There was a time when few TV shows were more
important to me than “The X-Files.” Had I run into creator Chris Carter, David Duchovny
or Gillian Anderson at a mall, I would have squealed in an embarrassing fashion (I still have a Pop Vinyl figure of Scully on my desk). From 1993 to 2002—OK,
maybe not all the way to 2002—“The
X-Files” was one of television’s most essential shows. It was a crucial part
of the change in television portrayals of intelligence in that Mulder and
Scully were mainly nerds but they also had red-hot chemistry. The lonely
guy who spent his life looking for aliens didn’t really look like Fox Mulder
before “The X-Files” and the narratives of Carter’s show made what was once the
realm of people in tin-foil hats or diehard sci-fi fans seem cool. Sure, it got bad before it got
over, but “The X-Files” is one of the most important shows of the ‘90s.
Even with that background, and understanding of my
appreciation of the show, I was hesitant when I heard that Carter’s creation
was coming back. Not only had I seen Carter’s aborted Amazon show “After” and
found it atrocious, but he didn’t exactly stick the landing with the second “X-Files”
film, “The X-Files: I Want to Believe.” Nostalgia did not feel like the right way to approach these
characters. The world has changed a lot in the 20 years since “The X-Files.”
How would Carter, Mulder and Scully reflect those changes?
The answers provided by the premiere, which airs after the
NFC Championship Game this Sunday, is that they wouldn’t reflect them at all.
The first episode feels almost stubbornly anachronistic, as if Carter is pissed
that his show was ever taken off the air and so he just pulled out a script
from 2001 and shot it. Of course, that’s an exaggeration narratively, but there
are so many elements of the premiere of this six-episode run that feel like a
parody of the FOX hit that it’s almost hard to believe. At one point, I started
having flashbacks to when Duchovny and Anderson appeared on “The Simpsons.”
This is not a good thing. The premiere is deep with fan service, reminding us
about Mulder’s missing sister, Scully’s alien abduction, and Carter’s leaden
plotting. Let’s just say this is way
more “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” than the series’ prime. The way to bring a
show back after 14 years off the air is not to just repeat what worked about it but louder and with a few more gray hairs.
The small miracle of “The X-Files” in 2016 is that James
Wong and Darin Morgan understand that last sentence, and they were given the
reins of episode two and three, which are so significantly better that you’d
almost be better off just skipping the first one. If the first episode left me
disappointed, the next two made me hope that this six-episode experiment works
well enough to justify more. They’re that good. Wong, who wrote and directed 14
episodes (including “E.B.E.,” “Little Green Men,” “Home,” and “Musings of a
Cigarette Smoking Man”) and would go on to direct “Final Destination,” writes
and directs “Founder’s Mutation,” which airs on January 25th and perfectly
blends show mythology (including Mulder and Scully’s kid) with a modern plot. The
third episode is a beautiful standalone from Darin Morgan, who did the
legendary episodes “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” and “War of the Coprophages”
before moving on to produce “Millennium” and “Fringe,” and it co-stars Kumail
Nanjiani and Rhys Darby in the story of a Werelizard. It’s hysterical, smart
and so much fun.
The structure of the half of a mini-season of “The X-Files”
is unique in that it almost feels more like an anthology series—give six
writer/directors six chances to do whatever they want with these iconic
characters. It’s a great idea for a series that can’t just repeat
itself as it will inherently feel nostalgic. Hey, if it works, maybe they can use
the same structure for “Firefly.” A fanboy can dream.
