The X-Files are back which, given the major network’s need to devour the past rather than actually create anything new, isn’t that surprising. Hey, perhaps I’m being cynical, though… I used to love this show when it wasn’t tangled up in its own increasingly complex and boring alien mythology. That episode about Frank Boyle reading people’s minds or the cockroach episode are classics. “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” is, I believe, one of the greatest hours of television ever broadcast.
Now, The X-Files are back and the only two people who don’t look thrilled by that idea are David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. I swear, they carried on like two kids called to the principal’s office. I recall that David Cross had the same look on his face when he was required contractually to appear in the third Alvin and the Chipmunks movie.
In this sequel series (it’s not a reboot!), Fox Mulder and Dana Scully are thrown back into action again when a right-wing “newsman” claims to have definitive proof of a government conspiracy to use alien technology to experiment on and impregnate women all for the seedy goal of taking over the United States or something. To be honest, I had a hard time understanding exactly what the goal of the conspiracy was. In my older age, anytime someone starts talking about Illuminati or chem-trails, I can only roll my eyes and make internal fart noises.
This new series of The X-Files is missing the fun of the original. The unabashed fun of getting into things you’re not supposed to get into. The old episode of the X-Files had the intrigue of going through your parents dresser drawers without permission, this debut episode was more like someone telling you what’s in them in great detail. It’s no where near as fun or dangerous.
Fourteen years later and I’m still sick of The X-File’s alien conspiracy episodes. If this rebirth of The X-Files is to succeed, it’s got to be fun and it can’t be all aliens all the time. Bring on the monsters, bring on the freaks, bring on the paranormal.
Perhaps it’s more telling of me now. I was in my twenties when The X-Files farted off the air with that poor excuse of a final episode they came up with and, back then, I was wide-eyed and identified with Mulder and his quest for the truth. Now, as I approach 40, I identify more with Scully in that I’m getting sick of Mulder’s crap.
This debut episode was dull, asked us to swallow a lot, and lacked the chemistry between Mulder and Scully that they developed over the years.
Hopefully, the rest of this 6 episode event will be better, otherwise The X-Files will close again for good this time.
Jason Gaston 