Moment of truth.
By Matt Fowler
Warning: Full spoilers for the season below.
The X-Files returned briefly to FOX this winter, complete with a ton of pre-hype and retro-adoration. It was a short revival stint – only six episodes – but it featured original leads David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson along with series creator Chris Carter and a handful of original run writers and producers. So was this flash-of-a-return meant to close down the story for good or lead to more chapters down the line? Well, by the end, we all saw a cliffhanger that definitely required a follow-up. And given how well the ratings were for this show’s resurrection, it appears that everyone involved is looking to somehow make more.
We want to hear it.
But how was the revival? Well? It was okay. Just okay. There were several issues right off the bat, in the premiere, involving a crooked, off-putting structure, stilted catchphrase-driven dialogue, and a smorgasbord of new conspiracy ideas that didn’t quite gel into anything cohesive. And while Annet Mahendru’s guest star role popped, Joel McHale’s never quite fit in right. I love McHale, but he felt out of sync here. As did the idea of a “mega-popular online conspiracy theorist.” A rather implausible imaginary phenomenon that the show seemed to place way too much stock in. Especially when McHale’s Tad O’Malley was used in the finale to relay all the information – everything we weren’t being shown directly – about a global pandemic.
Another thing that worked to cripple this revival a bit was the storytelling format/layout. Many assumed, because of the episode count, that this return was to be a miniseries. One long six-episode arc. But only the first and last episode directly dealt with the new over-arching mythos. Which would be fine, basically, if the finale didn’t go so big as to make everything feel rushed and the episode feel overly-cramped. So there was a tonal whiplash involved when the second episode didn’t line up with the first (though the second was sort of the most “traditionally” X-Files of the batch).
The third episode – which was magnificent – possibly created the most neck snaps as it was a total 180 in tonality. Not only did it have nothing to do with government conspiracies at all, it was played for laughs. Meta-laughs even, as Mulder and Scully embarked on what was to become the ultimate snarky monster hunt. And guest star Rhys Darby killed it. He was superb as a centuries-old lizard man-thing that found himself infected with middle-aged human banality after getting bit by a serial killer. Reverse-monsterism. And it was here that Duchovny and Anderson really let go and had fun. Pretty much the first seasonal indicator that they were happy to be back.
We want to hear it.
The fourth episode, which was the heaviest entry to date, featured the death of Scully’s mother and “stick it to the man” street art come to life. The fifth? Well, I’ll defend the fifth’s batcrap craziness. From the winkiness of Mulder/Scully clones Miller (Robbie Amell) and Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) to Mulder’s BONKERS country music line dance mushroom trip. Though that episode, more than the rest, felt like Chris Carter trying to get out/filter out so many of his stored ideas at once.
Then, quickly, it was over. The finale hit and – well – it was lacking. Perhaps six episodes was too little an amount NOT to treat like a miniseries. Maybe having five very different stories take place in a little over a month wasn’t the proper way to bring this duo back. You know, as much as I loved the third installment, there were just too many divergent roads. Too many ideas crammed together. And too little attention paid to the show’s new, and huge, conspiracy plot.
We want to hear it.
Most effective, overall, was Mulder and Scully’s closeness. Their shared love for each other and their shared regret over William. If there was to be one continuing thread throughout the revival, it was the guilt our two hero agents felt about giving away their son. And while none of it actually led to a big William reveal at the end, he was still very much the point of topic as the show closed out with a big “to be continued.”
The X-Files returned to FOX with an episode count that, unfortunately, worked to stifle the series. As the six episodes we saw felt more like a random sampling of X-Files plots, tones, and ideas than a coherent extension of the previous show.
