In a previous blog post I set out to determine the
best science fiction television show ever produced, only to quickly
discover that the answer was, obviously, The X-Files. It ran longer that any SF show other than
(inexplicably) Stargate SG-1, and during its run it scaled heights no other
genre show had achieved: Emmies for Best Actress, Best Dramatic Screenplay,
Best Guest Actor in addition to the usual awards given to SF shows for
production design, and was a perennial Best Drama nominee and frequent nominee
in the screenplay and directing categories. It affected the popular culture in
ways that few shows have.
So it created a great amount of anticipation when it was
announced that the FOX network was bringing the show back after a 15-year
hiatus. Now that all six episodes have
been aired, a verdict can be reached: maybe they should have stayed retired. The episodes weren’t all bad (although some
were), but after so many years away creator Chris Carter and the writers he
brought back seemed to have lost the ephemeral tone that made the show so
distinctive.
Of course The X-Files was a collection of sub-genres with
science fiction. It could do straight
sci-fi (Little Green Men), but also horror (Squeeze) and even comedy (The
Unnatural, any of the Darin Morgan penned episodes, The Unusual Suspects). As with Lost, every network tried to
replicate what The X-Files did, but none succeeded because it was all based on
a chemistry experiment that exceeded the goals of even Chris Carter.
Oddly, I thought the first episode, My Struggle, did the
best job of replicating the completely batshit crazy zeitgeist of the original “mythology”
episodes of the original. Chris Carter’s
greatest gift is his ability to have characters expound the most ludicrous
exposition and make it seem moderately plausible, and that’s what was happening
in the first episode with Mulder teaming up, not with Scully but with new BFF
Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale) to uncover a new worldwide conspiracy to enslave the
human race. This conspiracy was
formulated by the most powerful collection of men (they’re all men) ever
imagined and have infinite resources at their disposal, yet Mulder discovers
the truth in about an afternoon. But
David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson seemed happy to see each other, and McHale
brought a fresh energy that the two leads were sadly lacking.
Founder’s Mutation was a throwback to another X-Files
sub-genre, the gore-fest. It would rate
as a solid but unspectacular episode, with a plot line that never quite makes
the audience fully involved. Plus, they
insisted on crowbarring in the past plot line about William, the child that
Scully had (apparently by virgin conception), for no reason other than as a
lantern for the finale.
The high point of the resurrection, predictably, was the
Darin Morgan episode “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster.” Morgan wrote arguably the four best episodes
of the original series (Humbug rates an 8, War of the Coprophages a 9, and
Clyde Bruckman’s Final repose and Jose Chung’s From Outer Space are both 10’s)
and he brought back his unique perspective on Mulder and Scully, namely that
they are both wasting their time on this nonsense. This episode had some nice call backs to the
series (Scully reminding Mulder that Clyde Bruckman told her she wouldn’t die;
the grave stone for former producer Kim Manners) and some other meta references
(the character dressed like Carl Kolchak from The Night Stalker). It was a hoot, but not quite up to Morgan’s
previous work.
Home Again was, thankfully, not a sequel to the show’s most
notorious and divisive episode Home (count me among the haters), but an
exercise in what the show did increasingly as it went along, create a menace
that was strange in some way but in no way that was logical or well thought
out.
That brings us to Babylon, easily one of the worst episodes
of all time (Home still holds the record).
The show starts off with a somber depiction of Muslim suicide bombers
blowing up an art gallery in Texas, the gives us a pair of Mulder/Scully doppelgangers
for no reason, and ends with Mulder hallucinating line dancing with Skinner and
The Lone Gunmen (seen all too briefly).
The X-Files was great at slipping humor into dramatic situations, but
the tonal shift here was jarring and even offensive.
Season 10 concluded with a sequel to the first episode, My
Struggle 2. It has one obvious, glaring
flaw: Mulder and Scully have virtually no scenes together. They were often separated in the show (Carter
once commented that he couldn’t imagine doing the series without the invention
of cell phones) but still for a series based largely on the chemistry of the
two leads, this is a problem. Furthermore,
the doppelgangers from Babylon show up again, as if they are waiting for their
spin-off despite the fact that they have one one-thousandths of Mulder and
Scully’s chemistry. The episode is
stuffed with Carter’s worst exposition (“It’s like a virus inside a virus!”
What does that even mean?) and ends . . . well, it really doesn’t.
FOX has indicated that it is pleased with the ratings enough
to produce more episodes if Duchovney and Anderson are available. Last time I checked Californiacaton had been
cancelled and Anderson was doing The Return of Johnny English, so I think that’s
a safe bet. If they do produce more
episodes, I hope that this six-episode excursion was a warm-up, and that Chris
Carter can produce some episodes reminiscent of the old X-Files the next time
around. Despite what the caption in the
opening credits said, this may not be the end.
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