An hour after the show, and nobody has commented yet? What's the world coming to? :-)

The cow was said to have been lifted up to 12,000 feet. It seemed to be about 10 seconds between when Mulder saw the bovine takeoff and when his motel room was udderly destroyed. That's 24,000 feet in 10 seconds. That's a mean velocity of 2400 feet per second. By comparison, that's more than double the speed of a typical handgun bullet. It's about 16oo miles per hour. Instead of being frozen, that carcass should have been roast beef.

When is this episode set? The first sceene (hail/breakup) is Feburary 14. The middle is 6 months later--Mid-August. The last sceene is a year later. A few episodes back, it was Christmas Eve (The Ghosts That Stole Christmas). So, shouldn't the middle part be almost a year (11 months) after the 1st part?

SPOILER ALERT!
The Weather Man controls the weather. Now I don't feel do bad being mad at the local weatherman :) (There has been snow on the ground here for over a week.)

Well, just finished watching the show. It was a nice episode. I liked the heart-shaped hailstone. :-)

I laughed at the scene when S&M meets the winning couple ... "like looking at a mirror." Does that mean Mulder's going to lose hair and Scully's gaining weight? ;-)

Interesting how the sound system still worked after it sparked previously.

Speaking of the bovine, I find it odd that it went straight up. If a tornado picked it up, shouldn't it have swirled a bit.

Well, other than that, I haven't much to say tonight.

This certainly was a fun episode. I really liked it. Seems to follow the humorous theme this season (except for last week's 'demon baby" episode).

NITS:
Wow! I got to go. NITs will be here later.

ANP

No nits from me today, thought it went pretty good overall.

Next week:
All together now..."I am Skinner....of Borg...The Truth is Irrelevant..."

Minor and enjoyable on its own terms. So far the season has had 5 comedy episodes and just 3 serious ones. I hope that is corrected soon. Unfortunately, I found the actress (isn't she from SNL or Mad TV?) too annoying to care about.

As has been noted, when on earth is this episode set? Mulder says "We specialize in these things" and there they seem to have free choice of their cases. Doesn't that imply it's before the X-Files closed?

If there's one thing that digusts me the most, it's the fact that TPTB keep beating us over the head with this relationship bull. As an avowed non-shipper, all these campy references to what seems to be the inevitable "coming together" of M&S annoying to say the least, and bordering on the absurd.
As for the show it self though, they never really did explain how the Rain King was able to exploit the weatherman's weather controlling abilities. Were they working together? Obviously not, 'cause it stopped raining on him. Was the Rain King just that good as to be able to guess where the weather guy's manifestations were going to strike next? And how would the weather guy know about Sheila's and the future Rain King's breaking up anyway to be able to send heart shaped hail?
I'm sorry about the ranting. I just miss the mythology episodes. Thank God we get one next week.

The whole Rain King wan't totally explained, I think that the power of the rain was manifested from Holman's guilt of Sheila causing his leg to be amputated, and it stopped after he realized that he was drunk. But that still doesn't explain how Daryl was able to turn the rain on and off at will.

Yeah I think it was the guilt that Holman felt at least that is what my dad said. The epsiode does not make it clear.

Two Great Lines... Mulder "Do you have any doubts Agent Scully?"

Holman to Mulder and Scully after kissing Shelia "You ought to try it sometime."

Is Holman the only weather forecaster at the tv station? He appears to be doing the weather for both the noon and evening newscasts. That's a long work day for Holman.

The class reunion is on Friday night. Who would have done the weather report that evening?

Isn't it unusual for a high school class reunion to be held in August?

Too bad Holman isn't working for the Weather Channel.

I think the Rain King was played by the same actor who played the de-aging admiral in Next Generation's "Too Short a Season."

He was probably covering for the other weatherman for one of the forecasts whose presence wasn't important.

Okay first my responses and refutations. Matt: :-P. But, then, what did I expect from
a noromo? Okay, okay, I'll stop now... :-) I, to, think that the whole controlling the
rain thing had very little explaination, but that was part of it. I felt the creators
were saying, "Come on now, hurry up, forget the explainations and pay attention to
the gags and jokes..." (BTW, that's my prob. with the Clinton thing-- Linda Tripp's
evidence was obtained illegally, so they shouldn't be able to use it as evidence-- but
let's just forget all those annoying legalitys and pay attention to the scandal.)

Back on track: For this BBS only, I have parental permission to reveal the state of my
residence, none other than the land of no mountains but tons of hills, Kansas. (At
least the part I live in!) This was so hokey that it was fun! The accents were WAY
overdone, and the Wizard of Oz references big enough to trip (Tripp?) over. The
small-town things I'll ignore, since those aren't specifically Kansas things; they did
the same things in Home. However, (Nit #1) in Kansas we have *back* license plates,
not front, and there was no county abbreviation in the corner. This makes sense, as
(Nit #2) there is no Kroner.
(Nit #3) Wasn't the mayor named Willmore? As in 'Agent Craig Willmore' from the
X-Files computer game?
Non-nits: The time at one point was 4:07, and I LOVED the look on Scully's face when
the woman was making her tearful confession about controlling the weather. Not to
mention all the 'shippy stuff: Did anyone get the feeling that Scully's restroom
girl-to-girl talk was more than it seemed? ;-) Ra Enright will be going nuts on A.T.X.C!
Got to go before I get disconnected again; my server's throwin

With regard to the license plate: I have seen some that are intended to look like state plates, but really aren't and people put them on the front of their cars instead of the back. Besides, most states I've lived in only allow 7 letters/digits in a vanity plate. Rain King--8 letters.
Why could Daryl make it rain? From what I gathered, the rain followed him. Wherever he "parked it" the rain would come. He makes a comment during his first appearance that sometimes it takes a while for the rain to catch up to him. So maybe Holman just has a good sense of where Daryl is. I thought that the rain was Holman's way of providing Daryl with income out of guilt for the accident.
My husband said that watching M&S getting rained on was worth watching the whole episode.

So Nyla, may i ask where in Kansas you live? I'm in Missouri, myself..

The plate says RAINKNG

I liked this episode. The ending was really sweet, although it hit a little close to home (I've been in Holman's position before). Personally, I like these light-hearted episodes. It keeps us on our toes when the reallly heavy stuff rolls in.

I should probably mention that I neither a) finally got what I wanted like Holman, nor did I b) control the weather with my moods.

go figure

Great line: "where he goes bad weather Follows." The most amazing thing in this episode: Mulder giving dating advice. where did this come from? Knd do you live anywhere near winchester?

This was a cute episode, which had little substance to it. It had a feel-good ending, in which the nice cute couple, and even the town ner-do-well find happy love.

Comments

(1) Was I the only one picturing Martin Mull as Holman? Better yet, George Carlin as the Hippy Dippy Holman Hart.

(2) The revelation that Holman was controlling the weather was rather jarring...for me at least. Looking back, it was one of those things that seems obvious.

(3) The Rain King segment was the best part. There was just something so hilariously campy about it. It was either that or the mood-encrusted meeting with the mayor. There's something about that scene that suggested an epic. A moody one. Not so.

(4) Guests--Victoria Jackson was a Tonight Show comic occasionally, as well as a regular for 1986-1991 on Saturday Night Live. The guy playing the mayor, Dirk Blocker, is the son of Bonanza's Dan Blocker (Hoss). I didn't know it, but my mom got it in three seconds.

(5) I thought the Rain King was going to be electrocuted when he fell by that sound system. I guess it was good that he didn't, as it wouldn't gel with the whole fairy tale approach...although if he did fry, he might have gotten a chance to yell "I'm melttinnngggg!!!" and complete the analogy.

All in all, this is my ranking for the season's ep isodes so far:

The Beginning: Didn't see it.
Drive: Didn't see all of it. Pretty good from what I saw.
Triangle: O.K. Eye candy.
Dreamland: O.K. Not very funny.
Ghosts That Stole Christmas: Boring. Not very interesting or funny.
Terms of Endearment: Loopy horror. Felt like an X-File.
Rain King: Felt like an X-File for the first fifteen minutes, than turned into more eye candy.

Sorry, guys, my parents said that I could reveal my state but not my actual location.
They're just Xtra paranoid, forgive them. However, I *can* (TIC) tell you where all my
best Netmates live: Ra Enright lives in Austraila, Char Hall lives in Texas, and I
*believe* TheDean lives in Ireland-- forgive me if I'm wrong. Countries don't really
matter much online, anyway.

C

Hey Nyla, i think we can understand.. You did notice that the "rain king's" secretary had a more oklahoma accent? perhaps her daddie's farm was near the kansas/oklahoma border..

Nyla, I think I can speak for everyone here by saying we don't care exactly where you live. All we care about is the extraordinary detailed minutia of your life which you've been providing for us. *grin*

Think of us as one big cyberspace community

I think I'm going to HURL. ;)

I agree Nyla you are very articulate and your writing is interesting. Your folks are right to
entertain a certain amount of "paranoia".......
People can be total kooks online. This board is a load of fun and I would hate to see it devolve into a place where people were constantly "statting" each other....that is just so boring.
that said, Hey Mark Morgan, where are you? I've been looking for your nits!!!!!!I miss them! :(
what did you think of this ep, and where do you stand on the whole "shippers" thing? (I'm all for it, but they really need to cut out all that cheesy teasing and get to something that's just going to make everyone cry in their super big gulps.

Hey, mind if I take a vote?

Who's for the shipper thang? And who's not?

Me: Against. I just don't want to see Mulder and Scully as a relationship couple. Too much Moonlighting/Remington Steele.

Someone asked:
"And how would the weather guy know about Sheila's and the future Rain King's breaking up anyway to be able to send heart shaped hail?"

I believe he didn't know about the argument; he made the hail because he saw the engagement announcement in the newspaper.

MCheyene, THANK YOU! The 'shippers have fallen afoul of Santayana, and are trying to repeat the past.

-12-

For the philosophically challenged, I refer to Santayana, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it". Moonlighting is the prime example of what happens when you resolve the Unresolved Sexual Tension(tm).

-12-

To Anonymous:
That was me that asked about the heart-shaped hail, and, now that I think about it, you're right...I stand corrected. Good catch!

I would like to go on record as saying I am agaist them getting together because it would send the show into a spiral faster than a downed ufo.

Okay, when I think of "Moonlighting", I am chastened. The unresolved sexual tension is good to keep. I don't mind if they, uh-resolve it in some way, or add more mystery to it when they decide to finish the show's run, but at some point, I wondered if they were going to pull that old trick and make them brother and sister at some
point. Scully would be so grateful she didn't get Mulder's nose, and he would be grateful he doesn't get peculiar urges to wear heels to a job that requires a lot of running.

I'm not a Shipper either, but since this may be the show's last season anyway, why the hell not?

As to setting of the ep: I seem to remember the Rain King's secretary/girlfriend saying something like he was up in Kroner near the Kansas state line, which would tell me that they were in Oklahoma, but the weather map behind Holman looked like the northeast section of Nebraska. It's a conspiracy!

To 'ship, or not to 'ship...AGH: ain't gonna happen. Based on the ticket sales from this summer, I'm betting Chris Carter is holding out for doing more X-Files movies, which means that they can't throw M&S into bed, even in the last ep of the series.

What I would like to see at some point is some sort of tongue-in-cheek poke a la "Bobby-Ewing-in-the-shower".

Well, I'm back! 1. I did notice that her accent wasn't Kansan, but having never met an
Oklahoman, didn't know that's what it was. We all doan't talk lak thayt down hea. :-)
2. Thank you to everyone who has been giving me such wonderful compliments; they
mean more to me coming from you guys than from the White House. (Especially right
now...)
3. I am, of course, a shipper, but since I think Carter said he's doing 7 seasons and
another movie, I bet they are going to drag it out to the point of Xtreme frustration.
(No double entendre intended.) My theater was very vocal-- most of them were
yelling," COME ON, BUDDY/PUNK/MULDER, KISS HER ALREADY!!" There was a small group
toward the back of friendshipper's yelling the opposite, but the majority were
shippers. The few sane people were beginning to nervously edge toward the
exit--and who could blame them? We're all stark raving mad!

Groucho Marx (1890-1977):
"It isn't necessary to have relatives in Kansas City in order to be unhappy."

*Demos* rules, Net regulation drools! Free Speech to

and Once More with regard to license plates, the plate that Rain King has on his vehicle isn't a very good representation of a Kansas plate. It looks somewhat like the new Kansas plates, but even those have tufts of wheat on the left (I'm pretty sure they're on the left).

I wasn't able to tape it and so cannot go back and check, but it looked pretty Kansan
to me. The only thing that really bugged me was that there was no county on the
corner of the plate.

I really liked this episode, it was so quirky.
A couple of my favourite lines:
Fox is telling Scully, on the phone, that the weather man is making the weather: Scully? Scully, are you there? (yeah, she's there, she's checking her hearing)
What happened to your leg? My girlfriend took it.

Howdy! Love Nitpickers' Books, but my first time at the site. I found some Rain King Nits.

Isn't it odd that a cow would go straight up in a tornado? The air is spinning for cryin out loud.
When Mulder and Scully visit the farm were Darryl is going to make rain, the sun is shining.(why isn't mulder wearing tose funky sunglasses we saw in drive?) But when the rain starts, the sun just dissapears! Clouds could not have formed that fast.
And the place has been in this drought, right? So when it does start raining, the air would absorb most of the moisture. In short, it wouldn't pour right away.
When Shelia is at the office, she wears a long necklace with a black shirt and a red jacket. Then, at the reunion (the same day) she apparently goes home, CHANGES ONLY HER NECKLACE, and goes to the reunion. (The change was not an improvement in my opinion)
After Mulder hog ties Darryl, Shelia grabs him and puckers up. Mulder's back is to the door. Ten, the shot switches to Scully and Holeman walking down the hall. Back to Mulder and Shelia, and they've somehow switched places!
That Radar looks awfully funny for thunderstorms, too. It looks more like a hurricane. (And of course there wouldn't be a hurricane in Kansas)

Howdy! Love Nitpickers' Books, but my first time at the site. I found some Rain King Nits.

Isn't it odd that a cow would go straight up in a tornado? The air is spinning for cryin out loud.
When Mulder and Scully visit the farm were Darryl is going to make rain, the sun is shining.(why isn't mulder wearing tose funky sunglasses we saw in drive?) But when the rain starts, the sun just dissapears! Clouds could not have formed that fast.
And the place has been in this drought, right? So when it does start raining, the air would absorb most of the moisture. In short, it wouldn't pour right away.
When Shelia is at the office, she wears a long necklace with a black shirt and a red jacket. Then, at the reunion (the same day) she apparently goes home, CHANGES ONLY HER NECKLACE, and goes to the reunion. (The change was not an improvement in my opinion)
After Mulder hog ties Darryl, Shelia grabs him and puckers up. Mulder's back is to the door. Ten, the shot switches to Scully and Holeman walking down the hall. Back to Mulder and Shelia, and they've somehow switched places!
That Radar looks awfully funny for thunderstorms, too. It looks more like a hurricane. (And of course there wouldn't be a hurricane in Kansas)

Howdy! Love Nitpickers' Books, but my first time at the site. I found some Rain King Nits.

Isn't it odd that a cow would go straight up in a tornado? The air is spinning for cryin out loud.
When Mulder and Scully visit the farm were Darryl is going to make rain, the sun is shining.(why isn't mulder wearing tose funky sunglasses we saw in drive?) But when the rain starts, the sun just dissapears! Clouds could not have formed that fast.
And the place has been in this drought, right? So when it does start raining, the air would absorb most of the moisture. In short, it wouldn't pour right away.
When Shelia is at the office, she wears a long necklace with a black shirt and a red jacket. Then, at the reunion (the same day) she apparently goes home, CHANGES ONLY HER NECKLACE, and goes to the reunion. (The change was not an improvement in my opinion)
After Mulder hog ties Darryl, Shelia grabs him and puckers up. Mulder's back is to the door. Ten, the shot switches to Scully and Holeman walking down the hall. Back to Mulder and Shelia, and they've somehow switched places!
That Radar looks awfully funny for thunderstorms, too. It looks more like a hurricane. (And of course there wouldn't be a hurricane in Kansas)

Sorry about posting that last one 3 times. something got screwed up.

There aren't mountains in Kansas.

Yes, SpotskyCB, but then they would have to go against the credo of rain in movies/television: when it rains it ALWAYS pours! Except in some X-Files episodes when they were filming in Vancover and it actually was raining and they did not need to manufacture it for the sake of the shoot.

Rick,

There aren't mountains in Kansas.

At least none worth mentioning... [insert evil "Californian-laughing-at-anything-non-Californian laugh" here]

-12-

The cow was said to have been lifted up to 12,000 feet. It seemed to be about 10 seconds between when Mulder saw the bovine takeoff and when his motel room was udderly destroyed. That's 24,000 feet in 10 seconds. That's a mean velocity of 2400 feet per second. By comparison, that's more than double the speed of a typical handgun bullet. It's about 16oo miles per hour. Instead of being frozen, that carcass should have been roast beef.

Also, where was the sonic boom? Mach at sea level is approximately 1120 feet per second.

-12-

I was surprised at Kroner's TV studio; seemed a little big for such a small place.

When the Rain King started attacking Mulder without his leg, all I could think of was Monty Python's Holy Grail where that knight keeps insisting he can fight, despite having his leg chopped off (and so it continues until he loses all his limbs).

I chuckled at Mulder and Scully swaying in time to the music together.

I wonder if this episode was named after the Counting Crows song.