The X-Files 2016: Episode 1 — My Struggle

Can I make a mild confession, here … ?

In amongst work, writing teasers, and everything else?

I like to — occasionally — watch a movie.

Or watch a TV show.

Back in the late 1990s, and early 2000s?

I’d be happily glued to a couple of genre shows: as, I suspect, were many people my age.

Buffy The Vampire Slayer, and its spinoff, Angel, as one pair of examples.

Another?   The ultra-geeky Robot Wars.

Yet others?   Twin Peaks, and that doyen of franchise genre TV, the various shades of the Star Trek franchise.

I think Dr Who’s suspension, between 1989 and 2005, got the BBC spending money on all sorts of things.

And — I seem to recall — airing them at about 6 o’clockish, on BBC2.

One of the series it aired?

Was the original The X-Files.

So that fact it’s gone and been given a new lease of TV life?

Meant I’d be glued to it, when it got aired on Channel 5, tonight …

~≈Â≈~

Episode 1 of the new series — My Struggle* — sees Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) contacted by former co-worker, and ex lover, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson): at the behest of their former FBI boss, Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi).

Seemingly?

Raising star of the US conservative blogosphere, Tad O’Malley (John McHale) is something of a UFO nut: and fan of Mulder’s.

He’s ALSO in contact with Sveta (Annet Mahendru): a multiple alien abductee who claims to have evidence — good evidence — of her claims.

Oh … 

O’Malley ALSO knows a very small group of scientists: who seem to have a good reason to be paranoid.

They’ve built a replica stealth UFO … 

~≈Â≈~

Now … 

Was this first episode of the rebooted X-Files any good?

Yes: I’d say so.

At least provisionally.

Speaking at the moment?

I’d have to say this initial episode seemed rather disjointed: but generally good.

After all, it’s reintroducing us to a pair of characters older viewers won’t have seen for a while: and that newer ones won’t necessarily be completely familiar with.

On top of this?

I originally saw the series when it was aired by the BBC: a non-commercial station, for those of us who don’t know, that has no adverts: or ad breaks.

So, for me?   The inevitable word from Channel Five’s sponsors did tend to spoil the flow.   Given, of course that Channel Five’s breaks were at different times to the breaks in the episode — or where the ads would be, on the show’s native Fox — meant I found it a touch … disjointed.

Still watchable: just a touch disjointed.

And, disjointed or otherwise?

This first episode was both enjoyable, something I hope to keep following … 

And something I hope will lead to more …







*        I couldn’t help but notice that this episode mentions ‘ultra fascists’ running the human/alien conspiracy that Mulder and Scully have battled over the course of the series.  Being vaguely familiar with history?   I also couldn’t help but remember that the phrase Mein Kampf† — the title of Nazi leader, Adolf Hitler’s autobiography, in which he defines and expands on his racist idealogy — translates as ‘My Struggle.’   Quite whether this has anything to do with the over-all arc of this rebooted series, only the next five episodes will show us.

†        To an extent?   I’ve always been curious to read the thing.   I personally abhor both Naziism, and the crimes the movement committed in the name of its leader, and of the ‘greater good’.   But believe to understand evil, sometimes one need to have a good look at it.   On the OTHER hand … ?   I think I’d rather not go near it, thank you …