Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

We continue our examination of The X-Files and its future. After looking at what was left unsaid in Part 1, we look here at how the world has changed since the show left the air and what things it could possibly integrate in its universe.

Disclaimer: Though I do a lot of name-dropping, the topics here are in keeping with the themes of The X-Files and I do not necessarily agree with everything. Also, there is a US bias in many of the topics addressed; as much as I would like it to be more varied, The X-Files is an American show mainly addressed to an American audience and I tried to keep that in mind when thinking about what it could tackle.

Part 2: What new can it add?

The X-Files is remembered mostly as a thing of the 1990s: its best years were in 1994-1998; Skinner is remembered with a portrait of Bill Clinton in his office; its last season suffered from a “mood change in the country” according to Carter after 9/11/2001; it was absent from the screens during G.W. Bush’s presidency, so much so that this was a joke in I Want To Believe. But it was something of the 1990s in more ways than just how Scully’s wardrobe has aged or how grainy and 4:3 the picture is. The X-Files was, among other things, about that short part of history between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror (so many wars!), and the state of the American consciousness, and as an extension of the world as a whole, because of that. About how after being worried about the Soviets as aliens, we had to fill the gap with something in our minds and turned to the skies and extraterrestrials as aliens (“Tonight we have a new enemy“, as Deep Throat said). About discovering that not everything as it seems and that despite unprecedented economic growth and material well-being there are still many things we do not understand and many things we should not take for granted — hence the horror found in mundane settings and the paranoia around the government. Also about the new supplanting the old — with stories about secrets in small towns of rural America unraveled by DC investigators, or about finding faith in a world so shaken by globalization and new trends that the values of old no longer hold.

G. W. Bush’s inaugural and ultimate appearance on The X-Files

What new interesting developments has the world seen since 2002 that could be integrated in the world of the X-Files, and in particular of the X-Files mythology? Where can the new X-Files break new ground with all this?

Television and narration

Since the nineties, television has followed history and illustrated the obsessions of its time. Just to name a few: “24” was a signature show of the years when terrorists were in everyone’s minds; “Battlestar Galactica” allegorized the post-9/11 world with themes such as power abuse, the risk of totalitarianism in times of great stress, and “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”; “Lost” made the interconnectivity of the internet age into a storytelling procedure, networking time periods, characters, storylines; “Breaking Bad” succeeded in marrying the novelistic single story arc vision with cinematic directing and photography; “True Detective” and “American Horror Story” have made the season-length anthology series format popular; and this year’s “sense8” is globalization incarnate, seamlessly transitioning between mindsets living all over this planet.

Now, everyone expects a show to have a well-structured mythology — audience and reviewers are not forgiving about this. Along with shows like “Babylon 5”, The X-Files pioneered the grand mythology type of storytelling and despite its undeserved reputation it excelled at making it interesting and coherent — this very site exists to make that point! Whether they made it along as they went or not (which they did, at least for the specifics of each scenario) is not relevant, what is important is to have a throughline to patch each individual scenario to, and there’s no reason why Carter couldn’t still fulfill that role. If there are things to worry about Carter’s handling of things, it wouldn’t be this.

Jose Chung writing a book about post-modernism in the writers’ room

The mythology approach for genre shows has become so common that the anthology type of show, with a series of stand-alone stories, or even a show like the X-Files that alternated between stand-alone and mythology episodes, has essentially disappeared. Narration is much more serialized over several episodes. Actually, given the X-Files’ schizophrenic treatment of its characters between the earth-shattering personal events of mythology episodes and the reset-button monster-of-the week, adding some continuity and fluidity would not be a bad thing! The X-Files was famous for its self-contained stand-alone episodes that could offer wildly different types of stories and make the voices of individual writers stand out compared to a uniform single-voice serialized show. This differentiating richness must be kept and it won’t be considered old school if it keeps its format of alternating mythology and stand-alones; however its approach and transitions must be reexamined.

In addition, the post-modern narration that the X-Files experimented with in some of its episodes (3X20: Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”, 5X06: Post-Modern Prometheus) has become something more common, and massively popular. Intertextuality within a television show or even between genres is much more accepted (anything by Charlie Kaufman, anything by Quentin Tarantino, “Community”) — we live in a Darin Morgan world! Whereas most of the X-Files’ (Carter’s) candid idealism has become less frequent or less popular: anti-heroes or tortured individuals, not romantic heroes, populate our screens. Again, here, The X-Files’ plurality of voices with several writers expressing themselves is something Carter has understood as an important part of the success of the original show.

Going full Orwellian

In terms of changes in the real world since the 1990s, the obvious item is the surveillance state. Carter has attributed the loss of steam of the show in season 9 to the fact that the X-Files’ mistrust of government would catch difficultly with the public opinion. After a decade with “patriotism” the key word, mistrust of Big Government is back in the public consciousness. The revelation of a global surveillance program in various incarnations, what many people have been saying was happening all along, has shaken the media since 2013. The NSA surveillance programs PRISM, the NSA big data analysis program Boundless Informant, the deals between US-UK governments and large private companies to have access to all telecommunications, the spying of various governments by the US government, the leak of intelligence cables to the press, surveillance by drones and drones warfare, this is all material The Thinker and Fox Mulder would rave about! The X-Files touched on surveillance several times, with the most notable example in the show’s last season, 9X08: Trust No 1, with NSA cameras recording absolutely anything.

Image from “The Enemy of the State” (1998) re-used in the pilot of “24” (2001)

There are always fringe groups, like the 9/11 “truthers”, but, ironically, such concerns are much more mainstream now compared to how conspiracy theorists were when Mulder was called “Spooky”, which breathes more realism to the X-Files. The “New World Order” aspect of these developments is very close to the X-Files’ obsessions for a cabal of private interests working secretly against the interests of the many, and I can’t imagine a new X-Files without some of this being mixed to the Syndicate/alien conspiracy.

“Welcome to the wonderful world of high technology”

Related to the above: as surveillance programs have developed and embraced high-tech, so have those who try to counter them. Wikileaks, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Bradford/Chelsea Manning, anonymizer Tor, the Dark Web, peer-to-peer networks used to spread information and render censorship impossible: all these items are what mainstream media and conspiracy theorists both talk about. A Lone Gunman type of character informant to Mulder and Scully would be well versed in all this.

“The Thinker”, the fourth Lone Gunman (from 2X25: Anasazi)

Internet and the media

The internet and social media has changed the speed with which information is received and spread, making it easier for anyone to track the source and understand if information is manipulated or not. This apparent democratization of information has been twisted into manipulation, with “planted” stories or stories that subjectively present selected parts of a whole that become viral; conspiracy stories there are easy to imagine. Social media can be deceptive, as one only chooses to be informed by media outlets one agrees with ideologically beforehand, thus missing the counterpoint. Mass media oftentimes eschews information neutrality, either unawares or purposefully, and become tools with an agenda to protect — particularly deceitful when they pretend impartiality. This bias has particularly been debated around — ironically, for The X-Files — FOX News, with accusation of conservative views; other channels have been accused of having a liberal bias. Recent decades have also seen a resurgence of talk radio, which is often fertile ground for clearly one-sided politically oriented discussion, due to the 1987 repeal of the “fairness doctrine” that required public broadcasters to present balanced views of a controversial issue.

Art Bell and Frank Black

Chris Carter is certainly sensible to these issues. His project for a TV series around “Area 51” (discussed on Eat The Corn here) would have included some discussion on “the spectrum of political discourse as seen on the cable news channels” and would be “treading on some of this interesting ground that Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange have uncovered for us“, surely addressing topics like media manipulation of information and the hiding of governmental/military secrets. Carter himself had appeared on the popular but underground radio talk show “Coast to Coast AM” by Art Bell, a staple of conspiracy/paranormal talk shows since the 1980s; he went so far as to have Art Bell himself appear on the Millennium season 3 episode “Collateral Damage” to welcome Frank Black in his studio.

The media and information ultimately join the central themes of The X-Files: it is about the truth, whether it can be hidden, whether there is an “absolute” truth. If Carter was following these trends from the 1990s and earlier, he surely has things to say about them, and now that “Area 51” has been cancelled he can recycle these storylines into the X-Files.

El mundo gira y gira

Compared to the nineties, today’s world is certainly much more complex. The fall of the Soviet union did not bring about the end of history; today we live in a multi-polar world where the power of the United States is not what it used to be, if not waning, where geopolitics are fluid and where terrorist attacks somewhere in the world are part of everyday news. When right-wing militia and apocalyptic cults were more of a thing of the nineties, today worries are more about random spree killings and popular discontent due to racial discrimination or racially motivated killings. The never-ending economic “crisis” has become the new normal; the impoverishment of the middle class has generated discontent and movements like Occupy and the 99%, and while some are more wary of one another some others have become more active in civil society. The X-Files could find ways to illustrate these unstable times in allegorical ways, like the recent trend with zombies could be seen as an allegory for the uniformization of modern society and the brainwashing of clerical jobs (XF had been there with 5X19: Folie à Deux).

Mulder has a go at that 99% lifestyle (from 1X04: The Jersey Devil)

The demographics are changing as well, with “minorities” and multiracial people increasing and being represented in the media more. The adage of the power only being held by old white males that the X-Files used for the Syndicate no longer holds. Certain episodes purely based on exotic foreign cultures, like 3X19: Hell Money or 4X04: Teliko, won’t do. The X-Files was a series written by (nearly exclusively) white males with a (nearly exhaustively) all-white, heterosexual cast. Some variety in the cast and some more international scope in the stories would be a natural evolution.

“Science is their religion”

The X-Files thrived on the divide — and intersection — of science and religious belief, and while scientific research has broken new ground since the 1990s, society as a whole is little more advanced when it comes to its spiritual anxieties and each person’s need to feel part of a greater whole. Quite the contrary, recent times have also seen the emergence of more fundamentalist religious groups and skepticism towards science, with movements of anti-science, anti-vaccination, climate change denialists, evolution theory skeptics and proponents of “intelligent design”.

7X15 En Ami: A miracle redeems believers — but the miracle was man-made

Building a story around these trends is much trickier — and risky! The X-Files universe was often more black-and-white than grey; despite “humanizing” the villains and making tragedies out of their stories, the good side and evil side were easily recognizable in the X-Files (and Millennium), particularly in spiritual episodes. It would be interesting to see what the X-Files would make out of this.

“One day, the modern world would find us and my home town would change forever”

Can paranormal phenomena remain unproven and urban legends really be taken seriously today, when everyone has photo cameras? Can secrets be kept and proof remain hidden when everyone has access to wifi with a smartphone? Can whole communities keep horrible secrets from the rest of the world? Can episodes like 2X24: Our Town or 4X03: Home take place today?

The ubiquitousness of the internet poses serious storytelling challenges to writers of mystery and horror, and one has to find new and believable ways to tell scary stories. Many modern films and series have compensated this with more horror, more explicit gore, more of everything — while the X-Files’ approach was to manage to scare with less; again this poses a challenge.

The government’s secret vintage warehouse: CRT sceens

Similarly, investigating is not what it used to be, and I can imagine that much of what was time-consuming is now something “you can easily do on the Internet” like an accountant FBI fellow told Mulder in 7X22: Requiem. Investigative work in the 1990s was appropriately visual: sifting through a room full of (paper!) archives, looking at microfilms, rewinding through tapes… Now it would be more challenging to write about an investigation without falling victim to the unrealistic shortcuts and artificial impressiveness of series the X-Files itself inspired, like CSI.

Hell, The X-Files cannot be about everything! There are some things that the new X-Files will jive with, engulf in its world and twist them into its timeless themes, and others that will not fit.

We wrap up this series of article with Part 3 on where the series could go

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

As you well know, visitor, The X-Files is returning in January 2016 after over thirteen year of absence from the television screens — or after over seven years of absence from the cinema screens. Meanwhile, the comics continuation by IDW will keep on, parallel to that.

Announced in March, the 6-episode revival series was shot between June 8 and September 3 2015 (quite longer than originally planned — attention to detail and budget overshoot, or will it end up being seven episodes?), well in advance of its January premiere. The exclusive world premiere is set for October 6 in Cannes, France (MIPCOM, professional event), and October 10 in New York (New York Comic Con), before the premiere on FOX on January 24.

Where many were expecting the X-Files to continue its (mitigated) career as a feature film franchise and wrap with a final mythology-filled “X-Files 3”, Chris Carter has been given the opportunity to do another run on television. And where this fan expected him to be cautions and transform the idea he must have had for a wrap-up film into a multi-part television event, Carter has run wild! The revival series is developing into a much more ambitious project than expected, with the involvement of among the best of the show’s writers, with the return of several of the show’s supporting cast, with a mix of both mythology and stand-alone episodes, with the possibility of more mini-seasons or even the idea of a film not out of the picture either. This, inevitably, heightens expectations. Let us have a close look at what the X-Files left unfinished, what has changed since it has left the airwaves, and what it could add to its storytelling universe.

Revival promo art: “Phenomena Incognita”

Out of all the story threads that the X-Files opened and never fully unraveled, you could say there are hundreds of things a continuation could pick up on and build further. But if you are going to do a continuation more than a decade later, why stick to the details? A continuation must have a certain amount of things that can make it recognizable as the same thing from the past — characters, situations, settings, props, photography, a healthy dose of nostalgia — but it also needs to do things differently, otherwise it defeats the purpose of having a continuation at all. Many sequels are nothing but more of the same with a single element different so as to spice things up but at the core they have nothing new to say, nothing new to contribute in their central themes or development in their characters. Sequels and revivals only too often rely on that, particularly in the last ten years or so now that the lines between movie franchise, television series and internet-exclusive content have blurred and everything is part of a cross-platform serialized storytelling. Why do something new when a minimal effort re-hash of the same is often enough to make economic sense for a producer? But why make something new if you have exhibited the level of intelligent writing Chris Carter has and you have nothing new to say in the world of The X-Files? This divide between economic rationality versus artistic motivation is one that has existed since the beginning of this, or essentially any, show.

So let’s examine what The X-Files has left unresolved, in what ways it could develop, and what new it could add to the mix. This being Eat The Corn, there will inevitably be a mythology bias to all this and for this I do not apologize. Also, there are spoilers for the (old!) series; and although I have not managed to remain spoiler-free for the revival series, I offer no spoilers here (in fact I know some of these items will not be followed through).

Part 1: What’s left hanging?

To be frank, the long-time fans have to admit that not everything is about the past. While a minimum amount of continuity is necessary, the truth is that thirteen years in television is an eternity and this revival is like a reboot on a clean slate — anything that is from the old series is just icing on the cake. This minimum amount of elements from the past should be the mere concept of alien colonization and a human conspiracy collaborating with them. Everything else that came with it — Samantha, Bill Mulder, the implants, the bees, the corn, the vaccine, the different hybrids, the nanotechnology, most supporting characters — was passionately complex but it needs not even be mentioned anymore.

“You’re looking at the future, Mister Mulder”

 

Colonization

This is by far the principal plot point of the whole mythology and overshadows everything else in this list. Colonization is what the show has been teasing since very early on (3X24: Talitha Cumi really made it explicit) and self-inflicted a constraint by putting a future date to it, December 22 2012. The resolution of this storyline is what the audience has been waiting for for an eventual third X-Files feature film that never came “on time”. The status of this, and the fact that the date has passed but nothing (apparently?) happened, has to be addressed.

William in 2012?

 

William

While season 8 (somewhat predictably) built suspense around his gestation, Scully and Mulder’s son was a story that only became a burden after the show kept Scully in the cast in season 9. Who remembers the bad taste of him being given up for adoption apart from the fans that followed through to the very end? Yet, Carter seems to still have plans for him and address this prophecy surrounding him. The “savior” motif has actually existed for a long time in the mythology of the show before landing on William’s shoulders: Gibson Praise was “the key to everything in the X-Files” in 5X20: The End, Mulder had “become our savior” in 7X04: Amor Fati. And that is most likely William in the credits of season 9, at the age he would be in 2012.

State-of-the-art in infiltration technology

 

The Supersoldiers

The Faceless Rebels and the Russian syndicate

Story threads abandoned in season 6 but that was supposed to become integral to seasons 7 and 8, this is probably a storyline that was borne out of the ever-complexifying mythology that is now old history. However, this is a development that held so much promise that I had to add it here, not to mention that the flash appearance of the Rebels in the comics Season 10 was a great surprise. What would have happened if a resistance against the Black Oil Colonists, perhaps encompassing the rebellious cloned hybrids, had destroyed the Colonists’ plans? What if the Rebels had then proven as ill-intentioned towards humans as the Colonists?

The Syndicate

It got destroyed in season 6, of course, but we only knew about the American branch. Did the Rebels exterminate its international members as well? Did some, like mastermind Strughold, survive? Was it reconstructed but with different goals and alliances? The comics Season 10 goes down this path and makes things very interesting.

“You have a friend at the FBI”

The living

Of course, any living character can be returned. However, a lot of time has passed and a new series should not clutter itself too much with the past. Audiences are not necessarily familiar with all the characters and the opportunity of a continuation series should not be wasted by making it a series of “what happened to” moments just to satisfy our curiosity. Some can return, but certainly not all.

• Walter Skinner, of course, has been an ally for so long it’s difficult to imagine a continuation without him.
• Alvin Kersh, on the other hand, was a replacement character to create drama when Skinner grew too close to our agents; I can’t imagine his role couldn’t be filled by another face at the FBI.
• John Doggett and Monica Reyes, as good as the actors portraying them were, never quite gelled with the audience as a lead duo, but a cameo to help an investigation forward would not be unwelcome.

Uncertain fates

• Gibson Praise was a recurring character that Carter brought back for the series finale, and as a child with alien-derived powers he could be seen perhaps as an earlier version of William. This is an obvious choice for a returning character, unless William becomes the focus. Gibson’s inclusion in the comics Season 10 might prevent that or end up being contradicted.
• Marita Covarrubias, Mulder’s only surviving informant, did not get the character development she deserved in the series and an interesting development for her could be devised, especially with the success actor Laurie Holden has been getting recently with “The Walking Dead”; optional.
  
• Jeffrey Spender returned from the dead to close season 9 but I never understood why that was necessary; optional.
  
• Margaret and Bill Scully, the only surviving family members of Mulder and Scully, would be a nice to-have.
  
• Frank Black, who, short of having his own feature, could make an appearance. Carter has expressed desire to return to the character and a revival of Millennium’s sister show would be as good a vehicle as any to do that, given that FOX might not consider the brand name recognition sufficient to launch a Millennium revival, despite the dedication of its fan base.

Ghosts of seasons past

The dead

“Nobody ever really dies on The X-Files” as Carter famously said, but return too many characters from the dead and you lose the subtle suspension of disbelief that makes a work of fiction memorable. I’m sure writers can devise ways to make anyone return, especially in a science fiction & fantastic show like The X-Files: their deaths only happened off-screen, they were in fact alien replicants, there are hybrid clones around, they are dead but their spirit still lingers around… Tread carefully.

• The Cigarette-Smoking Man was already resurrected with no explanation only to be present in the series finale, where he was also most definitely reduced to ashes. He was the absolute iconic and recognizable villain of the show and the temptation to have him around again will be great. But a page has to be turned at some point, nothing ever stays the same. Not to mention that he should be in his mid eighties at least to make things consistent with his history (at least in his twenties in 1953). Unless flashbacks are involved I would prefer to invest in a new villain, like season 9 tried with the Supersoldier Toothpick Man (actor Alan Dale).
• Krycek is another tempting character to return, and a personal favorite. However, like with the Rebels and the Russians, he could be considered as old history now.
• The Lone Gunmen will be needed in this day and age where any discussion of paranoia and high-tech and government surveillance will require side characters like them. Killing them was among the most stupid decisions season 9 did so the revival might as well follow the comics Season 10 and say they faked their deaths. Some of the actors are not getting any younger though.

Quiz: find the living one(s)

• Deep Throat and X have done their part and it would be more interesting to discover new informants.
  
• Diana Fowley disappeared from the show very suddenly, as if the writers had no real plan for her after mid-season 6. Same as with Jeffrey Spender, her past with Mulder and her story arc was interesting but I see no particular reason for her return.
  
• Cassandra Spender was never fully confirmed as dead, which is a handy way of leaving the door open for her return. Her return would have to be tied to the return of the Cigarette-Smoking Man, or even to that of the Faceless Rebels, making it rather complex. Her role of a being with a shared nature between human and alien could be fulfilled by Gibson Praise or William, or a new abductee.
• Samantha Mulder was Mulder’s engine to keep on going forward and this was taken away from him in season 7 when he found out her faith, appropriately at a time when the series was thought to be ending and Duchovny’s motivation to portray the character had waned. Her mention anew in I Want To Believe (“This is about you trying to save your sister“) was a surprise. With the resolution we got in season 7, it took a long time for Mulder to close his wounds; however an interesting “what if” scenario would be that of Mulder reuniting with a clone that had Samantha’s memories, something that was teased as a possibility repeatedly in the series. A return in the form of a ghost should not be dismissed outright, nor should it be handled lightly.

From the IWTB Press Kit

Mulder and Scully

Of course. How the lead characters develop would be a main argument for following a continuation, given how truly essential these two characters and the actors portraying them were to the show’s success. The series ended with them a couple in love, retrospectively turning the entire series into the narration of how they met, appreciated each other, and ultimately found in each other the most significant partner they could imagine. In I Want To Believe it became apparent, as could have been expected, that their contacts with the dark aspects of the human soul, the paranormal and conspiracies of all kinds would take their toll on their relationship. The second film portrayed them as tortured individuals trying to balance things between a life together away from the worries of this world, and a life as selfless heroes battling “the darkness”. The quintessential Chris Carter protagonists. Funnily enough, the film was so ambiguous and not specific, like The X-Files often was, that while some understood that Mulder and Scully had been living together in West Virginia for the past 6 years, some others understood that they were only occasional lovers who seldom saw each other, and that Mulder lived in that house alone.

On to Part 2: What new can it add?