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September 30, 2015 8:14 AM   Subscribe

 
They've aged well. It makes me wonder whether there's something they aren't letting me in on...
posted by biffa at 8:21 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I want to believe......that this won't be a terrible nostalgic driven mess.
posted by Fizz at 8:26 AM on September 30, 2015 [11 favorites]


I was about to post a very similar thought. If anything, Gillian Anderson seems to be even more beautiful today than she was back then.
posted by Paul Slade at 8:27 AM on September 30, 2015 [10 favorites]


Oh my god Skinner that beard. Stop. STOP.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:27 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I really wanted Joel McHale to be a new Lone Gunman.
posted by hot_monster at 8:29 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Gillian Anderson seems to be even more beautiful today than she was back then.

Go watch all three seasons of Hannibal right now. Go...we'll wait. You're welcome.
posted by Fizz at 8:31 AM on September 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


This trailer made me a little less excited for the show, but I'll still watch it to see if Kumail can hold his shit together in his scenes.

I also really want to know what Joel McHale is doing in the show. What possible role can he make work in the x-files universe? Asshole country cop?
posted by lownote at 8:34 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Those Mulder/Scully prom pictures are amazing, especially because there are SO MANY of them. Through all of the eras of the show, even.
posted by sleeping bear at 8:36 AM on September 30, 2015 [9 favorites]


"McHale will paly Tad O'Malley, the anchor of a popular conservative Internet news network who becomes an unlikely ally to Fox Mulder"

so uh Glenn Beck meets George Noory?
posted by griphus at 8:38 AM on September 30, 2015 [6 favorites]


0:06: Why is Joel McHale here?
0:44: This seems fine, I guess
1:04: Oh god Mulder and Scully and looking at each other, I'm a little excited.
1:42: Okay "The Truth is Still Out There" sort of works as a tagline, but not as well as they think
1:52: OH SHIT THE THEME MUSIC I AM UNCONTROLLABLY EXCITED
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 8:38 AM on September 30, 2015 [13 favorites]


so uh Glenn Beck meets George Noory?

Halloween is right around the corner, this is a cosplay mashup just waiting to happen. For anyone who does this, please share your pics.
posted by Fizz at 8:39 AM on September 30, 2015


I love how Gillian Anderson has a Scully voice and it is still exactly the same, so I will probably love this no matter what.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 8:43 AM on September 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


I want to believe......that this won't be a terrible nostalgic driven mess.

Darin Morgan, the writer of Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose and Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space', aka the only two 100% essential The X Files episodes, is scripting an episode. At least one of the six will be good.
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:43 AM on September 30, 2015 [15 favorites]


Halloween is right around the corner, this is a cosplay mashup just waiting to happen.

it needs to be done like an Abbott and Costello/Hardy Boys sort of thing

Beck and Noory and the Mysterious Chemtrail
Beck and Noory and the Gold Bug
Beck and Noory Meet Scooby Doo
posted by griphus at 8:48 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Oh, please, Noory is terrible at his job. Art Bell, however, is live on the Net.

Also, no Lone Gunmen in this trailer?

And is what I heard about the Season 10 comic book series true? Did the government help the Lone Gunmen fake their deaths in exchange for the Lone Gunmen's help with Stuxnet? Because, if so, that goes against so much of what the Lone Gunmen stood for.
posted by I-baLL at 8:51 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Skinner has apparently gone to the Patrick Stewart School of Aging.
posted by entropicamericana at 8:52 AM on September 30, 2015 [8 favorites]


Including 'Humbug,' Darin Morgan consistently delivered some of my favourite episodes. I'm really happy to hear he'll be back. My only hesitation is that he cornered the "monster of the week" market, which were always side-stories, and I hope there will be great economy of storytelling between these 6 new episodes. I don't think there will be time for a monster arc, but I could be wrong.
posted by iandennismiller at 8:52 AM on September 30, 2015


Holy shit I thought Art Bell was dead.

AFAIK they're retconning the Gunmen's deaths out and bringing them back; not sure if they're using anything from comics continuity, though.
posted by griphus at 8:53 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


More like Agent Molder
posted by The Devil Tesla at 8:55 AM on September 30, 2015


THE CONSPIRACY IS: HOW DID THEY MADE IT SO GOOD?

Mind control?
posted by blue_beetle at 9:12 AM on September 30, 2015


Also, no Lone Gunmen in this trailer?

They died back in the original series, remember?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:15 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Holy shit I thought Art Bell was dead.

Never mind Art Bell, I thought William B. Davis was dead. Also, didn't the Cigarette Smoking Man get hit with a missile? If he's back, surely the Lone Gunmen can come back too.
posted by anastasiav at 9:17 AM on September 30, 2015


It looks like they're bringing the Lone Gunman back, as IMDB says their actors got cast.
posted by mccarty.tim at 9:19 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Also, didn't the Cigarette Smoking Man get hit with a missile?

I'm guessing that was a very young cigarette smoking man. But it wouldn't be out of character for the CSM to somehow have survived that attack.
posted by nathan_teske at 9:20 AM on September 30, 2015


I wish I thought they had spent the intervening however-many-years thinking up an actual plot for the overarching-alien-conspiracy story. I suspect that they have spent them, instead, waiting for everybody to forget how much of a mess it was the last time they tried to wing it. But like everybody else, I am fond enough of the characters and the main cast that I will probably watch anyway. I have to say, the trailer didn't REALLY grab me until CSM.

And where CSM and Lone Gunmen both are concerned, if you didn't see a body, they're not dead. And if you DID see a body, it was probably a clone or some shit...
posted by Sing Or Swim at 9:29 AM on September 30, 2015 [4 favorites]


Needs more Krycek.


(one thing that I'm disappointed with the short number of episodes is that it will be A to B and no room for monsters of the week. I liked the mythology arc, but like with spiritual successor Fringe, the episodic bits where they explored their own universe and the lead characters themselves was more interesting than the ones where the big story advanced)
posted by lmfsilva at 9:30 AM on September 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


In this one Gillian Anderson looks like she doesn't understand the photograph or the series. These pix are hilarious.

Oh, and I can't wait to hear Mulder say "Motherfucker!" in a high voice...
posted by Mental Wimp at 9:36 AM on September 30, 2015


This sounds like it's going to be 6 episodes of mythos arc stuff but I suspect and really hope that the producers (et. al.) know that there are maybe a handful of die-hard fans who demand a direct continuation to season 9 as opposed to the much, much larger contingent of people who would prefer a clean-ish break from all the pitfalls of 90s-era serialized television that the X-Files stumbled into time and time and time again. I'd prefer MOTW but Mythos Arc stuff will be fine if they don't become slaves to a middling established continuity.
posted by griphus at 9:38 AM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


My only hesitation is that he cornered the "monster of the week" market, which were always side-stories, and I hope there will be great economy of storytelling between these 6 new episodes. I don't think there will be time for a monster arc, but I could be wrong.

Morgan's episode is called "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster"

I think we'll be okay.
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:45 AM on September 30, 2015 [9 favorites]


Go watch all three seasons of Hannibal right now. Go...we'll wait. You're welcome.

No, go watch The Fall! Probably still on the Netflix!

WARNING DANGEROUS LEVELS OF SWOON
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:52 AM on September 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


NO GO WATCH NO ROOM ON THE BROOM IT HAS SIMON PEGG IN IT AS WELL

AND YOU SHOULD NOT BE JUDGING ME RIGHT NOW
posted by robocop is bleeding at 9:55 AM on September 30, 2015


David Duchovney isn't looking too bad, either, but Gillian Anderson? OMG.

And that first picture of Anderson in what looks to be a bright blue polyester dress.
posted by maxwelton at 10:09 AM on September 30, 2015


Also, no Lone Gunmen in this trailer?

They died back in the original series, remember?


SPOILERRRSSSS

Maybe they'll come back as helpful guide ghosts for Mulder, like Yoda and Obi-Wan did for Luke.
posted by Elly Vortex at 10:17 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


I'm wondering how they're going to spin Scully's character as a skeptic now.

"Ok, Mulder, maybe you were right about aliens, ghosts, vampires, about six dozen individual cryptids and twelve out of fifteen major government conspiracies but there's no way this woman 'spontaneously combusted.' It's scientifically impossible!"
posted by griphus at 10:24 AM on September 30, 2015 [7 favorites]


Maybe they'll come back as helpful guide ghosts for Mulder, like Yoda and Obi-Wan did for Luke.

SPOILERRRSSSS
posted by entropicamericana at 10:26 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Hmm, I haven't watched the X-Files since they aired. Time for a rewatch I guess. I haven't even seen the last couple of seasons and only the first movie, I kinda lost interest after Duchovney left.
posted by Pendragon at 10:33 AM on September 30, 2015


I haven't watched X-Files since it aired, but I have read Monster of the Week. That's just as good, right?
posted by ckape at 10:42 AM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Oh, by the way, at least the first thirteen episode of X-Files Season 1 on Netflix are HD and widescreen and look amazing.
posted by griphus at 10:43 AM on September 30, 2015


"Ice" now may as well have been a mid-budget horror movie from the same year.
posted by griphus at 10:43 AM on September 30, 2015


Gillian and Mitch have aged beautifully, David ...well it supports my theory that Mulder spent the last ten years living out of his car.

Interesting how distinct that Scully Voice is, there isn't a trace of it in her as Bedelia in Hannibal, or as Stella in The Fall (ice queen analysist in one, Clarice Starling bisexual variant in the other)

Here's my list of the best stand alone, Gillian centric episodes for the Netflix watcher who wants to see the highlights. I could swap out Home for Eve 6 here but whatever
posted by The Whelk at 10:44 AM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


The ending of the X-Files soured me on it so much I never rewatched it at all. Personally, I think the reboot should just be a straight up, alien invasion is happening and Moulder and Scully and the crew lead the human resistance situation. You know, like V, only good.
But yeah, I'll tune in.
posted by vibrotronica at 10:46 AM on September 30, 2015


I'm wondering how they're going to spin Scully's character as a skeptic now.

"Now"? One of the most amusing things as the series went by was how Scully was always so stone-faced with the weird stuff happening around, particularly when Mulder was looking like a kid in a toy shop.
posted by lmfsilva at 10:55 AM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


>I haven't even seen the last couple of seasons and only the first movie, I kinda lost interest after Duchovney left.

I'm in the same boat, and I think it's probably for the best. I saw a couple episodes with Xena and the Terminator guy, and I decided on balance that the best thing to do was pretend that they never happened. It seemed like some kind of weird cult TV crossover, like when the Scooby Doo characters used to show up in The Superfriends, and Batman was all, "Good work, Shagg," and then you were like, "Now Batman can never be cool again." Anyway, I'm all in favor of pretending that everything after Duchovny left was just a crazy dream.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 11:38 AM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


aliens.
posted by The Whelk at 12:30 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


I also drifted away at the end and didn't see much of the later seasons either. I am thrilled to see others also reacting to "The Scully Voice"; it's compassion tinged with disappointment I think. One of the earliest uses for the internet for me was downloading Scully wav-files.
The truth is out there, but so are lies is an excellent example of Scully-voice.
posted by Iteki at 12:32 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


One of the earliest uses for the internet for me was downloading Scully wav-files.

Back in the day I had friends who changed their answering machine message a lot. There was one point when their outgoing message was, in its entirety, a recording of Scully saying "Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy." And that was it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:55 PM on September 30, 2015 [9 favorites]


okay yeah and there was a time when my "fatal error" message alert on my computer was a recording of Scully saying "You have just done something completely stupid".
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:56 PM on September 30, 2015 [5 favorites]


Will there be Asgard?
posted by clavdivs at 1:22 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


In times of crisis, I like to fall back on the mental device of WWSD (What Would Scully Do?) but every time I summon her in my mind to ask her for advice she only ever says "just keep reminding them that you were drugged."
posted by invitapriore at 2:14 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


> I saw a couple episodes with Xena and the Terminator guy, and I decided on balance that the best thing to do was pretend that they never happened.

I thought Robert Patrick's character and storyline was pretty well done, all-in-all, especially when compared next to Duchovny's increasingly obvious disinterest in the material. But Patrick is about all the last two seasons of the series have going for them.
posted by AndrewInDC at 2:19 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


>especially when compared next to Duchovny's increasingly obvious disinterest in the material

Yeah, I got nothing against Robert Patrick. For better or for worse, though, Duchovny and Anderson were the heart and soul of the show, so when Duchovny wasn't interested any more, neither was I.
posted by Sing Or Swim at 2:31 PM on September 30, 2015


I started a rewatch on Netflix a few weeks ago, and I'm just in to season 3 now. Because I was in elementary school when the X-Files started, "Tooms" scared the shit out of me so much I stopped watching (and taking escalators) until late middle school when I found some nerdy friends who were into it, and I picked it up again at the end of season 4. As a result I missed a lot of the conspiracy development that happened in the early seasons, so it's fascinating now to see it all taking shape chronologically. (And also to watch the M/S relationship develop. As hardcore a shipper as I have always been, as an adult I kind of appreciate that they took so long to admit there was anything romantic about it and just had develop as incredibly close friends who trust each other with their lives)

And yeah I was depressed but still trying to be game about everything after mid-season 6 though to be honest I couldn't tell you what happened in any single episode after that point because they just weren't memorable and too many didn't have the Mulder/Scully dynamic I was there for. Kinda the same with the movies. First movie I can probably still quote word for word. Second movie, if there was a plot other than "What? They're married or something?", I couldn't tell you what it was.

But I'm optimistic about this new miniseries. I think with the distance from the marketing momentum of the original series, there's less pressure to just produce for the sake of producing and instead it's a labor of love for everyone, including the actors, which was lacking so much in the late season it really affected the quality. I'm similarly optimistic about the new Star Wars. Check back with me in like February to see if I'm squee-ing all over the place with nostalgic excitement or if I'm locked in a dark room sobbing about the destruction of my childhood memories.

And ahh, these pictures. I had a few of these hanging in my locker in school. Also, Season 5/first movie Scully is pretty much my thought leader for hairstyling.
posted by olinerd at 4:14 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


One personal qualm seeing the teaser/trailer/preview/promo: Scully's hair, especially in close-up, is too light and too blond, just too Bedelia Du Maurier. Gillian Anderson is too good an actress at doing strikingly different parts to let her hair remind me of something else.
posted by oneswellfoop at 4:57 PM on September 30, 2015


I'm deeply hopeful for at least one episode as weird as the Great Mutato. Cue scary music.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:01 PM on September 30, 2015 [2 favorites]


Oh, also, Scully getting her tattoo was the most erotic event of 1997.
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 6:06 PM on September 30, 2015 [3 favorites]


Wow.
posted by wotsac at 8:18 PM on September 30, 2015


BTW we're doing a "highlights" mini-rewatch Sunday nights on FanFare. I've been too busy to post them for the last couple weeks but I'm back home now and this Sunday's planned episode is Jose Chung's From Outer Space. We'd welcome new participants! Current list of planned episodes is here and I am totally open to suggestions/additions/substitutions.

Jeff Winger on X-Files is going to be distracting as fuck. And I agree, I've waited so many years for this, Scully's hair really ought to be red one last time. But I guess who am I to tell Gillian Anderson what color her hair ought to be.

I think I may have had that FBI 80s cigarette ad printed out in my wallet for awhile in middle school. It seemed imperative at the time to have a pic of Mulder and Scully on me at all times, like, just in case?
posted by town of cats at 8:32 PM on September 30, 2015 [1 favorite]


Until I read this thread, I forgot that the second movie existed. I would like to re-forget this, please. But I also forgot about Skinner - and it's amazing he can still rock those glasses in 2015!

I was a high school exchange student in 2001-2002 and blissfully missed the last season(s?). I was so nerdy and homesick that I would download X-Files fanfiction when I had internet access, copy it to Wordpad, save it to 3.5 inch floppy disk, and then read it on the ancient PC in my bedroom. Mulder easily replaced Titanic-era Leonardo DiCaprio as my teenage crush, though in retrospect I should have just been faithful to Colin Firth, who was and remains the dreamiest.

But yes, I think I will fire up the Radio Shack antenna to try to get a FOX signal to my basement TV for this X-Files revival. DON'T SCREW IT UP, FOX.
posted by Maarika at 8:50 PM on September 30, 2015


This trailer made me a little less excited for the show, but I'll still watch it to see if Kumail can hold his shit together in his scenes.

Kumail Nanjiani, the guy who's been doing the X-Files Files podcast? I've only listened to the older episodes, so I was unaware that he was actually going to be in the new XFiles series.

Neat.
posted by Sleeper at 10:04 PM on September 30, 2015


THINGS NOT TO INCLUDE IN YOUR HYPE-GENERATING TRAILER FOR A REVIVED SHOW: "I've seen this before".
posted by comealongpole at 4:47 AM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


One thing that made this lady nod along to the song "David Duchovny, why don't you love me" is that Fox Mulder seemed so pure.

And then Duchovny did Californication and I don't know, it was like having a crush on somebody in high school and then you hear them saying some locker room shit and the all the air in the crush goes pfffffffffffffffft gone
posted by angrycat at 6:15 AM on October 1, 2015 [2 favorites]


I really liked Californication. Especially the first seasons.
posted by Pendragon at 7:19 AM on October 1, 2015


Fox Mulder seemed so pure.

Fox Mulder? The character whose porn addiction is a running gag, and who is doomed to die from autoerotic asphyxiation?
posted by brianrobot at 10:01 AM on October 1, 2015 [4 favorites]


I got into X-Files when it started getting released on DVD. At the advice of more than a few of my friends, all I've ever seen is seasons 1-5 and the first movie (well…okay, I watched the second movie when it came out, but it immediately got relegated to the same mental bin as any Highlander after the first one). The consensus at the time (and recently upheld) was that though there were a few good single episodes in seasons 6-9, overall it's really not worth watching beyond the first movie.

When the news of the new show broke, my wife and I decided to do a re-watch. We're midway through season three now, and will be taking the same approach: 1-5, first movie, done and ready for the new stuff.
posted by djwudi at 1:37 PM on October 1, 2015


When the news of the new show broke, my wife and I decided to do a re-watch. We're midway through season three now, and will be taking the same approach: 1-5, first movie, done and ready for the new stuff.

But if you stop there you'll miss...that one with the Christmas Ghosts and uh...that one where they go undercover using the names from The Dick van Dyke Show...and...yeah you got decent advice.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 1:46 PM on October 1, 2015


And then Duchovny did Californication and I don't know, it was like having a crush on somebody in high school and then you hear them saying some locker room shit and the all the air in the crush goes pfffffffffffffffft gone

Why am I suddenly thinking of J. Geils' "Centerfold"?
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:49 PM on October 1, 2015


Because you're about my age?
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 1:51 PM on October 1, 2015 [1 favorite]


But if you stop there you'll miss...that one with the Christmas Ghosts and uh...

I will say, actually, that as silly as that was, it did have a gloriously twisted image - Mulder and Scully, both stabbed in the stomach, possibly bleeding to death, crawling towards each other in what they think are their final moments - all scored to a schmaltzy recording of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". The rest of the episode was silly, but that was fantastic.

Although not as good as this one visual gag from the first season's "Roland" - the before-the-credits sequence featured a guy committing murder by grabbing another guy by the scruff of his neck and shoving his whole head into a big vat of liquid nitrogen, and them pulling him out, turning around, and just dropping him. BAM - opening credits, first couple ads from Fox, yadda yadda...

...and then when they came back from commercial, the very first thing you saw was the chalk outline of the guy's feet. The camera panned up the chalk outline, up the legs, to the torso, to the shoulders - and then the chalk outline cut off at the neck, and instead of a head there was a two-foot-diameter cluster of little chalk circles.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:55 PM on October 1, 2015


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