Upon reading the title of this article the novice X-files fan might feel some confusion. After all these two characters don’t even kiss on the lips until the 7th season! I means sure, up until this point there is plenty of tension but this long period of longing is not what makes this couple the best romance on television. What makes them the best is there pure, unadulterated, unsurpassed… hatred for one another. You heard me correctly HATRED. Now this is not necessarily a bad thing. Every entertaining relationship has some aspect of loathing. As the expression almost says “loathing makes the heart grow fonder”. It is my belief that this hatred is something many viewers can relate to. Of course we all wish for an ideal relationship such as Jack and Rose form the Titanic but no one really believes that a relationship like that is out there or even something that would be sought after. The thing about Dana and Fox is that their disliking is not sexy. There is no sexual tension when Scully glares at Molder across the opened corps on the slab.
All together there are 208 X-files episodes and I guarantee you that every episode will have at least one of the following: Scully rolling her eyes at Molder, Molder and Scully contradiction one another, and/or Molder flat out ignoring all the advice Scully gives. And yet despite all these unloving acts a flame develops that refuses to be squelched by pernicious extraterrestrials , all manner of mutants, and the big bad government. How you can ask, could a relationship up against such turmoil hold it’s vigor? Well my immediate but admittedly copout answer is that they are fictional. It seems that there is no other explanation that a couple could face infertility only to be artificially incriminated by aliens with an alien human hybrid containing both parents DNA only to have to give up said child to protect them from the government. But perhaps it’s not just their fictionality. Perhaps it is Scully and Molder’s brutal honesty that a relationship does not need to be founded on sexual tension that could blow down a building or plenty of onscreen sex. Perhaps their imperfection not only makes them entertaining but also provides viewers with a view of a real relationship, un-convoluted by modern televisions idealization of love. Although they do have their ups and downs but at the bedrock of their relationship is a trustworthy friendship, and of cores, animated hatred.
