The X Files - I want to believe (I really did)

This came out ages ago, but I was kind of living in denial by not watching it. You see I am a big fan of the X-Files as it was. As I described in my post from a few months ago, the X Files was a seminal television series that combined great writing with episodic drama. It fitted in with the prevailing political mood of its time; it was perfectly suited to the mid 90s paranoia and governmental distrust in the western world.

I'm sad to say that this new film is a bit of a fail. There are too many nods to the original series to make it interesting for a casual viewer, and those nods are generally referring to events that took place in the final few seasons - when the series totally lost the plot - which alienate the hardcore fan too. I admit that there are a few nice touches for the avid fan - the mention of Luther Lee Boggs was particularly good - but they just highlighted how much this film really wasn't needed. When Skinner turns up near the end and helps out I think I was meant to rejoice at the return of a great character; I just sat there in the realisation that I hadn't seen him in anything since the X Files finished. Maybe he wasn’t a very good actor after all?

I turned my DVD player off thinking that they'd managed to miss what could have been a good opportunity to introduce this classic series to a new generation. By having a plot that looked more like a long 'paranormal event of the week' episode rather than reanimating the monster that is the alien conspiracy arc, they had a good chance to reach a non-fanboy audience. It just didn't work though.

What they should have done was gone for a slightly revisionist approach. Why not set the film in the middle of the original series, a new previously unseen case? Anderson and Duchovny don't look that much older so it wouldn't have been too much of a stretch. The producers might say that they didn't want to retread old ground; but then why make this film at all? At least then we wouldn't have to put up with the painful memory of the series' demise in its 8th and 9th seasons.

I've started watching my season 1 DVDs in protest.