After several years of constant rumblings and rumors that The X-Files would eventually return to television, FOX confirmed this past January that they were indeed bringing back the sci-fi/horror series to the small screen. Since that announcement there have been occasional updates on the project, revealing that Season 10 of The X-Files would be set 13 years after the original series and be a six-episode mini-series helmed by creator/producer Chris Carter, with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson returning to their roles as FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Though after releasing several teasers, FOX has finally revealed the first full-length trailer for The X-Files online, giving fans a better glimpse of the true return of Mulder and Scully.
As exciting as it is to see Mulder and Scully again, the first trailer for The X-Files doesn’t exactly showcase anything of note. Yes, we get to see the creepy hand of an extraterrestrial, a weird malformed alien/human baby and what appears to be the Smoking Man, one of the series’ most well-known and popular antagonists, but that’s really about it.
Though it’s somewhat difficult to discern specific details of what’s actually happening in the trailer, we can at least infer that Mulder never really stopped his investigations into the paranormal, and that he was still investigating the long running conspiracy that the Earth was being prepared for “colonization” by aliens in 2012. Now that 2012 has come and gone, it would be very interesting to learn what prevented the colonization from happening, and if the aliens, or “Colonists” as X-Files purists refer to them as, had a change of heart or something far more sinister planned.
I so want to believe that the return of The X-Files will be good. I really, truly want to believe that it will be. However, like many passionate X-Files enthusiasts, I was extremely disappointed by the last couple of seasons of the show and the atrocious 2008 film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe. Sorry, but I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of having the entire plot of a film revolve around transplanting some shmuck’s head onto a cadaver. Still, even as a lapsed X-Files fan, I can’t help but feel excited about the return of the series. While I’m hard pressed to believe that this mini-series can achieve the same level of quality that The X-Files did in its heyday, I’m hoping that it can at least provide a satisfying conclusion to what I consider to be one of the best television shows in last 20 years.
The X-Files returns January 24, 2016 on FOX.
