New 'X-Files' Gets 'the Band Back Together,' Captures the Feel of the Original
Just in time for Halloween, Fox has released a terrifying new poster and a trailer to whet appetites for the show’s six-episode run in January and screened the first episode for journalists. Glen Morgan — X-Files executive producer and co-writer of arguably the scariest episode of all time, “Home” — talked a bit about the show’s return.
Everybody’s preference would have been to keep doing movies, says Morgan, but “the market went out for middle-budget movies.” Fortunately, TV is more flexible than it once was, and mini-seasons are now common. Six episodes of television take about as long as a movie, so he says creator Chris Carter made the call: “Let’s try to get the band back together.”
Related: ‘The X-Files’ Reboot: Our Spoilerriffic Recap of the Premiere
The X-Files was a training ground for some of Hollywood’s most successful writers, so some of “the band” were busy: Rob Bowman is on Castle, Howard Gordon was doing Homeland, Frank Spotnitz is doing The Man in the High Castle on Amazon, and Vince Gilligan is on Better Call Saul. Sadly, director Kim Manners has passed, but Heather MacDougall — who won one of the show’s many Emmys for editing — returned, as did several of the core writers.
Carter wrote and directed the first, fourth and sixth episodes. Darin Morgan —who wrote many of the show’s funniest episodes and also won an Emmy for “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose” — did the third. James Wong wrote and directed the fifth, and Glen Morgan did episode two — a reprise of his and Wong’s classic, “Home Again.”
The first episode is one of two “mythology” episodes — those that deal with the alien conspiracy — as opposed to the standalone or “monster of the week” episodes. And, for the most part, it feels like the show never left — right down the return of the original credit sequence. A Bill O'Reilly-like broadcaster played by Joel McHale (Community) convinces Mulder and Scully to reopen the X-Files as covert forces align to oppose their search for the truth.
“We really tried to develop Mulder and Scully,” said Morgan. “Where are they in their lives, at this age in their lives?” The episode has many tantalizing glimpses into those intervening years: Scully’s diagnosis of endogenous depression that drove the pair apart; her work on children with microtia, who bear a strange resemblance to the show’s aliens; Mulder’s love/hate relationship with AD Skinner; a weakened, but alive Cigarette Smoking Man. The episode is a reminder that — while the show’s conspiracies and creatures are what kept the show going — the thing we all remember are the indelible characters they created and embedded in pop culture.
Season 10 of The X-Files premieres Sunday, January 24 on Fox after the NFC Championship Game. Episode two airs the following night at 8 p.m.
