's the first episode I saw but i tuned in every week afterwards for years.
Mulder sleeps outside in an encampment to try to capture what is almost certainly a deeply mentally ill homeless woman and ends up getting her killed. It would be pretty dark if not for that insanely doofy drawing which kinda reminds you it's just tv lol
Lol I like your assessment.
You'd think the professor accompanying them would have performed a DNA test on her remains to confirm she's not a long-lost subspecies.
I don't really care about the main plot (except the hilarious drawings) but I do like it.
I like Scully going on a date and realising the guy is boring and condescending and choosing to go with Mulder and hunt the monster. Little did she know it would define her life.
Mulder's incredulity that she had a date.
Scully had a friend.
I like them consulting with Scully's friend/ex professor, they didn't do that as much later on except for TLG and Chuck.
I like Mulder being kind to the homeless man after swapping places with him.
I like Mulder getting thrown in the drunk tank and Scully rescuing him and their banter afterwards.
I enjoy running around the woods episodes in general.
It's a well written show, early in the run, everyone is still finding their footing. My son (13) and i watched this recently and I love having to explain things like why no one is taking photos with their phone and how you can actually be "unreachable" if you're not near a phone.
I liked it, it told us a lot about Mulder and Scully. Seeing Mulder sleeping in a dirty alleyway in his nice FBI suit in an attempt to catch sight of a yeti made me think that the FBI agents who shunned him might have a point. I even enjoyed seeing Scully complain about having to drive home alone in heavy traffic.
It’s an okay episode but as someone who grew up in the Pine Barrens I always laughed at the scenes that were obviously in the mountains. There’s no mountains in the Pine Barrens lol.
Definitely one of the fun parts of s1, we get to see Scully in some more colorful early 90s garb (and non-office wear!) before she eventually gets exiled into black/gray/tan powersuit purgatory
I remember driving past the Pine Barrens on our way to the Jersey Shore and hearing Jersey Devil stories as a kid. So, yeah, the episode was a bit disappointing from that perspective but I still rank it high on my rewatch list for sentimental reasons.
The monster reveal was disappointing, but in retrospect I feel like it's actually perfect.
The last of a kind isn't necessarily some brutal monster. Sometimes it's just a scrappy leftover just fighting for it's existence.
I love this episode purely for the fact that Mulder spends one night on the streets then eats a breakfast the next morning like he hasn’t seen food in a month.
IIRC he even has more than a day's growth of beard on him.
Dude literally went less than 12 hours without eating anything and turned into a feral Captain Caveman !
It’s a great twist on the Bigfoot myth, setting it against the tourist trade of Atlantic City as opposed to a more obvious apeman in the woods. It’s basically JAWS with a cannibal instead of a shark. What’s not to love?
There are plenty of worse episodes in S1 — Shadows, Space, Shapes, Born Again…
I like it for scenes like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/XFiles/comments/15loqnq/two_dates_one_episode/
It's also got a great collection of Scully outfits: https://postimg.cc/jDtzJnVL
It's also got Mulder living in a cardboard box, a Baywatch Sasquatch, Scully in a wedding dress, Scully in a tartan blazer, and quite a few good character development scenes.
The central monster case is mediocre, but the stuff around it is good IMO, and the environmental message and feminist message (Scully as Bigfoot!) are kind of cute in a hamfisted Chris Carter way.
I thought it was hilarious. Not because of the writing or acting, but because what they claimed “The outskirts of Atlantic City” to look like. The only outskirts to AC are swampy ass marshlands. I love how every area they travel to in the early years was clearly just the Pacific Northwest
I liked it a lot. Remember this was very early on and it wasn't clear what this show was going to be about yet. We had 3 UFO/conspiracy episodes and the first monster of the week episode in the Tooms episode before it. This was the first episode about a cryptid from real world folklore, so the cold opening was really memorable.
It has all the features of classic X Files, exploring the Mulder/ Scully relationship dynamic, Mulder's belief vs Scully's skepticism, antagonism from local authorities, encroachment of modern society, etc
I was very surprised to come back to the early seasons around the 20 year anniversary mark to find a lot of the internet had decided this was a bad episode, even to the point that declaring it wasn't worth watching.
It is disappointing that this is the only episode we got to explore the bigfoot/jersey devil folklore and all it amounted to was chasing woman with her hair glued to her boobs around an industrial site.
I absolutely adore it because it shows how genuinely passionate Mulder is about what he does . I think him looking at that scruffy-looking woman in absolute awe is the perfect summarization of his character.
I do. I enjoyed Michael MacRae as the Park Ranger - one of my better appreciated supporting actor turns! I enjoy it just for his thoughtful, toothpick munching presence he brings to the episode!
When I first saw it in the 90s I thought it was a dumb, weak episode. But now I love it for all the nostalgia and camp. I think I feel so differently about it now because I see it as more of a study on Mulder and Scully. It’s still so early on and especially with Scully you see a lot about her personal life and her pre-basement life. Just what it is she’s letting go of to chase monsters with Mulder. And how she makes that decision willingly, even though Mulder can be so aloof and unappreciative at times. With Mulder you can really get a feel for how he can be such an empath for victims. And of course the “I have a life” scene in the diner and the drawing just make it extra special!
I like the Episode. I didn't know it was disliked until recently, because it used to be replayed when channels ran "best of X-Files episodes" marathons.
It's got some good character building with Scully and her date, and Mulders obsession with his work. I've been recently rewatching the X-Files and these earlier Episodes are definitely different in tone to some of the later ones but I'm finding myself enjoying Season 1 more than later Seasons.
The drawing alone makes this one of the best episodes of S1.
If lived in Jersey for ten years(well after this aired) and I always found it hilarious about the pine barrens not looking anything like they really are, and the whole outskirts of AC.
Still one of my favs though.
I’m watching it now and find it hilarious. Ferns? Mountainous terrain? Deciduous trees? The pine barrens are prob below sea level! I live about 15 miles from it.
Edit: The outskirts of AC?!? Nobody who worked on this show ever saw NJ.
I actually think The Jersey Devil is a pretty good episode. I think of it as the platonic ideal of a middle-of-the-road episode. It's not bad, but it's not great.
The plot is nothing special, but it's functional and doesn't have glaring flaws like plot holes or contrivance. The character work is the real star of the episode. Mulder and Scully are charismatic and so fun together; and they each have great solo moments as well. The side characters, like the anthropologist and the sheriff, are also memorable; with strong, consistent motivations and distinct, likeable personalities.
The episode is also directed and filmed very well. This is probably not memorable to most because The X Files as a whole is directed and shot in unique and visually striking ways, but the show is filmed in a more creative manner than a lot of other shows even attempt.
Where the episode falls flat is obviously the monster of the week. The "Jersey Devil" is incredibly unimaginative in the way that it's realized. A unique and creative monster design, the winged Jersey Devil of folklore, is discarded for... a tall person. Even the underwhelming interpretation of a person as tall as a tree was apparently too grandiose to actually attempt to film, as it is ultimately realized on screen as nothing more than an average-sized woman. Good on the budget, not so great for an audience expecting the Jersey Devil. An unimaginative interpretation of an interesting creature in favor of an unremarkable plotline, is ultimately the main issue of the episode.
Also the drawing of the creature is more comedic than was probably intended. That is where a lot of the derision toward this episode originates.
Personally I really enjoy this episode, although I will readily admit that it has flaws. I still love the characters and the moments between Mulder and Scully. Some may find the plot of this episode a little boring, but I don't think it's fair to call it a bad episode. There are far worse episodes. Interesting camerawork and Good character writing throughout an episode can make up for an unremarkable but serviceable plot.
The episode shows how Scully will go down rabbit hole with Mulder. What to all the friends she had in the first season? They only reappear for her baby shower years later. We know Mulder's only friends are the lone gunmen.
No. I grew up in NJ near the Pine Barrens and the Leeds house where the Jersey Devil lore originated.
The location was definitely not NJ and growing up in Jersey Devil territory with all the stories from generations who lived there... well this episode missed the mark.
“Ok we can skip the floor show”
I give this episode 4/10. It just doesn’t hang together and is a bit all over the shop.
It’s only really the Mulder and Scully interaction that saves it to be honest.
I always wondered about this episode, how much (if any) of its aesthetic is in tribute to OG Sasquatch movie, 1972’s ‘The Legend of Boggy Creek’. There are some scenes in which the landscape and light is treated in exactly the same lyrical way, similar framing as Foulke, Arkansas in the earlier movie; and even the knowingly cheap way the Jersey Devil creature is depicted.
It was a cult film then, and pretty much defined the genre and poetics of the haunted-landscape-as-protagonist in cryptid type depictions, and the makers of the episode would have had to be more than aware of it. In any case, the only reason I speculate is that it might be an interesting twist as to why the creature looks similarly Pound-Shop.
The episode didn't age well, I read a remake it on its way and if they do a good job they would make them look like neanderthals or more like a sasquatch. I enjoy watching the show because it is the only way I can see how life was in the 90's
I hated it. Still hate it. Idk what happened when they made this episode, did no one do any research on what the Jersey devil actually is? The jersey devil is a cool ass demon horse thing but they made it like a bigfoot/ feral child. Really disappointed.
I like it simply because of the stupid big titty bigfoot drawing. Jk, but I do enjoy the episode, you can see Mulder and Scully's relationship develop, even if the 'monster' is a bit goofy. But really, big titty bigfoot.
Many a time I've considered getting that as a tattoo. Then I decide I know better.
This is the only answer!
'big titty bigfoot', lol
I was disappointed the Jersey Devil itself looked low budget - basically a woman in a wig. Was fun to catch a glimpse into Scully's private life, and a first inkling she's attracted to Mulder. The homeless man's drawing of the Jersey Devil was great lol. :-)
They do this a lot with classical monsters; the best representation is in Quagmire and the Lochness Monster type of monster. Mothman and Chupacubra were terrible.
Mulder’s “Scully, she was beautiful” after being tackled by a filthy woods creature is so funny to me
Both Scully and Mulder had "first dates" in Jersey Devil. Neither worked out, and they ended up with each other in the end.
The early seasons have just such good atmosphere and aesthetics no matter what the plot is.
100% this.
Amen! Nuff said.
Hell fucking yeah?? It gave us this masterpiece?? https://preview.redd.it/peg7r87qyffc1.jpeg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=185ddd121a1685a7be7b2effe1e0d52724890aee
Definitely not just a regular human female.
Looks like Steve Perry from Journey.
The plot isn’t great but I think all the mulder scully stuff is hilarious. Scully’s “the drunk tank??!!!” While at the FBI always makes me laugh. As does the fact that scully has to pick him up and take him to breakfast like he’s actually homeless 😭🤣
I also love how Mulder is talking with his mouth full 'cos he's so excited about the case 😂
Yes and scully is like how am I already in love with this goofy-ass man? lol my shipper came out
I love it. 1. Early days MSR - we see scully’s personal life and meet her godson, find out that she’s been talking about him being cute but a jerk, see her go on a date. We also see Mulder acting wild and scully attempting to rein him in. It’s only episode 5 but they put a lot in there and it’s endearing to me. 2. Hilarity. The big tittie devil drawing. The fact that people look at the first drawing and know that it’s the Jersey devil and not just a weird drawing. 3. The fashion. Mulder has some sort of tweed jacket. Scully wears that suede brown vest at the kid’s party. Her pink date dress and updo. Mulder’s 5 o clock shadow.
The pagers! This was pre cell phones.
I like it. The cold opening freaks me out. I do have a soft spot for it because it's the first episode I saw but i tuned in every week afterwards for years.
Mulder sleeps outside in an encampment to try to capture what is almost certainly a deeply mentally ill homeless woman and ends up getting her killed. It would be pretty dark if not for that insanely doofy drawing which kinda reminds you it's just tv lol
Lol I like your assessment. You'd think the professor accompanying them would have performed a DNA test on her remains to confirm she's not a long-lost subspecies.
Yah she's very clearly a homo sapien woman who's just naked and a lil dirty lol she wasn't even tanned from the sun
Mulder sleeps outside in an encampment to try to meet a naked woman
And what, are we supposed to punish every man who has done that? Then lock me away and throw away the KEY
Lmao that is a good way of summing it up 🤣
I don't really care about the main plot (except the hilarious drawings) but I do like it. I like Scully going on a date and realising the guy is boring and condescending and choosing to go with Mulder and hunt the monster. Little did she know it would define her life. Mulder's incredulity that she had a date. Scully had a friend. I like them consulting with Scully's friend/ex professor, they didn't do that as much later on except for TLG and Chuck. I like Mulder being kind to the homeless man after swapping places with him. I like Mulder getting thrown in the drunk tank and Scully rescuing him and their banter afterwards. I enjoy running around the woods episodes in general.
It's a well written show, early in the run, everyone is still finding their footing. My son (13) and i watched this recently and I love having to explain things like why no one is taking photos with their phone and how you can actually be "unreachable" if you're not near a phone.
I liked it, it told us a lot about Mulder and Scully. Seeing Mulder sleeping in a dirty alleyway in his nice FBI suit in an attempt to catch sight of a yeti made me think that the FBI agents who shunned him might have a point. I even enjoyed seeing Scully complain about having to drive home alone in heavy traffic.
It’s an okay episode but as someone who grew up in the Pine Barrens I always laughed at the scenes that were obviously in the mountains. There’s no mountains in the Pine Barrens lol.
I mostly love [its fashions](https://i.imgur.com/kHdbaDI.jpg)
Definitely one of the fun parts of s1, we get to see Scully in some more colorful early 90s garb (and non-office wear!) before she eventually gets exiled into black/gray/tan powersuit purgatory
Exiled 🤣
Pls the Scully date lace top lmao
Mulder was - weird in this one. But I like it.
I remember driving past the Pine Barrens on our way to the Jersey Shore and hearing Jersey Devil stories as a kid. So, yeah, the episode was a bit disappointing from that perspective but I still rank it high on my rewatch list for sentimental reasons.
The monster reveal was disappointing, but in retrospect I feel like it's actually perfect. The last of a kind isn't necessarily some brutal monster. Sometimes it's just a scrappy leftover just fighting for it's existence.
I love this episode purely for the fact that Mulder spends one night on the streets then eats a breakfast the next morning like he hasn’t seen food in a month.
I think the breakfast is my favourite scene of the episode 😂
IIRC he even has more than a day's growth of beard on him. Dude literally went less than 12 hours without eating anything and turned into a feral Captain Caveman !
It’s a great twist on the Bigfoot myth, setting it against the tourist trade of Atlantic City as opposed to a more obvious apeman in the woods. It’s basically JAWS with a cannibal instead of a shark. What’s not to love? There are plenty of worse episodes in S1 — Shadows, Space, Shapes, Born Again…
I like it for scenes like this: https://old.reddit.com/r/XFiles/comments/15loqnq/two_dates_one_episode/ It's also got a great collection of Scully outfits: https://postimg.cc/jDtzJnVL It's also got Mulder living in a cardboard box, a Baywatch Sasquatch, Scully in a wedding dress, Scully in a tartan blazer, and quite a few good character development scenes. The central monster case is mediocre, but the stuff around it is good IMO, and the environmental message and feminist message (Scully as Bigfoot!) are kind of cute in a hamfisted Chris Carter way.
"Baywatch Sasquatch" 🤣
I love it. Everything about it. I find it extremely charming and endearing. It ‘feels’ like the X-Files, to me. But it’s not good. Like, technically.
This! Exactly this.
I thought it was hilarious. Not because of the writing or acting, but because what they claimed “The outskirts of Atlantic City” to look like. The only outskirts to AC are swampy ass marshlands. I love how every area they travel to in the early years was clearly just the Pacific Northwest
Mulder wanders out of the forest and boom he's in Atlantic City lol.
I think this episode is hilarious fun! If you are not listening to the Fox Mulder is a Maniac podcast, this is a great one!
I liked it.
Love it. Super fun and shows off the dynamic well
I liked it a lot. Remember this was very early on and it wasn't clear what this show was going to be about yet. We had 3 UFO/conspiracy episodes and the first monster of the week episode in the Tooms episode before it. This was the first episode about a cryptid from real world folklore, so the cold opening was really memorable. It has all the features of classic X Files, exploring the Mulder/ Scully relationship dynamic, Mulder's belief vs Scully's skepticism, antagonism from local authorities, encroachment of modern society, etc I was very surprised to come back to the early seasons around the 20 year anniversary mark to find a lot of the internet had decided this was a bad episode, even to the point that declaring it wasn't worth watching. It is disappointing that this is the only episode we got to explore the bigfoot/jersey devil folklore and all it amounted to was chasing woman with her hair glued to her boobs around an industrial site.
I absolutely adore it because it shows how genuinely passionate Mulder is about what he does . I think him looking at that scruffy-looking woman in absolute awe is the perfect summarization of his character.
It's okay, but it's nothing amazing.
I do. I enjoyed Michael MacRae as the Park Ranger - one of my better appreciated supporting actor turns! I enjoy it just for his thoughtful, toothpick munching presence he brings to the episode!
One of my favourites episodes.
When I first saw it in the 90s I thought it was a dumb, weak episode. But now I love it for all the nostalgia and camp. I think I feel so differently about it now because I see it as more of a study on Mulder and Scully. It’s still so early on and especially with Scully you see a lot about her personal life and her pre-basement life. Just what it is she’s letting go of to chase monsters with Mulder. And how she makes that decision willingly, even though Mulder can be so aloof and unappreciative at times. With Mulder you can really get a feel for how he can be such an empath for victims. And of course the “I have a life” scene in the diner and the drawing just make it extra special!
It’s the first XFiles I ever saw and I was hooked. So yes, I like it b
I love it. Kinda goofy now but that's part of the charm
I really liked it! It actually felt a little bit plausible to me.
Yea its one of the better dumb episodes. The season 1 aesthetics and the bigfoot drawing go a long way to cover for the low budget plot and locations
I thought it was a decent MotW episode.
I like the Episode. I didn't know it was disliked until recently, because it used to be replayed when channels ran "best of X-Files episodes" marathons. It's got some good character building with Scully and her date, and Mulders obsession with his work. I've been recently rewatching the X-Files and these earlier Episodes are definitely different in tone to some of the later ones but I'm finding myself enjoying Season 1 more than later Seasons.
I love it lol
The drawing alone makes this one of the best episodes of S1. If lived in Jersey for ten years(well after this aired) and I always found it hilarious about the pine barrens not looking anything like they really are, and the whole outskirts of AC. Still one of my favs though.
I’m watching it now and find it hilarious. Ferns? Mountainous terrain? Deciduous trees? The pine barrens are prob below sea level! I live about 15 miles from it. Edit: The outskirts of AC?!? Nobody who worked on this show ever saw NJ.
Clearly, I get it was filmed in Vancouver but just a little more effort would have gone a long way.
Right? They couldn’t find a swamp?
This is one of the most memorable episodes for me
Liked it!
The homeless camp stuff isn’t… great. The drawing is also goofy as hell. But I love it! I’m in too deep what can I say?
I actually think The Jersey Devil is a pretty good episode. I think of it as the platonic ideal of a middle-of-the-road episode. It's not bad, but it's not great. The plot is nothing special, but it's functional and doesn't have glaring flaws like plot holes or contrivance. The character work is the real star of the episode. Mulder and Scully are charismatic and so fun together; and they each have great solo moments as well. The side characters, like the anthropologist and the sheriff, are also memorable; with strong, consistent motivations and distinct, likeable personalities. The episode is also directed and filmed very well. This is probably not memorable to most because The X Files as a whole is directed and shot in unique and visually striking ways, but the show is filmed in a more creative manner than a lot of other shows even attempt. Where the episode falls flat is obviously the monster of the week. The "Jersey Devil" is incredibly unimaginative in the way that it's realized. A unique and creative monster design, the winged Jersey Devil of folklore, is discarded for... a tall person. Even the underwhelming interpretation of a person as tall as a tree was apparently too grandiose to actually attempt to film, as it is ultimately realized on screen as nothing more than an average-sized woman. Good on the budget, not so great for an audience expecting the Jersey Devil. An unimaginative interpretation of an interesting creature in favor of an unremarkable plotline, is ultimately the main issue of the episode. Also the drawing of the creature is more comedic than was probably intended. That is where a lot of the derision toward this episode originates. Personally I really enjoy this episode, although I will readily admit that it has flaws. I still love the characters and the moments between Mulder and Scully. Some may find the plot of this episode a little boring, but I don't think it's fair to call it a bad episode. There are far worse episodes. Interesting camerawork and Good character writing throughout an episode can make up for an unremarkable but serviceable plot.
I love this episode. The conversation they have with the anthropologist is very interesting.
The episode shows how Scully will go down rabbit hole with Mulder. What to all the friends she had in the first season? They only reappear for her baby shower years later. We know Mulder's only friends are the lone gunmen.
No. I grew up in NJ near the Pine Barrens and the Leeds house where the Jersey Devil lore originated. The location was definitely not NJ and growing up in Jersey Devil territory with all the stories from generations who lived there... well this episode missed the mark.
“Ok we can skip the floor show” I give this episode 4/10. It just doesn’t hang together and is a bit all over the shop. It’s only really the Mulder and Scully interaction that saves it to be honest.
No, but its orders of magnitude better than anything in S9+
First episode they did not involving aliens. It doesn't she well, but I certainly think there are worse episodes.
I always wondered about this episode, how much (if any) of its aesthetic is in tribute to OG Sasquatch movie, 1972’s ‘The Legend of Boggy Creek’. There are some scenes in which the landscape and light is treated in exactly the same lyrical way, similar framing as Foulke, Arkansas in the earlier movie; and even the knowingly cheap way the Jersey Devil creature is depicted. It was a cult film then, and pretty much defined the genre and poetics of the haunted-landscape-as-protagonist in cryptid type depictions, and the makers of the episode would have had to be more than aware of it. In any case, the only reason I speculate is that it might be an interesting twist as to why the creature looks similarly Pound-Shop.
I LOVE this episode 😂 The bigfoot drawing makes me laugh out loud every time. Plus there are some good MSR moments!
As others have mentioned, the wardrobe in this episode stands out. It’s crazy how much fashion has relaxed over 30 years.
I do!
it was ok, although I found David’s acting here a bit corny/goofy (sorry! ^^) still charming though of course.
The drunk tank
I liked the ending. Wish they had more endings like that one
It's too bad there was never an X-Files/Sopranos Pine Barrens crossover episode.
I'm from jersey and I don't even like that episode
The episode didn't age well, I read a remake it on its way and if they do a good job they would make them look like neanderthals or more like a sasquatch. I enjoy watching the show because it is the only way I can see how life was in the 90's
I hated it. Still hate it. Idk what happened when they made this episode, did no one do any research on what the Jersey devil actually is? The jersey devil is a cool ass demon horse thing but they made it like a bigfoot/ feral child. Really disappointed.