The X-Files is coming back!

It was a mess. The number of episodes - dictated, presumably, by Fox as well as by the stars' other commitments - was simply far, far too few for what they apparently wanted to accomplish: rewrite a huge chunk of the myth arc, introduce The X-Files: The Next Generation mini-me characters, re-establish the William storyline, and indulge the writers with several monster-of-the-week episodes. Plus the writing was very poor indeed, the special effects astonishingly mediocre (it seems like either the money went on tempting back Duchovny and Anderson, or Fox didn't want to chuck much money at the project), and the actors' commitment seemed questionable (Anderson was treading water and Duchovny was clearly not taking the thing seriously at all, and who can blame him, dealing with those scripts?).

 

I think the main problem was shoe-horning massive great wads of the myth arc stuff into just two, bookending episodes, when it really needed to be more skilfully revealed. Such careless treatment might have been more easily overlooked if the either the content or the presentation of the story had been up to the standard I've long associated with the X-Files. But it wasn't. The William storyline was always extremely weak and there was much relief all round when the baby was sent off to adoptive parents and out of the series. I thought that while the imagined 'flashbacks' to Mulder and Scully interacting with their son were nicely done, and rather sad, the implied future role of the kid (not forgetting his stem cells) was beyond cliché.

 

I have more general rants and grumbles: whoever named the shrill, annoying, charmless Scully mini-me 'Einstein' should have been fired; the Mulder mini-me had all the personality of a damp paper bag; the Lone Gunmen and Skinner were shockingly wasted; the CSM has morphed from a genuinely chilling presence to a pantomime villain; the YouTube conspiracy theorist thing was daft. And did I mention the poor writing?

 

I'm not mad; I'm just really disappointed.

It could be fox wouldn't give them the episodes, hence the crammed in storyline - they've got an awful history with scifi stuff, highlighted by watching the excellent Firefly over Easter. But that wasn't their only screw up.

It was always like Scooby Doo, but without Scooby Doo

And it still is!