The X-Files: A Belated Return Worth Watching
The creator of “The X-Files” has managed to find a foothold for a new impetus, making watching the new episodes of the beloved show at least intriguing.
More than a decade has passed since agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully left the FBI’s special department “The X-Files.” The personal lives of the heroes never worked out – Scully devoted herself to medicine, and Mulder spends his days alone, going over the events of the past in his memory – both believe that the most important thing in their lives has already happened. A popular independent paranormal researcher, Tad O’Malley, tries to revive the stagnant pool, believing that he has uncovered a global government conspiracy. To promote the story, which is rooted in the Roswell incident, O’Malley seeks out Mulder and Scully, who have broken with the FBI, and asks them for help. The novice’s theory seems quite tenable to the former agents, and the tandem agrees to help in the investigation…
All the main characters of the television series do not exclude participation in further sequels, which may follow in case of success of the trial six episodes of the updated “X-Files.”
Usually, it is not in our rules to talk about the beginning of another season of any television series, we prefer to analyze fresh novelties or summarize the already held blocks of the show, but with “The X-Files” there is still confusion. Someone believes that the season that started the other day is a direct continuation of the previous nine, someone is closer to the idea of the new six episodes as a separate story, and someone even thinks that this is a trial balloon in the search for a foothold for the reboot of a popular franchise. Be that as it may, the release of the first episodes of the new “X-Files” is an unusual event, and we could not pass by.
Chris Carter, who took all responsibility for the restart of the show, will act as the screenwriter and director of half of the episodes of the new mini-season, and the author took the liberty of directing the first and two final episodes.
The Enduring Appeal of Conspiracy
Tomes can be written about the popularity of Chris Carter’s series – the show really became a cultural phenomenon, which made popular not only the actors involved in the production, but also the very idea of global conspiracies. Now, through the prism of “The X-Files,” everything seems to be the creation of an all-planetary evil genius – from the attack on the Twin Towers to the fall in oil prices. The funny thing is that no one is in a hurry to refute these guesses, and it is useless: “I want to believe,” says the famous poster, and there is nothing to oppose faith to reason.
A Nostalgic Return with a Twist
In the same way, you want to believe in the return of “The X-Files,” because we all sometimes want to become younger, return to our former feelings of novelty, surprise and openness to the world. And here lies a serious trap – the new “Materials” cannot be a return to the past even physically, the world has changed a long time ago, which means that the authors need to look for new roads, in the full sense of the word, to open classified folders again. And the starting episode of the new mini-series to some extent goes exactly along this path – Carter managed to figure out how to turn upside down the picture of the world drawn by aliens, which was built in Mulder’s head over the previous years. The start of the show turned out to be really interesting, there are quite obvious directions for the development of the plot, but there are also opportunities for additional surprises.
The Cast: Familiar Faces and New Additions
I don’t want to reveal the main twist of the first episode, so we’d better talk about the acting content of the new series. Of course, without Duchovny and Anderson, continuing the show would be meaningless (sorry, Robert Patrick), and here time presented the audience with an excellent gift. We saw how beautiful Gillian Anderson is in her years in “Hannibal,” we were horrified together by the decomposition of the aging David Duchovny in “Californication,” but in “Materials” the actors in such guises turned out to be very precisely fitted to each other – Mulder and Scully seem alive, real. By the way, the gray-bearded Skinner is attached to this couple, and even the Smoker with an artificial larynx does not spoil the picture. But Joel McHale, who joined the usual cast, is somewhat out of the palette – he can be presented as such a “bad comedian” from political news, but in the universe of “The X-Files” he is still an alien body. Well, the fans are ready to endure such a trifle.
Final Thoughts: A Promising Start
In general, the starting episode left a good impression, it is not protracted, it has intrigue, and it is made with all diligence (looking ahead, we note that the second series is significantly inferior to the first), and the show may well claim a place in the series of canonical “X-Files.” The main conclusion: Carter has several trump cards that can be played wisely not for six declared series, but for many more. That’s all the fans need. And let the truth remain unattainable.