X-Files 6-episode TV revival upgrades to must-see status GEEK NEWSLETTER

[Reefa]

Team X-Files is getting the band back together!

We previously heard that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were returning with series creator Chris Carter to do a 6-episode TV mini-series like Fox did with 24: Live Another Day. Since we last spoke, more details have emerged about the X-Files revival and the production has added some key players from the early seasons sweet spot of the original series.

Carter has confirmed that Mitch Pileggi will return as Walter Skinner and William B. Davis will return as the Cigarette Smoking Man, though I’m pretty sure he got blown up, so who knows how that’s going to happen. Carter told the Vancouver Sun in a phone interview that CSM would be back “in a particular X-Files way.”

That sounds great because Carter also confirmed this mini-series will mix an “ongoing Mulder and Scully conspiracy saga” with “standalone episodes,” adding, “It will all be of a piece, meaning that it won’t feel disconnected.” If I get a good alien conspiracy along with some monsters, I’ll be ready to go. Then again, a “conspiracy saga” doesn’t necessarily mean THE X-Files Conspiracy lives on (AKA world colonization by an alien race), just that there is some conspiracy Mulder and Scully and maybe the kid they have together get caught up in.

Carter said there was a “big chance” The Lone Gunmen will also return for the series, and what better source for a creepy new mystery than a group of characters whose March 4th 2001 spin-off show was about the US government conspiring to fly a plane into the World Trade Center and blame it on Terrorists. The show was cancelled before September.

No, really, The Lone Gunmen was kind of on to 9/11. It’s still creepy.

Maybe the biggest news about The X-Files Revival involves the people working behind the scenes. TV Line reports that writer-producers Glen Morgan and James Wong, veterans from the first seasons, have joined the revival.

If you were a fan of the X-Files during it’s original run, you know that Morgan and Wong teamed up to write some of the all-time classic episodes of the show. And like everything worthy of fandom in the mid nineties, the pair have at least one Angelfire Page dedicated to their greatness.

Morgan and Wong produced the first truly scary “monster of the week” episode, “Squeeze,” and arguably the best Season 1 Scully episode “Beyond the Sea.” The latter is especially notable for essentially being a twist on Silence of the Lambs (which, as us elders say, was the style at the time) but doesn’t feel like Silence of the Lambs thanks to the focus on Scully’s faith.

The duo also wrote what was probably the most traumatizing thing I saw on Fox as a child (and Fox was new, so they were showing a lot of traumatizing stuff like animal attacks and whatnot…was the style at the time). I’m talking about the fourth season episode “Home” that was filmed in black and white and had a plot that relied heavily on incest. “Home” was the first X-Files episode to get a Viewer Discretion warning before the show and has since been the only episode to be broadcast with a TV-MA rating.

“Home” was such a boundary-pushing episode that Fox didn’t re-air the show after its initial viewing, so for a short time in pre-internet 1997, it existed as an oddity you either videotaped or you didn’t.

According to TV line, Morgan and Wong won’t be pairing up for any episodes on the Revival’s run, unfortunately. Morgan is on as another executive producer alongside Chris Carter and both Morgan and Wong will get to write and direct one episode apiece.

With the thrilling news that Morgan and Wong will return, the other diamond in the rough the X-Files discovered – Breaking Bad‘s Vince Gilligan – crushes our hopes once again. He’s too busy on other things to take on the X-Files Revival in time for it to shoot this summer or fall.

But that’s okay. I’ve got my key players from the first three seasons involved, so I’m in regardless.

geek.com

[funkyy]

I must be one of the 3 humans on the planet who has NEVER seen a single episode of X-Files!!! I saw the two movies though (both so-so). I'll probably try and see this revival though...hope it lives up to expectations. :)