Just watched the X-Files S10E01 (the first episode of the new mythology arc). Well... the picture has been pretty bleak so far. The 9th season, if you remember, ended, after much buildup, on a very anticlimactic note. The new season attempts to continue, 14 years later, where the last one left off, even with the same nostalgic intro. The supposed plot twist (human conspiracy instead of alien conspiracy) could have been promising, presenting the whole story from a completely different angle, but, as portrayed here, it seems forced and has what appears to be a very loose connection with the preceding arcs, from Abduction to Super Soldiers. Moreover, the actors' behavior and the mood in general is one of exhaustion (as Scully bluntly puts forward at the end of the episode), with an unlikely appearance by Joel McHale as a conspiracy-fighting media figure (why no Alison Brie as an alien abductee, if we're in the Community territory? ;) Mulder talks in a monotonous voice, Scully looks jaded, and Skinner has words "What am I even doing here?" written all over his face. Then there's the new story that Tad O'Malley and Mulder pitch to Scully (for some reason, talking in a tabloid fashion), throwing in everything from an H-Bomb to an accidental photo of Edward Snowden. "Explosions acting as transducers, drawing alien life forms through wormholes in spaceships using electrogravitic propulsion"... right. I don't think throwing in as much scientific-looking words as possible en-chances the credibility either. "Fearmongering claptrap, isolationist techno- paranoia" is Scully's verdict, and I can't help but agree. Why haven't Mulder, Scully and Skinner been assassinated yet? Why 'mislead' them for decades, instead of simply eliminating the danger? Does the Now-Smoking-Cigarette-through-the-Throat man still have a sweet spot for Mulder after all those years? How does a government conspiracy correspond with the black oil or virus-carrying bees from the previous seasons? If the past experience is any indication, these questions may be left unanswered in the next mythology episode, S10E06.
Review of My Struggle
