Review: "The X-Files", 2016

CARTER, Chris (Creator); “The X-Files – The Event Series”, 2016, Twentieth Century Fox

Well, they’re back.

(Wait. I guess I probably should have said “They’re ba-A-ack!” because like some kind of noisy, undead horror they just will not stay down...)

There’s been a lot of talk about getting the band back together as far as this vehicle is concerned and I’m guessing they reached a tipping-point between not doing it and doing it and the ayes took the day. To my mind the original series simply petered out in such a godawful fashion that I would have preferred them to just let it be and to not get back into the ring for one more try. As Yoda said, “do or do not: there is no try” so I guess the ‘let’s do it!’ thinking came out on top.

This “Event Series” was played on free-to-air TV here and I caught the first episode with a sense of trepidation. It’s not that I wasn’t a fan of the show – I own the whole thing on DVD so that should give you an indication - it’s just that, for me, it all broke down into two sections: episodes that were creepy, thought-provoking and very cool (a la “Night Stalker”), and the Mythology episodes (so-called). Watching Scully and Mulder go mano-a-mano with the “there’s a conspiracy!/there is no conspiracy!” two-step was like watching paint dry. Every time they got close to the wizard behind the curtain, the bad guys (the next lot of bad guys) came in and moved the goal posts. By Season Nine, credibility was stretched so thin that there was nothing left to do but just pull the plug and call it a day.

Of course it didn’t help that the two stars were carping on about being typecast and wanting a larger share of the profits, opportunities for movies, bigger trailers, blah, blah, blah. Obviously, any job can get dull after awhile. So Duchovny went off to make a movie about chasing aliens and Anderson spent time with her family before moving into theatre and on to some fantastic BBC dramas. I don’t blame them; and I don’t blame them for wanting to take the old vehicle for another spin around the block.

So I watched the first episode and guess what? It was a by-the-numbers Mythology episode and my eyes started to glaze over. The first episode is a busy talk-fest, with Duchovny rattling through all the old conspiracy stand-bys, disposing of things that don’t work anymore (post 9/11) and ramping-up or adding things that could be hammered into a workable X-Files backstory leading into 2020. All new characters, or any action, introduced in this instalment was secondary to Mulder’s manifesto and I had – as they say – a very bad feeling about all this.

In fact, so put off was I by all this that I chose to ignore the rest of the series. It wasn’t until the other day when I saw the show available on DVD in my local supermarket that I thought I’d give it another try. This time I ignored episode one and jumped straight to episode two. Having chatted up a storm in the previous ep., here Scully and Mulder put theory into practise and go after the new bad guys. They find a covert medical establishment filled with horribly-deformed kids who have been experimented upon using alien DNA. Most of the children are just horribly mutated, but some have super-powers, including a boy who can stimulate auditory nerves using infra-sound and who rescues his telepathic sister from the centre. The evil founder of the institute is killed – getting his just deserts – and the kids escape to start a new life elsewhere. Scully and Mulder go back to the newly-reopened X-Files office to write up their bemusement.

On the whole this was a pretty – meh - episode. It felt like it was just there to carry some stuff over from the pilot and to give the show a reason to re-open the X-Files bureau (also to drag out gallons of latex to make some truly disgusting deformity make-ups). If this show can be considered a body of work, then this is the connective tissue.

Episode three. I had a coffee and sat down squarely before the TV, killed all distractions and got ready to grit my teeth. To my great surprise, this turned out be a pure Monster-Of-The-Week episode and, even better, one written by Darin Morgan! Shades of Jose Chung, this was what the doctor ordered! Right from the start I was captivated – Scully and Mulder track down a were-creature that’s been killing hikers in nearby forests. Fortunately for their investigation, witnesses have provided a sketch of the were-creature; unfortunately, the witnesses are the two stoners who provided equally dubious evidence during the “War of the Coprophages” and at Heuvelman's Lake where poor Queequeg got taken by the Lake Monster.

In this romp, full of Morgan’s trademark unreliable narrations and bait-and-switch finger-pointing, the were-creature is a Tuatara-like lizard-man, played eloquently-enough by Kiwi, Rhys Darby, dressed as Karl Kolchak – when he is dressed – and flattening his vowels like there’s no tomorrow. This was pure magic: Duchovny and Anderson obviously enjoy these stories as their hilarity clearly gets full rein. For once, Anderson doesn’t have to get all teary-eyed about her missing son William while Duchovny tries desperately to keep up with her.

After this, we have a story about a bunch of gentrification do-gooders trying to re-develop a part of Philadelphia by bulldozing and power-hosing all the homeless people out of one district and into another, where they’re equally unwanted. Rocketing to their defense, is the “Nose Band-Aid Trash Man”, a superhumanly strong terrifying figure that shows up in a garbage truck, tears heads and limbs off those who would gain from the homeless tribe’s woes, and then packs himself back into the trash truck while it self-propels into the night. And yes, he has a band-aid on his nose.

Scully gets side-lined by her mother’s death by heart-attack while Mulder takes the running. He tracks down a street artist with the tag “Trash Man” and discovers that this guy believes the monster is a “tulpa”, or thought form, from Buddhist doctrine, raising havoc in the street peoples’ defense. Interestingly, Mulder debunks this straight away, despite it being the rationale for several of his own earlier cases. Either way, the street artist it seems is the one who dreamed up the creature and our dynamic duo eventually convince him to put paid to it. Or does he? This is one of those eerie X-Files episodes that has a very scary core and which only, very shakily, gets resolved...

Next we tackle suicide bombers and, after witnessing a mindless attack of this sort upon a Texan art gallery, we learn one of the bombers – what’s left of him anyway – is still “alive” in a nearby hospital. In Washington, Scully and Mulder are visited by two young FBI agents – Miller and Einstein – keen to know if they have any freaky insights into communicating with the mostly dead. Well, Miller is keen to know, anyway.

Co-ordinating their attack, Scully ensnares Miller while Mulder sidelines Einstein, each with their own takes on somehow finding a means of communicating with the dying bomber. Scully jury-rigs some normal scientific procedures and makes an ECG Monitor do the job of an MRI scanner, and determines that, despite appearances, the bomber is hearing things and responding to them on some level. Mulder convinces Einstein to give him an extract of psilocybin mushrooms to augment his consciousness so as to be able to penetrate the veils between life and quasi-death. The mushroom trip is very amusing, showcasing Duchovny’s boot-scootin’ skills and offering the Lone Gunmen a photo opportunity.

Of course, the “mushroom extract” is a placebo (niacin) and the day is won by all four members of the team pooling their information – however bizarrely obtained – and saving the day. The episode ends with some heavy preaching by Mulder and Scully concerning radicalism and love versus hate, some of which is very prettily written but most of which sounds like axes grinding.

The last episode resolves most of the issues from episode one and is also entitled “My Struggle”. One of the (other) things that bugged me about the original series, was the producers’ fondness for all things Nazi. Any excuse to get the cast into jack-boots and they took it. Shows with creepy German titles, hark-backs to Nazi mysticism – there was always just a tad too much relish being thrown at these features for my liking. The title to these two episodes is a case in point: “My Struggle” in German is “Mein Kampf”. How about that? Got to hand it to Chris ‘Captain Obvious’ Carter, he knows how to wield a blunt instrument.

So, feeling all covered with neo-Nazi ick once more, I clenched my teeth for another Mythology quagmire, and I wasn’t disappointed. In this instalment Cancer Man cries ‘havoc!’ and unleashes the dogs of calculated global decimation, causing outbreaks of anthrax to begin de-populating the Earth. Barely in time, Scully and Einstein work out that alien DNA, added to some people’s smallpox inoculations, will save a minority of humans, so they culture up the DNA that Scully identified in her own genome in episode one and create a vaccine. Just like that. Meanwhile, Agent Miller drives to Cancer Man’s abode and saves Mulder’s butt. Just as they arrive back in Washington and the vaccine, an alien craft appears overhead and ...the credits roll.

I assume that means “X-Files: Season 10” is on its way (although IMDb is already calling this Season 10…).

Is this a good thing? I’m not sure. This little run down memory lane has underscored all the things I both liked and hated about the show. If a new season does eventuate, does this mean that I’m going to be enjoying two out of every six episodes, for a – roughly – 30% approval rate? The inclusion of Miller and Einstein in the last two eps didn’t convince me that they’d make good replacements for Duchovny and Anderson if those two decided to fade into the background once more. Miller is a walking haircut with no personality and Einstein is a badly-named caricature of Scully without the acting chops to really pull it off. As a foursome they did okay; but Miller and Einstein ain’t Scully and Mulder.

I think this “event” has done little more than urge me to re-visit “The Night Stalker” and watch “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” once more. Apart from that – meh.

Three tentacled horrors.