I wasn't foolish enough to be optimistic about The X-Files' 2016 'event' series (it indisputably was a thing that happened), but I was excited all the same. It wasn't the worst of the hasbeen revivals, but it didn't offer much to justify its existence either.
I was less enthusiastic when they brought it back again again at the beginning of this year, but figured I'd be in the mood eventually. A mere eight months is a glowing endorsement, considering how our last close encounter went.
Part 3: The Vancouver years, again.
Dirges in the Key of X:
Mythology episode
Monster-of-the-week
10X01 My Struggle
There's no denying that The X-Files is most definitely back, but for every nod to the changing times (relationship dissolution, 9/11, Finder Spyder) there are several more dragging us back to the glory days and stretching credulity.
Hasn't Mulder been down this second-guessing route several times already? How many times have we been told that someone is the key to everything, only to have them frustratingly disappear? It's cute that they used the 1993 opening titles, but also really weird.
But maybe we didn't really want something new, at least not on opening night. Mulder and Scully's passionate squabbles are as fiery as ever, and it's a treat to finally see "what really happened" at Roswell, accepting that our eyes have apparently deceived us before. I'm certainly intrigued for part two at the end of all this, but looking forward to what they've cooked up in-between even more.
"It's fearmongering claptrap isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus and dangerous and stupid that it borders on treason" - Dana Scully
10X02 Founder's Mutation
It's back to business as usual for Mulder and Scully, which ought to be a cause for nostalgic celebration but feels retro in the wrong ways.
For most of the episode, James Wong's script could have been pulled out of a 20-year-old drawer with a couple of contemporary name-drops tackily inserted, but then the reunited former couple daydream about their abandoned child and the weird-genetic-experiments-of-the-week are tied into the ongoing storyline to make this a boxset-frustrating mythology-lite installment à la 'Red Museum' or 'Wetwired.'
But that really was shoehorned in, and for the most part this is the revived X-Files reaffirming its X-Files credentials. It's tense, confusing and gory as hell.
"Desire is the Devil's pitchfork" - Sister Mary
10X03 Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster
Darin Morgan's episode was by far the one I was most eagerly anticipating, given his track record and hit rate. I wasn't expecting it to be one of his best, but I would have been extremely disappointed if it was just average. Fortunately, it was just right.
It's a comedy episode, meaning the shift in tone is as jarring as it ever was (just to bamboozle newcomers further), and it gets away with a hell of a lot more than would be acceptable otherwise. But while the maddest parts are the most memorable, it's also a nice case study in how Mulder's matured since those zany days, without losing his capacity for wonder.
The downside of Mulder having the believer/sceptic dialogue with himself is that there's little left for Scully to do. Maybe they've got one of their religious ones lined up for her, to balance things out.
"Mulder, the internet is not good for you" - Dana Scully
10X04 Home Again
No, it's not a sequel to that episode, but it's still as reliably unpleasant as you'd expect from the elder Morgan.
After last week's Mulder-centric fun, it's Scully's time in the limelight - which, according to convention, means an upsetting family crisis and a continuing focus on her absent son that had better be going somewhere in the next two installments.
But that's just the emotional B-story, tenuously linked to our main feature of a social justice golem which is a bit less successful and ethically confused.
"I want to believe... I need to believe" - Dana Scully
10X05 Babylon
It's straight back to lame season seven territory with this desperate "comedy" episode that doesn't exactly blend well with its horrific content. Suicide-bombed gallery patrons running around on fire and screaming isn't exactly Scully weighing splatty guts in jump cuts and craving pizza.
The introduction of Mulder & Scully: The Next Generation (The Next Next, strictly speaking - have Doggett and Reyes been purged entirely?) isn't especially welcome, since we already have a limited time to enjoy the classic duo without seeing them get split up and re-partnered.
Mulder's "shroom" trip is as awkward as the humour has ever been, and some of its cameo actors are borderline unrecognisable due to ageing. On the plus side, as long as the next one isn't bad, that's only one out of six I actively disliked, and that's a significantly higher hit rate than those millennial seasons managed.
"I don't do woo-woo" - Fox Mulder
10X06 My Struggle II
I wasn't expecting something spectacular, but I was hoping for more than another latter-year mythology water-treader. This truly feels like season 10, I'll give them that, but a season 10 that might as well have been produced back in the day when Chris Carter had run out of interesting stories to tell. Did they need to stay away even longer?
In the opening part, the mytharc plot felt like a necessarily simplified mish-mash of what had come before, which was a reasonable way to go, but this apocalyptic cliffhanger not-conclusion failed to convince me that there's any continuity through this. Didn't we cover alien DNA in that half-hearted interregnum between the Syndicate and the Super Soldiers? The fact that even I can't remember, having watched the whole thing again a couple of years ago, doesn't bode well for the casual viewer.
The return of Reyes at least conceded that CC isn't trying to retcon those later seasons out of existence, but the revision of one of television's most definitive Seen the Body death scenes, and subsequent reinterpretation of Cancer Man as a gloating tyrant, was just damned pathetic. Mulder was hardly in it too.
The X-Files' triumphant return, there. I know I'm supposed to be enthusiastic so there's a better chance we'll get some more, but I don't much care either way. Not to worry, those mid-90s ones are still really good when you watch them back.
"I have come to the understanding that the science that we were taught takes us but a distance to the truth" - Dana Scully
11X01 My Struggle III
The previous finale was frankly beyond salvaging, to the point where making it a fucking dream was probably the best option. This is an improvement, but not to the extent you'd reasonably expect considering they've had two years to iron it out.
11X02 This
I never enjoyed their techno thrillers very much, but the sub-genre's almost as old as the mythology and the monsters of the week, so it deserves representation. Shame it collides with the invincible middle-aged action heroes sub-genre, which is more of a recent thing.
11X03 Plus One
I'd prefer something new and exciting, but failing that, I'll take a bogstandard monster of the week caper. This ticking-clock psychic twins murder mystery would have fit in just fine in the classic years and is probably the most successful albeit forgettable retread of the revival yet. Let's take what we can get.
11X04 The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat
I allowed myself to look forward to Darin Morgan's episode, and this is a fittingly over-the-top farewell to his personal sub-genre, even if it falls short of his other seven for me. It was also fun to see history repeating, with some less experienced X-philes being incensed at the show not taking itself seriously.
11X05 Ghouli
This secret mythology episode was the most pleasant surprise of the revival so far. I found its plot serviceably mediocre at first, and Scully's almost baseless association of the dead boy with her missing son laughable until it did turn out to be him after all, now a certified X-Files creepy teenager, and I became interested in his story for the first time. It's even made me more optimistic about the finale, though that didn't take much doing.
11X06 Kitten
We're in the woods in the dark and there's an ambiguous monster and shady government conspiracies, but I didn't especially enjoy this one. At least Skinner had that one good episode in season four, he can always cling on to that.
11X07 Rm9sbG93ZXJz
The X-Files does a gimmicky near-silent episode, and pulls it off with none of the grace of Buffy or Above and Beyond. Mulder and Scully don't act like themselves, the jokes aren't funny enough to carry the tedium, and this obviously isn't happening in the regular X-Files universe, so there's no point exerting myself to care.
11X08 Familiar
Another by-the-book, back-to-basics, bog-standard MOTW that I quite enjoyed, but only as much as you really can enjoy something with two child murders in it. All the stuff with the local cops was quite nostalgic.
11X09 Nothing Lasts Forever
I was faintly hopeful for another 'Sunshine Days' penultimate treat, but instead I got a bollocks vampire cult story lifted by one nice scene between the leads that's the sort of thing that should be taken as read anyway. Let's get this over with.
11X10 My Struggle IV
Fuck off.
Top 11 X-Files seasons
My last X-Files rewatch was abbreviated, but it was enough to nudge and reinforce my feelings on this series' general momentum across its overlong run. No guesses which seasons take the bottom rungs then. But which one is the best? Prepare to have your conception of reality basically unchallenged.
#1. Season 3
If I was going by the stand-alone episodes, there wouldn't be much between 3 & 4. But 3 is where the mythology really shines and feels like it's building to something (before frustratingly stalling after the summer break).
#2. Season 4
#3. Season 2
Even if you'd evened the odds by giving them season four's budget and cameras, season two would still feel more formative than perfected. But it's still one of the best and home to plenty of classics.
#4. Season 5
Its highs and lows feel more pronounced than previous years, propped up by a couple of classic experimental comedies and the most interesting mythology developments for some time. But when they're not trying as hard, or stung by production troubles, it shows.
#5. Season 1
The fact that I watched The X-Files right from the start (when I was still in single digits), is a source of pointless pride for me. I could dig out the fan-fic in my Year 4 topic book to prove it.
That's also why I'd have no qualms about letting my own future kids watch supposedly scary things at an irresponsible age. They might have nightmares, but who doesn't love those, right?
#6. Season 6
That's also why I'd have no qualms about letting my own future kids watch supposedly scary things at an irresponsible age. They might have nightmares, but who doesn't love those, right?
#6. Season 6
#7. Season 8
Wow, what an interesting opinion. You have challenged my preconceptions and I will be less knee-jerk in my reactions going forward.
Yeah, but it's still not as good as any of the years before that. I can't be that interesting.
Oh.
#8. Season 7
'Amor Fati' was the point at which this fan, who'd grown up with the series through his formative years, couldn't be bothered any more. Having caught up in the decades since, I can confirm there are literally a few good episodes.
This beats its predecessor in quantity, but with more good comes more bad. Even the better ones never rise higher than authentic imitation.
One good episode, thanks Darin.
Barely even one.
