This is a mini-review of the 6-part limited series starring David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, which premieres on Sunday, January 24th. Unfortunately, there's not much need for a maxi-review. While I should acknowledge up front that I've only seen the pilot episode of the new season, I don't have much confidence that that the remaining five episodes will change my opinion.
I was really looking forward to the show, as I was a fan of the original incarnation about two FBI agents, one a believer, one a skeptic, investigating paranormal cases while untangling a seemingly massive conspiracy.
Actually, I should say that I was a fan of the first seven or eight seasons of the show, before it completely went off the rails by getting muddled about its own mythology and bringing on Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish to replace the mostly departed Duchovny.
The hope was that almost 15 years after the original concluded, creator Chris Carter would have something interesting to say about our modern surveillance state, ecological destruction, nefarious terrorist groups and anonymous hacker collectives, all of which would seem to be natural fodder for a show that used the fear of an alien invasion as a prism to explore our own man-made anxieties.
But alas, the first episode feels oddly limp, retrenching into the same tired tropes that marked the end of the series. There's a possible government cover-up of possible alien life. There are possible abductions. There are authority figures who automatically roll their eyes at Mulder's theories. Worse, after everything they've been through, Duchovny's Fox Mulder and Anderson's Dana Scully seem to have reverted to their original, start-of-series personas- believer and skeptic. How is that possible after everything they've seen and done together? It defies narrative logic.
Even the most promising part of the premiere, Joel McHale playing an Alex Jones-style, conspiracy theorist talk radio host, has a dull flatness to him. It's as if he was ordered not to betray even a hint of the rakish, acidic charm that made his "Community" character, Jeff Winger, so much fun. Why cast him then?
Maybe the remaining episodes will kick off the rust and get that spooky paranoid vibe going. And my goodwill toward the series will keep me sticking around for at least a couple more. But they don't have much time to salvage this and nothing I've seen suggests they can.
If that dynamic holds, we'll have to file this case under "missed opportunity."
C+
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