No More Fox Mulder, Fox

I would worry about the FOX network, if I was one to worry about a heartless multi-billion dollar corporation run by brain dead hacks.  That they are desperate for programming is proven by the fact they have yet again renewed Sleepy Hollow, despite the show not being good since the first season and that it killed off one of the two partners whose relationship made the show run. The fact is that Sleepy Hollow is one of the better pieces of programming scheduled by the network, which is a testament to the profitability of pandering to the lowest common denominator.

Along the same lines (the network wanting to renew a show I used to love that is running on empty), reports are that FOX would like to produce more episodes of The X-Files after the 6 episode run shown in February.  Of the 6 episodes I would rate one as good, two as mediocre, one as bad and two as jaw-droppingly awful, which is not a good average.  But again, this is FOX, so they have committed to more episodes depending on the availability of David Duchovney and Gillian Anderson.

That might be a problem, surprisingly.  Well, Duchovney’s show Aquarius, which was inexplicably renewed by NBC, premiered to "dismal" ratings, so it may not last much longer (although NBC is almost as desperate as FOX).  But Anderson has signed on to a Starz series based on Neil Gaiman’s novel American Gods where she will play Media, the god of telecommunication (or so I understand, the news reports are a little unclear and I am not familiar with the novel).  Heaven knows what counts as a hit for Starz, but Anderson might be tied up for a while, unless her role is small enough to allow her to do other projects.

One problem with the return of The X-Files (aside from atrophy in Chris Carter’s brain and the apparent fatigue of the stars) was that times have changed since The X-Files premiered.  In 1994 if you thought the government spied on you, you were a nut; in 2016, if you don’t think the government is spying on you, you are a candidate for the funny farm.  The nature of paranoia was one of the millions of things that changed on 9/11.

The man with his finger on the pulse of current paranoia is Sam Esmail, the creator of Mr. Robot.  Mr. Robot tapped into the angst of modern computer insecurity, the fear that nothing was safe from a determined hacker.  We rely so heavily on digital information, but the easier it is for us to utilize it, the easier it is for someone to steal it.  Mr. Robot exemplified all the various ways our security can be compromised; defeating on-line encryption, lying to gain access to password information, cloning phones in the proximity, tricking someone into running an infected disc. 

The X-Files is the face of the past in urban paranoia; Mr. Robot is now.  Mr. Robot barely stayed ahead of current events, like the Ashley Madison hack.  Its final episode had to be delayed because an on-air attack that occurred in real life was too similar to a scene that had already been filmed for the finale.  Few shows had the currency that Mr. Robot had in its first season.

Generally speaking, TV shows rarely get better once they are past their expiration date; hence the phrase, “jump the shark.”  Once a show has become desperate enough to resort to having The Fonz water ski over a Great White, the initial creativity that made the show worth watching in the first place is gone. Even great shows like Modern Family begin to struggle after a while as the characters and their situations become familiar.

Bringing back The X-Files was about as topical a move as TBS producing a parody of Lost 12 years after its debut (Mel Brooks only waited ten years to do a Star Wars parody). It was nice to see Mulder and Scully again, but I’d prefer it if in the future I saw them on DVD or streaming, and not in new episodes.  Chris Carter had his moment, but his brand of paranoia is so 20^th century.