What the X-Files and Season 10 Means to Me

[Cli-Fi]

Ah the X-files. The show that romanticized conspiracy theories and taught us all how to wear tin foil hats properly. It's back but it's been a pretty lackluster start. Despite premiering after the NFC championship and a confusion that led to a 10:24 PM start time, it has started out with pretty high ratings 17 Million Viewers, but still lower than it's higher ratings during it's original run. This choppy start has reminded critics that the X-Files may be outdated and even stale.

This show holds a lot of nostalgia for me and is perhaps the most defining science fiction show of my life after Star Trek! I bought the DVDs on a whim when I was in my Fox Mulder phase at the ripe young age of 13. I wholeheartedly believed as Mulder believes and back then, I thought exactly as Mulder did. Yes, I was that weird kid who researched this stuff in my spare time and studied all the conspiracy theories from Bigfoot to UFOs and everything in between. So needless to say, Monster of the Week Episodes were always blah to me. Give me Cigarette Smoking men and UFOS!!!!

More than ten years later, the show that I loved is back, but I am not the same person as I was back then. I have grown out of that phase and took a complete 180. I am still a political junkie but I now rely on logic, data, analysis, and science rather than loosely defined emotional tirades against the (usually) US government. I almost have a passion for debunking these things I know to be factually and logically wrong! This all despite being a registered Republican. Yup still weird!

So I found myself once again glued to the Television set on a rather late Sunday night. This appears to be happening more and more recently as Sunday holds the golden crown of scripted television dramas. Ask yourself what has been the most popular shows in the past seven years and what day were they on? SUNDAY! *^ I am not suggesting anything conspiratorial here.

Anyway, back to X-Files. The Season 10 "pilot" opened with a backstory recap of what the X-Files were/are but as the plot literally shook out its cobwebs, we are reminded that in this post 9/11 world conspiracies have never really left us, and perhaps became dangerously popular after the fact. The politically charged pilot shows a lot of potential; hitting refresh on all the more popular conspiracies that millennials have dreamed up in the past ten years. Even going so far as to mold current beliefs into brand new conspiracy theories that borrow themes from your basic alien abduction scenarios.

We are introduced to a new Alex Jones (He even has his own talk show which has made him pretty wealthy) type character who for some reason seems to know who Fox Mulder is. It isn't really clear how Mulder is ever popularized in the show or how people know who he is. If the people in the show have heard of Mulder's research he would have surely been paraded around this community after being supercharged by 9/11 and the CT internet community, in the past ten years. Yet it's almost as if Mulder is waking up again at one point he seems to question the sanity of the Alex Jones character. Making Mulder a good middle between Scully and "Alex Jones." That is of course, until "Alex Jones" figures "it" out and Mulder joins him.

The Alex Jones character is Tad O'Malley and he perfectly represents how conspiracies have developed in the modern world. Yet while the original X-Files remained pretty apolitical, it's creators had to move on and it shows they kept a close eye on these post-wikileaks issues, which Mulder would and should obsess over.

This is the very reason I loved this new pilot and the X-Files mythology as it is. Some may be mad that it's a bit more specific today than it ever was. I just think that it has to be in this polarized climate where things seem to be becoming more black and white than ever and that type of "thinking for ourselves" has taken a-hold of the very elites the X-Files used to fight!

As a student of the mythology it's easy for me to point out various conspiracy theories people and various groups or industries believe, or how support for various different causes have arisen thanks to beliefs that aren't true! It also remains to be seen if this is helpful or hurts society as a whole in the long run.

As I watch the X-Files at this stage in my life I can't help but relate to Scully. Perhaps more than Mulder deep down I believe she wants to believe, but knows it isn't possible for her! She has an air of skepticism but then again with all the crazy around her it's hard to deny the power of the myth. As silicon valley disrupts the "old elites" and leading Presidential candidates spout this nonsense openly, the Conspiracy Theory has solidified itself in history as something more powerful than actual truth or science.

Some political scientists point out that ever since 9/11 it has allowed people like Alex Jones to reach new heights like never before who instill fear and paranoia in every day citizens while they laugh all the way to the bank. Becoming all those things they claim to hate. Others think hatred of the Jews in the early 1900s was the first spark and the ever growing hatred of Muslims has yet to reach it's deadly foregone conclusion.

Even though, in my personal life I have gone from Fox Mulder and even briefly to Alex Jones to Dana Scully. The X-Files remains a special place in my heart and I do not look at it's signature slogan the same way as others...

 

[Dave]

More than ten years later, the show that I loved is back

At one point, the X Files was my favourite show, but that was a lot longer than 10 years. It is 10 years since the last film maybe, but the X Files were at their best in the mid-nineties. And there is the core problem. While, I was surprised at how good the first episode was, maybe it was a little "New Tricks*" rather than new episode. The actors are all grey haired and wrinkled, but far easier to believe a government conspiracy than an alien one, now that we have so much proof of how our governments really have lied to us. I enjoyed it. Only one nit: Scully gets tests results back purporting to show a complete human genome, possibly two complete human genomes. These results take the form of a single A4 sheet of paper with some images on it! Do they have any idea of how much information is stored on each of the 23 chromosomes? I could believe if she had been handed a memory stick and she looked at some image on her laptop, but a sheet of paper makes no sense. If it was some kind of summary, who summarised it? That person now knows too!Now Scully will have to kill him!

*A BBC series (now cancelled) in which former Police pensioners investigate cold cases. There isn't very much in the way of action, much more celebral.

 

[Cli-Fi]

At one point, the X Files was my favourite show, but that was a lot longer than 10 years. It is 10 years since the last film maybe, but the X Files were at their best in the mid-nineties. And there is the core problem. While, I was surprised at how good the first episode was, maybe it was a little "New Tricks*" rather than new episode. The actors are all grey haired and wrinkled, but far easier to believe a government conspiracy than an alien one, now that we have so much proof of how our governments really have lied to us. I enjoyed it. Only one nit: Scully gets tests results back purporting to show a complete human genome, possibly two complete human genomes. These results take the form of a single A4 sheet of paper with some images on it! Do they have any idea of how much information is stored on each of the 23 chromosomes? I could believe if she had been handed a memory stick and she looked at some image on her laptop, but a sheet of paper makes no sense. If it was some kind of summary, who summarised it? That person now knows too!Now Scully will have to kill him!

*A BBC series (now cancelled) in which former Police pensioners investigate cold cases. There isn't very much in the way of action, much more celebral.

Thanks for the reply Dave. I don't watch a show like the x-files for scientific accuracy. I mean they are talking about aliens and "free-energy!" So not very scientific as well. I had a problem with the Child storyline, and the fact that if someone like Mulder did exist and was still "allowed to" operate within the FBI. As we know in the show, even the "Illuminati" appears to be aware of Mulder and his research. More and more conspiracy theorists would have also discovered him! The internet CT Community is pretty powerful and very, very good at manipulating social media. Mulder's name would have surely come up in conversation as a way to legitimize whatever theory they were talking about.

I really wonder what stories they have planned, as I didn't really like or care for the second episode. So I hope it's not all nostalgia-based episodes looking backwards. I hope it's not all like that and they take time to address similar storylines as to what has happened in real life, like what you alluded to. I would love them to do an episode that addressed all those dead birds/animals that appeared everywhere for awhile, at least here in the US they are big freak stories still randomly occurring! 2010–11 midwinter animal mass death events - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Also the disappearance of various airplanes from Malaysia could be a great X-Files episode.

 

[Dave]

I'll start a new thread for the second episode if you will post into it? I'm sure there will be enough interest in this series eventually. I'm not sure everyone has caught on that it is back. My point was more about believability than scientific accuracy. I can suspend my disbelief over aliens existing, but Scully is meant to be this expert Lawyer-Doctor. Similarily, like you, I can believe they got involved in the first episode in the way that was explained, and those events might make them want to investigate further, but the leap to rejoining the FBI is huge canyon-like leap out of nowhere. The FBI always wanted shot of Mulder. He rocks the boat too much. If Skinner hasn't been promoted during all this time then his influence can't be that much. It isn't explained how they have become FBI agents again.