I have just watched the first two episodes of the new season of 'The X-Files'. I was uncertain if bringing it back was a good idea, as, even to an ardent fan of the show such as myself, it was, in the later seasons, very obvious that the shark had well and truly been jumped. I did toil along with the ninth season, and when that staggered to it's end, I probably sighed loudly, and prepared to box up all the memorabilia. For years after, people talked about the show, and how it had almost [but not quite] become a parody of itself. The dull, aimless, and honestly redundant second movie hammered the final nail in the show's coffin. Us fans got on with our lives, occasionally watching a creaking VHS copy, and then DVD's, but thinking that it was all over. Years passed, and other shows briefly crossed our transom, and we got angry with their mid-season cancellations [that never seem to happen to vastly inferior TV shows, it seems to me], or simply shite cop-out endings, or truly great endings that made your jaw drop, and 'something get in your eye', at the realisation that something you held very dear [cough]BuffyandAngel was over. You're looking through a copy of a magazine, let us for argument's sake say SFX - [remember other sci-fi magazines are available], and, there is a picture of Chris Carter [not the Throbbing Gristle Chris Carter], and a teasing header that mentions that he's thinking of making a new season of 'The X-Files'. You mentally go: ''Hmm.'' Months later, there's a picture of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny. A New picture. Now you think to yourself: ''Ooh.'' and: ''It might happen''. More time passes, and now the new copy of SFX [remember other etc.] has Mulder and Scully on the damn cover, hell yeah. It has happened! a new season 14 years after the last one ended, and yet you think: ''I hope it's not going to be shit''. I watched the first two just now - and it's like it's never been away. The bringing-up-to-speed intro on the first episode was followed by the goosebump-inducing titles with Mark Snow's iconic theme music - all brilliantly untampered with. Little things matter, too. The sad sight of Mulder's long-empty [''Nobody here but the FBI's least wanted''] office, lightened by the amusing sight of the ceiling tiles still impaled with dozens of pencils, flicked there years ago by a bored Fox Mulder. Nice amounts of weirdness and obfuscation, and of course UFO action, and a truly terrifying dystopian vision, which also has an explanation as to why so many Americans are morbidly obese. The second episode is even better, starting with a creative use for a letter opener, and containing lots and lots of gore. Anderson and Duchovny are wonderful here, and there is a peculiar parallel with the 2007 two-part Doctor Who story 'Human Nature/The Family Of Blood.' Mulder and Scully both have separate 'what could have been' reveries,[ much like The Doctor imagining what being truly human entails.] which, when seen in context [I'm not going to spoil it for you], will break your heart. Seriously.
The X-Files is back, and it's as compelling as it always was. So now, I have a 55 disc set of all previous seasons to get stuck into. Just for the sake of helping me remember various plot points, you must understand...