justify an eighth season". He called many of the stand-alone episodes "wonderfully creepy" and noted that the season possessed a "terrific bunch of episodes". Thomas Doherty from Cinefantastique gave the season a mixed review and noted that the series was hurt by the partnership between Mulder and Scully "settl[ing] into the comfortable groove of a modern two career marriage—supportive, professionally rewarding, and utterly sexless." Further, he noted that "the most entertaining episode lately have been the self parodies, where killer cockroaches scurry and living dead roam, or where (in the Duchovny written and directed episode) Scully and Mulder are played by Téa Leoni and Garry Shandling in a motion picture only slightly more ludicrous than a 1998 motion picture called The X-Files." Doherty argued that the "self-parody" style of the series caused viewers to not take it seriously anymore, explaining that, "No longer going for the big chill, Carter and company are winking at their audience, as if to say: even we can't pretend to believe in this muddled mishmash anymore." Tom Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files, was positive towards the first half of the season, but soon saw the episodes in more of a negative light. He wrote, "A season that began with such hope ended with a sense of sorrow given the end result of the season-long backstage wheeling and dealing [a reference to David Duchovny's lawsuit]. Not even the magnificent season finale […] could erase the nagging doubts I had that a series that had been so amazing for so long would soon embark upon a new course wrought with pitfalls and turmoil." The A.V. Club noted that while the first eight seasons of The X-Files were "good-to-great", the seventh season of the show was "flagging" and possessed "significant problems. The episodes themselves received a variety of reviews. Some were positively received: several reviews praised the episode "X-Cops", the show's highly promoted cross-over with the police reality show COPS. One review from the New York Daily News called the outing "exceptionally clever" whereas Starpulse named the episode the funniest of the series. The Duchovny-penned "Hollywood A.D." was praised for its self-reflexive comedy by several reviews. Other episodes were more harshly received. Anderson's writing debut, "all things" was critiqued for being "dull" and "heavy-handed". "Brand X", on the other hand, was called "a waste of an episode." Accolades The