Having just watched the final episode of season 10 I figured now was a good time to get my thoughts down on the re-boot of a sci-fi classic.
The entire season only consisted of 6 episodes which centred around the premise of the government infecting people with alien DNA and using ‘aliens’ as a cover-up for a human conspiracy… that’s not to say aliens don’t exist but that they do and the crappy humans use them to do whatever they want.
With me so far? I interpreted it as best I could with the intention of being a little vague because the whole season was a little vague!
I’m not saying I didn’t like it. In fact I loved it so much I’m sad there were only 6 episodes. However, it wasn’t a perfect season and possibly not a great showcase of how good the writing on the show used to be.
As mentioned; there were only six episodes.
Episode 1 (‘My Struggle’) was a necessary one to recap and set up the premise of the new season. The concept of human manipulation of genomes via alien DNA was introduced with many central themes of corruption & conspiracy on a scale never seen before.
Sadly I felt this episode was the only one that really did anything for the season bar episode 4 (‘Home again’) which, whilst fantastic in delving into Scully’s history, also centred around the story-line of a homeless man’s graffiti coming to life and killing the bad politician-type people in the neighbourhood. I know what you’re thinking; ‘That sounds familiar’. You’re right you crazy smart sci-fi nerd reader! It’s pretty much a copy of one of their previous episodes; Milagro (season 6 episode 18) where a writer’s character came to life to kill people!
Paired with the fact they never failed to mention why it was happening it was a little bit washy, I mean they could have at least mentioned Jewish folklore of Golem’s which might have at least given us something to work around rather than just bypassing an explanation completely (considering they can no longer rely on the concept of just being an ‘x file’ due to the development of the rest of the series’ and the discovery of actual aliens having a ‘pulling back the curtain’ effect on the episodes that followed).
The final episode was then the next to actually tie the whole thing together which makes me wonder whether they could have just done a three part series where they could have focused on making a seamless story arc rather than subjecting us to a big of a higgeldy-piggeldy season we so long awaited because it really did seem like the writers didn’t know what to do with the plot so they deviated and, sadly, it didn’t pay off.
There were highlights, despite my seemingly negative review! Episode 3 (‘Mulder and Scully meet the Were Monster’) was one of the best episodes of any television show I’ve ever seen and parts of episode 5 (‘Babylon’) were magical; Mulder and Scully met their 21st century counter-parts (comically mirror-imaged) and after a partner-swap Mulder partakes in a magic mushroom trip which was just hysterical! I do think there is a LOT of room for humour in the show but when the season is so short the humours moments do take away from the rest of the plot.
On a final note let it be known the chemistry between Gillian Anderson and David Duchovney is still sizzling; they remained true to the original characters and it all felt like it meshed perfectly.
The X-Files is a series I would happily watch for a very long time, I just hope they get renewed for a longer season where the writers can really explore a theme without such tight time constraints!
Please do let me know your thoughts! (It would be a shame to not end with this so…)
The truth is out there!
Sam
Pretty Thoughtful Blog 
At first I didn’t really understand why they were ‘monster episodes’ not developing the story from the first episode at all. It felt like there were only a few episodes and we had no time to lose with these kind of stories! But then I liked it and thought it was nice to see the duo in action like in the old series. 🙂
I saw all seasons from the X-Files for the first time last year, so I still had everything very present in my mind. I thought 2 things were weird: 1) the world was supposed to end in 2012 with an alien invasion, the new series started past 2012 and they didn’t mention anything about that… 2) the “cigarette smoking man” died in the old series, they made it very clear – so I was surprised to see him and thought it didn’t really make sense.
Oh and I loved that they kept the same intro for the show!
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Yes! I loved they kept the same intro, too. I agree about the monster episodes, though they didn’t help the story progresses they were fun. They never really explain anything in x files but it would be nice if they mentioned something about 2012 etc! Have you watched fringe?
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You’re right, there are so many things they never explained… We should be used to it by now! No, I never watched it – do you recommend that show?
I just have to tell you this, it’s too funny not to share: I told my boyfriend I was talking about the x-files with a fellow blogger and his first comment was that your name is Sam = Samantha = Mulder’s sister 😀
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