The X-Files is one of my favorite television dramas of all-time. For its first six seasons, it presented some incredibly intriguing/interesting stories as well as pretty much pioneering the concept of over-arching plots from season to season. For its last three seasons, it managed to still be at least watchable despite actor issues, network waffling on an end-date, and a general lack of the solid writing that had been present in its hey-day. So, when it was announced that the show would return after a 14-year absence, I was ecstatic...with a touch of panic thrown in. Would David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson be able to slip into their old roles? Could Chris Carter write himself out of the corner that the show had "ended" on back in 2002? Would the team as a whole be able to re-capture that late-90s magic and translate it across time (something a show like 24 was unable to do)?
Unfortunately, what I quickly found (right away from the first episode) was that none of those above questions were answered in the positive. Not only that, but the entire revival was nothing more than an embarrassment to a show that once feature quality drama, interesting plots, and developed characters. None of those things were even in sight this time around.
Before I get into the more specific reasons why this revival failed (and failed miserably), I think the big concept behind the failure is that the show writers didn't seem to understand what made the show so successful in the first place. To be honest, that boggles me a bit in its own right, as it was Chris Carter himself and many of the original writers that had a hand in this slop. It's almost like they made a caricature of the success of the original show, but a caricature is obviously just a crude (if sometimes funny) over-exaggeration of a person or thing's real features. That's exactly what happened here, and here are a few more specific reasons why:
-The earliest faux pas is re-opening the X-Files office in the FBI in the first episode. That stretches the bounds of credibility right off the map. This entire series could have operated outside the realm of "official FBI business" (and it would have made more sense to do so), but instead the creators took the easy/lazy way out.
-In a similar vein as above, the entire mythology was ret-conned in that first episode as well. In a show where aliens have been seen and examined from many angles, you can't just say "well, now I think it was just the government all along". Heck, the show even tried that itself back in Season Five! That's an unforgivable ret-con that spits in the face of fans who marveled at the complex alien/government mysteries of the show at its peak.
-The two episodes are supposed to be the solid "stand-alones" are easily the worst episodes of this revival..."Founder's Mutation" and "Home Again". The Band-Aid Nose Man? Again, just embarrassing.
-Yes, comedy was part of The X-Files all along, but only as a subtle counter-point to the fact that most times the show was deadly serious. So, the comedic "Were-Monster" and "Babylon" episodes fail here because there isn't any actual strong material to back them up. I mean, Mulder dancing to "Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk"? It's almost as if Carter & Co. were intentionally trying to sabotage the show at that point.
-The show consistently teases the return of Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), the Smoking Man (William B. Davis), and the Lone Gunmen, but then gives them nothing interesting to do. A terrible waste of some potentially great possibilities.
Finally, and I wanted to save this point for its own paragraph, perhaps the biggest failure of this entire revival was the complete and utter lack of chemistry between Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson). For years and years, Chris Carter always maintained that Mulder and Scully would never get romantic because "the best relationships are the ones rooted in friendship". That worked for the show for a long, long time...until Carter ran out of really good material after Season Six. At that point, he started pushing the romantic angles even further because, frankly, he caved to the "shippers". The show was running on empty and instead of "writing his way out of the problem", he just went for the quick fix and played up the romance angle. In this revival, he tries to do the same thing, but it comes off just as stunted and stilted as it did back in the day. The over-reliance on William (the son the pair had together) despite that character never being seen is a good example of this. That was the only thing the writers could think of to bring Mulder and Scully together...a plot line ("baby William") that failed so miserably in Season Nine that it sunk the entire season.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that my take on this "Season 10" of this show can be boiled down to a single word: Embarrassing. These six episodes are a caricature of the show's former success, and a cheap knock off at that. The mythology is ret-conned, the characters are drone-ish, and the stand-alone episodes are either dull or almost obscenely stupid. The original run of The X-Files will always hold a special place in the TV-watching portion of my heart, but this effort I will try very, very hard to forget. If these are the "great new stories" that Chris Carter wanted to come back to tell, then I hope this show truly never comes back, as the creative team behind it has lost their bearings.
Unfortunately, what I quickly found (right away from the first episode) was that none of those above questions were answered in the positive. Not only that, but the entire revival was nothing more than an embarrassment to a show that once feature quality drama, interesting plots, and developed characters. None of those things were even in sight this time around.
Before I get into the more specific reasons why this revival failed (and failed miserably), I think the big concept behind the failure is that the show writers didn't seem to understand what made the show so successful in the first place. To be honest, that boggles me a bit in its own right, as it was Chris Carter himself and many of the original writers that had a hand in this slop. It's almost like they made a caricature of the success of the original show, but a caricature is obviously just a crude (if sometimes funny) over-exaggeration of a person or thing's real features. That's exactly what happened here, and here are a few more specific reasons why:
-The earliest faux pas is re-opening the X-Files office in the FBI in the first episode. That stretches the bounds of credibility right off the map. This entire series could have operated outside the realm of "official FBI business" (and it would have made more sense to do so), but instead the creators took the easy/lazy way out.
-In a similar vein as above, the entire mythology was ret-conned in that first episode as well. In a show where aliens have been seen and examined from many angles, you can't just say "well, now I think it was just the government all along". Heck, the show even tried that itself back in Season Five! That's an unforgivable ret-con that spits in the face of fans who marveled at the complex alien/government mysteries of the show at its peak.
-The two episodes are supposed to be the solid "stand-alones" are easily the worst episodes of this revival..."Founder's Mutation" and "Home Again". The Band-Aid Nose Man? Again, just embarrassing.
-Yes, comedy was part of The X-Files all along, but only as a subtle counter-point to the fact that most times the show was deadly serious. So, the comedic "Were-Monster" and "Babylon" episodes fail here because there isn't any actual strong material to back them up. I mean, Mulder dancing to "Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk"? It's almost as if Carter & Co. were intentionally trying to sabotage the show at that point.
-The show consistently teases the return of Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), the Smoking Man (William B. Davis), and the Lone Gunmen, but then gives them nothing interesting to do. A terrible waste of some potentially great possibilities.
Finally, and I wanted to save this point for its own paragraph, perhaps the biggest failure of this entire revival was the complete and utter lack of chemistry between Mulder (Duchovny) and Scully (Anderson). For years and years, Chris Carter always maintained that Mulder and Scully would never get romantic because "the best relationships are the ones rooted in friendship". That worked for the show for a long, long time...until Carter ran out of really good material after Season Six. At that point, he started pushing the romantic angles even further because, frankly, he caved to the "shippers". The show was running on empty and instead of "writing his way out of the problem", he just went for the quick fix and played up the romance angle. In this revival, he tries to do the same thing, but it comes off just as stunted and stilted as it did back in the day. The over-reliance on William (the son the pair had together) despite that character never being seen is a good example of this. That was the only thing the writers could think of to bring Mulder and Scully together...a plot line ("baby William") that failed so miserably in Season Nine that it sunk the entire season.
I could go on and on, but suffice it to say that my take on this "Season 10" of this show can be boiled down to a single word: Embarrassing. These six episodes are a caricature of the show's former success, and a cheap knock off at that. The mythology is ret-conned, the characters are drone-ish, and the stand-alone episodes are either dull or almost obscenely stupid. The original run of The X-Files will always hold a special place in the TV-watching portion of my heart, but this effort I will try very, very hard to forget. If these are the "great new stories" that Chris Carter wanted to come back to tell, then I hope this show truly never comes back, as the creative team behind it has lost their bearings.