The truth might still be out there — but are the viewers? The X-Files creator Chris Carter and the Fox TV network want to believe they are.
If the pre-broadcast hype and buzz online about the revival of the show for a six-episode, “event-TV” sequel is any indication, they are probably right.
Fourteen years after FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) last stalked the airwaves — and 23 years since the show's 1993 pilot episode — The X-Files returns to TV on January 26 midnight on OSN.
Its skilful blend of sci-fi and horror burrowed into the world’s collective psyche much deeper than we realised at the time — like a kind of cultural brain worm — and today, just hearing the sinister, spooky synth notes of its theme song can still trigger goosebumps.
"The comeback could be viewed cynically as an attempt by Fox execs to capitalise on the X-Files brand, programming by feather duster, but let me destroy any notion of this from my side of things," says showrunner Chris Carter in a new book, The X-Files FAQ. "The show was and is a labour of love, and thus a work of art."
Always a visual and visceral feast thanks to its premise of a massive UFO cover-up, sinister mythology, monsters of the week and gross-out moments — with a few philosophical bones tossed in for conspiracy theorists to chew on — The X-Files swiftly grew into a global phenomenon as true believer Mulder and his sceptical partner Scully investigated a string of strange and bizarre cases.
But the world that existed when the show started in 1993 — and, indeed, when it finished nine years later — has moved on and Carter knows it. He has updated the series to mirror the growing big-brother paranoia of our present eye-in-the-sky times — and the growing role of the internet in everyday life.
“One of the reasons I was excited about coming back,” says Carter, “is we’re dealing with a world that has changed completely from the time when the series ended in 2002, which was not long after the World Trade Center bombing.
“The American public had put their faith completely in the government — they didn’t want to know about government conspiracies. They wanted to know that their government was protecting them.”
"We live in a CitizenFour world now," says Carter, referring to the recent documentary about NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. "We've given up certain rights and freedoms because we wanted the government to protect us after 9/11.
“We see the admitted spying by the government. These are not things we’re making up — and it informs everything Mulder and Scully are doing in the new mini-series.”
“It feels like a lot of the things that Mulder was warning us of kind of came true,” says original-series writer James Morgan, who is back for the mini-series with another alumnus, acclaimed writer-director James Wong.
“All of us are tracked on our phones. There are drones overhead.”
What began as an extraterrestrial conspiracy has morphed into a “conspiracy of men”, with America now threatened with a military takeover by a group of “multinational elites”.
"With the distance of time, there's a new appreciation for [Mulder and Scully] and what they mean," says Anderson, 47, who also stars in the BBC crime drama, The Fall and the mini-series.
“I can imagine what that must be like as a fan. You see these familiar faces and the familiar cross beams of light coming out of the darkness and hear that soundtrack.”
"You know, character doesn't change," adds Duchovny, 55, who followed up The X-Files with the comedy-drama, Californication, and also currently stars in the cop drama Aquarius.
“Mulder and Scully, they’re not going to change profoundly. But they’re going age — and that is its own kind of profound change.”
Driving much of the action in the mini-series is the fiery rhetoric of the internet news anchor and conservative talk-show host Tad O'Malley, portrayed by comedian/actor Joel McHale, best-known for his role in the sitcom Community, and as the host of The Soup. He will be joined by Annet Mahendru (The Americans) as Sveta, an alien abductee. Mulder finds a new ally in O'Malley, whose conspiracy theories align with his, and who declares that "9/11 was a false-flag operation. It was a warm-up to World War Three".
Familiar returning faces include: Mitch Pileggi as FBI assistant director Walter Skinner, Mulder and Scully’s former boss; Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood and Dean Haglund as The Lone Gunmen; William B. Davis as the mysterious Smoking Man; and Annabeth Gish as FBI special agent Monica Reyes.
While 2016 feels far removed from the fabled 1946 UFO crash at Roswell, the new pilot episode has a treat in store, as it recreates the fear and wonder of a 1950s-style sci-fi flick with a classic “flying saucer” crash. It was “a UFO crash that was so much bigger and better than I ever imagined it could be”, says Carter. “I was blown away.”
Where will the mini-series lead our heroes? And what will it mean for possible future adventures on the small or big screen (there have already been two X-Files movies, in 1998 and 2008).
As Mulder is fond of saying: “All we can do, Scully, is pull the thread … see what it unravels …”
The conspiracy that changed TV forever
Television was never quite the same after Mulder and Scully first shone their torches into the darker side of human (and alien) existence in 1993. The influence of their cult success continues to shape the medium to this day.
For starters, The X-Files took a page from the ancient Greeks to demonstrate that a grand mythology makes a durable foundation upon which you can hang virtually any kind of conspiracy, monster, ghost or weirdness you can imagine — you can even augment the ongoing serialised storytelling with stand-alone episodes, so long as they contribute a fresh facet to the characters or overall mythos.
It's a model producers have been following ever since. From Chris Carter's companion show, Millennium, which ran from 1996 to 1999, to more recent creepy weirdness such as Warehouse 13, Supernatural, Dark Skies, The 4400, Lost and Sleepy Hollow, a web of mythology has been the dark matter holding these shows together.
With its central story of FBI agents battling a shadowy conspiracy spanning parallel universes, the JJ Abrams-produced sci-fi drama Fringe, which ran for five seasons from 2008 to 2013, is arguably the single show most heavily influenced by The X-Files and certainly owes it a debt of gratitude.
In addition, without The X-Files we might never have had Breaking Bad — considered by many as one of the finest TV dramas ever made.
Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, a hardcore X-Files fan, met Carter during the show's second season and went on to write 30 episodes. They included 1998's Drive, in which Bryan Cranston (who went on to star as chemistry teacher-turned-drug dealer Walter White in Breaking Bad) played a likeable scumbag whose head explodes.
“It taught me how to be a producer, and it taught me how to be a showrunner,” says Gilligan. “It taught me how to be a boss.”
• The X-Files returns with a two-episode premiere at midnight on Tuesday, January 26 on OSN First HD
artslife@thenational.ae
