Creator As Destroyer

-



REVIEW: The X-Files - The Event Series (Season 10)
George Lucas was criticized by some for wrecking Star Wars when he made the prequel trilogy.  Everything he had built up in the first trilogy collapsed.

 Chris Carter, meet George Lucas.  

 Chris tried to continue his X-Files TV series as a theatrical movies series.  The last one was disappointing: X-Files - I Want A Refund.

 So back to the small screen.

 The first season of the X-Files started off with a relatively simple premise: evil aliens are working with the US government.  Then as the series continued Chris kept adding to his "mythology," adding more details until it was too convulated to explain even to some fans.  He was like a crazed house builder, adding on new extensions and wings that sometimes connected back to each other, creating not a home but a maze.

 Thirteen years later Chris brings back his creation as a six episode mini-series.  As with each season of the original series he bookends the latest run, the first episode introducing a new revelation and the last one ending up with a cliffhanger.

 Even Chris has said the X-F mythology grew spontaneously, no master plan, resulting in an entangled mess.  Black oil, alien bounty hunters, alien rebels, disease-carrying bees -- the list goes on ad nauseam.  If the series had started more recently it would somehow throw in the ice bucket challenge.

 It seems Chris wanted to go back to a simpler set-up with the first episode of Season 10.  Fox Mulder learns that everything he thought he knew about the alien invasion is wrong; the whole thing is a governmental hoax.

 Sound familiar?  This same plotline was used in Season 5's first two episodes, Redux 1 and 2.

 Chris has stated that with the latest season he wasn't bound to everything that went on before.  Apparently he wanted a simpler set up. Ergo black oil, alien bounty hunters, etc. were flushed down a black hole.

 So the conspiracy is now more earthbound, humans not aliens are the villains.

 Ho hum.

 Somehow Mulder and his partner -- former redhead Dana Scully -- are re-instated in the FBI, the X-Files reopened.  Sorry, that's too convenient and implausible considering Mulder's previous shenanigans.  It would be more believable if he continued with his own X-Files, sometimes being an consultant to the FBI.

 Somehow the lead villain, the Cigarette Smoking Man, is back.  Huh?  The last time we saw him was enveloped in flames.  There would nothing left but a carbon smudge.  Maybe he went to hell but Satan kicked him out for violating the no smoking policy.

 The mini-series reintroduces the concept of alien DNA present in humans but the concept is tweaked again.  Also there's the return of the global plot to wipe out most of mankind with disease while the elite survive.  Last episode in Season 10, the cliffhanger: disease is rampant, the world is in chaos, Mulder is infected and dying.  His partner Scully is trying to save him but she's startled to see an alien space craft hovering overhead, apparently showing up to abduct her.  Again.

 Ho-hum.

 I think Chris should have followed DC Comics' example and hit the reboot button, destroying the entire universe to start anew.

 Not all is lost with Season 10.  If you enjoyed the comedic episodes of the X-Files then "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" is recommended.  Not as great as "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" but fairly close.

(Originally published in Ray X X-Rayer #126.)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
Image
Jim Moseley: Flying Saucer Farewell I'll miss my late night phone conversations with Jim Moseley. Despite trying to track how he was doing in his fight against cancer I didn't hear the bad news until yesterday. Jim died on November 16, 2012. One of my regrets that I never had the opportunity to visit him in Key West and spend a day with him. Even though we never met in person, he was a friend. I mainly knew Jim as a voice on the phone -- and, of course, as the writer-editor of the zine Saucer Smear (and also as the author of postcards he sent to me marked PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL). Jim was around at the dawn of ufology -- or as the topic was called way back then, flying saucers. Parts of the field he couldn't accept, personalities way out there without anything real to back them up. For example, George Adamski. Jim was critical of "ufoology." Through his writings Jim made friends and enemies. His humor and tell-it-like-it-is attitude didn'
Read more
-
Image
Jesus Photo Jesus Christ died in 33 CE. French physicist Joseph Nicephore Niepce created the first known permanent photograph on metal in 1826 CE. Ergo, there are no photos of the living Jesus. But not when it comes to supernaturalism, especially of the New Age kind. After reading the non-fiction work When Prophecy Fails , I wanted to find out more about the people described in the book. Their names had been changed but with some Googling I discovered that the actual appellation of “Mrs. Marion Keech,” the leader of the doomsday flying saucer cult in the 1950s, was Dorothy Martin. After her prophecies failed in Chicago, Dorothy Martin moved on but kept channeling Jesus Christ – or the being whose real name, she believed, was Sananda. She ended up in South America, living in the Yucatan, with a new name: Sister Thedra. Jesus (AKA the Ascended Master Sananda) appeared to Thedra and cured her of terminal cancer. To prove that she hadn’t been dreaming, Jesus appeared in tangible form
Read more
-
Image
Fortean Three: North Country Odd Events They say bad things happen in a series of three. Looks like odd events can follow that pattern. Recently the North Country – the corner of New York State where I live, hinterlands bordered by Canada and Lake Champlain – has popped up in the news of the weird and extraordinary. Someone saw a black panther in the Lake Placid area. Not an indigenous critter in these parts. According to an article in the Lake Placid News dated 4/24/08, Tsermaa Plumley thought she heard a bear prowling around their property on Schaefer Road in Keene. Her husband Dan investigated to see what kind of animal was in the compost. They were surprised to see a large alien black cat (or ABC to use the Fortean abbreviation). The mysterious black panther left; no one was harmed, just startled. ( http://www.cryptomundo.com/cryptozoo-news/placid-panther/ ) The day before (4/23/08) WPTZ-TV in Plattsburgh reported that a local student videotaped an UFO at night. Mysteriou
Read more