On October 10, just a few days short of Chris Carter and Fox Mulder’s birthdays, Fox showed the first brand new episode of The X-Files since it went off the air in 2002 at New York Comic Con. This was a special screening of the revival series, since it isn’t actually coming to television until January 24, 2016. Entry to the screening filled up quickly that day, despite the fact that there were lines for Marvel, Firefly and the latest Vin Diesel movie that competed for attention. But many fans had waited since the wee hours of the morning, some of whom were impeccably dressed in suits and trenchcoats – cosplaying as the iconic FBI agents Mulder and Scully.
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The mood was high when the Main Stage hall filled with fans who were eagerly awaiting new X-Files to digest. The room roared when comedian Kumail Nanjiani, a hero to the fandom, took the stage to introduce the show. Nanjiani, who hosts the podcast “The X-Files Files”, had been such a vocal fan of the show that he was given a guest starring role on the third episode. This is not surprising as The X-Files was one of the first television productions to interact with their online fanbase. Nanjiani was just as excited as the rest of the room when he introduced the screening of the new episode, entitled “My Struggle”.
Without spoiling the episode, there are a few things we can tease to get you excited for the return of The X-Files. The episode starts off brilliantly, with a tense score playing under the voice of David Duchovny’s Mulder, who rattles off some of the mythology and conspiracy theories that made up the show for first-time watchers, as well as a few more to catch us all up to present day. The Mulder of 2015 is older and haggard, but his paranoia seems to be ratcheted up even higher, which makes sense in the post-9/11, post-Snowden world. Duchovny said during the panel afterward that he had to find his “Mulder Flow” again, which really kicks in when he has to relay some of the long monologues that writer-director-producer Chris Carter writes for him. But he didn’t seem to have any problem finding the character again, adding a bit more world-weariness, as well as a bit more world-wariness.
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As you might have read, Mulder and Scully didn’t live happily ever after as many fans had hoped. (But as Nanjiani pointed out during the Q&A when an outraged fan protested this change of events, Mulder might be a very difficult person to live with.) Gillian Anderson, who couldn’t be at the panel but filmed a very posh hello from the UK for the NYCC crowd, brought a quiet sensitivity to 2015 Scully that harkened back to where we found her in the under-appreciated second X-Files film “I Want to Believe”. Still working at a Catholic hospital, she seems to be paying penance for the toll her adventures with Mulder have caused to her life and those around her. So this is a sad place we find the former agents in. It’s hard to see them clash throughout the episode, but one hopes that by the end of the miniseries, that their shared interest in the newest developments in the alien conspiracy will bring them together once more. Good God, let them have some peace!
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