Ten Years Ago, The X-Files Made an Improbably Strong Return
Good scripts were out there.
By the time The X-Files ended its initial nine-season run in 2002, the supernatural sci-fi procedural had largely run out of steam. Original stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were both absent for lengthy stretches of time, while the long-running “mythology” storylines had grown far too convoluted, with multiple overlapping explanations for the vast alien-invasion conspiracies that FBI agents Fox Mulder (Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Anderson) investigated. The subsequent 2008 movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe didn’t offer much of an improvement, despite bringing back Duchovny and Anderson and focusing on a standalone story. So it’s not surprising that fans were skeptical about the 2016 series revival on Fox, even with both original stars and many longtime writers and producers onboard.
Ten years ago, the six-episode 10th season premiered with “My Struggle,” written and directed by X-Files creator Chris Carter, and picking up right where he left off with his ever-evolving mythology. It’s clearly meant to evoke the show’s glory days, reusing the same opening-credits sequence and revisiting one of the most famous UFO incidents of all time, the alleged 1947 crash of an alien vessel in Roswell, New Mexico. As X-Files mythology episodes go, “My Struggle” falls somewhere in the middle, but it confidently reorients the show for a new decade while retaining its essential elements.
“Actual proof has been strangely hard to come by,” Mulder says wistfully about the duo’s years-long search for the truth about aliens on Earth, and in classic X-Files fashion, “My Struggle” primarily raises more questions. But Carter has a sense of how the show’s focus on conspiracy theories had gone from fringe sci-fi curiosity to political flashpoint. Mulder and Scully’s re-entry into casework comes via Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale), an Alex Jones-like talk show host who peddles far-right talking points along with ideas about UFO cover-ups. O’Malley is a grifter who’s gotten rich from riling up his credulous audience, but he’s also a true believer with genuine knowledge about alien technology.
O’Malley’s information is just a way to bring Mulder and Scully back together at the FBI and reunite them with their old boss, Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi). The writing in “My Struggle” is awkward at times, but Duchovny and Anderson step back into their old roles with ease, and there’s a weary, lived-in quality to their dynamic that can only come from so many years of working together. The X-Files writers always had trouble balancing the Mulder/Scully relationship, and the pair’s eventual romance was never as satisfying as the teasing possibility of it. Seeing them as a settled couple in I Want to Believe felt forced, and Carter wisely chose to reintroduce them post-breakup, bringing back the productive tension of their interactions without forgetting their complex history.
Mulder and Scully have a wearier, more lived-in connection in the series revival.
That history includes their son, William, whose conception and birth are mired in some of the series’ most overwrought mythology. William’s true identity and whereabouts serve as an overarching mystery over the two revival seasons, but that doesn’t prevent the show from taking its signature detours in individual episodes. If the revival had begun a few years later, it probably would’ve premiered on a streaming service and focused solely on the serialized narrative. On Fox, though, The X-Files still functioned as a procedural, and the offbeat “monster of the week” episodes were once again stronger than the mythology chapters.
Those offbeat episodes began right after “My Struggle,” as Mulder and Scully get back to investigating what a local cop calls “spooky cases.” They go from the latest alien conspiracy to a mysterious suicide at a genetics firm, and these standalone stories bring back the playful wit and creative visuals that marked the best of the earlier seasons.
The revival makes room for offbeat standalone episodes like “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat.”
In the 10-episode 11th season in particular, Carter and the rest of the creative team deliver funny, scary, and strange episodes that capitalize on the format’s fluidity. Fan-favorite writer Darin Morgan returned for two sharply comedic episodes, including “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” which slyly satirizes the show’s own conspiratorial tendencies, via an alleged forgotten agent on the X-Files team played by Brian Huskey.
Making room for formal experiments like Morgan’s — or “Rm9sbG93ZXJz,” a brilliant, nearly dialogue-free horror comedy pitting Mulder and Scully against insidious AI in various smart devices — is why these two revival seasons are far more successful than fans might have anticipated. These episodes now fit in seamlessly with the series as a whole, leading to a finale equal parts frustrating and satisfying. It wasn’t perfect, but a show that seemed completely exhausted in 2002 proved surprisingly vital 14 years later.
