The X-Files 2018: Bringing The Franchise Up To Date?

Given that the 2016 comeback season was accused as being “more-of-the-same”, will the X-Files 2018 – aka Season 11, bring the 1990s era iconic sci-fi series relevant again in the 21^st Century? 

By: Ringo Bones 

The 2016 return of the iconic 1990s era sci-fi TV series The X-Files - aka Season 10 – was accused of the only thing contemporary about it was the “Dubya Bush style neo-conservative Islamophobia” of one particular episode. But despite of this, the series’ core audience who were there in its heyday back in the 1990s welcomed it with open arms – and even managed to generate a sizable number of new fans and thus an upcoming season slated for broadcast at Fox in January 3, 2018. Will the so-called new 2018 The X-Files finally bring the franchise into the 21^st Century? 

When filming began in August 2017 in Vancouver, British Columbia, the presses were back then greeted by a progressive move by the series’ top bass – i.e. the hiring of women directors given the dearth since the series began in 1993. Only time will tell if the 2018 season of The X Files could outdo its predecessors.

Is Hillary Clinton a Secret X-Files Fan?

While the story has been around since the beginning of 2016 about Hillary Clinton reveal secret UFO files once elected to the White House – is Hillary Clinton a secret X-Files fan? 

By: Ringo Bones 

Since the end of World War II, there has long been an air of conspiracy surrounding theories of alien / extraterrestrial life, and back in April 8, 2016, the head of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign – John Podesta said it’s time to do away with the secrecy. While appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Clinton herself pledged to “get to the bottom” of whether rumors of US contact with extraterrestrial life were true – which also makes one wonder if Hillary Clinton is also an X-Files fan? 

Ever since the Roswell Incident of 1947, the US government having established secret contact with extraterrestrial life and/or having access to their advanced technology have become an ever growing urban legend that have fueled many a science fiction narrative that’s still going strong until this very day. But it was probably during the Bill Clinton presidency of the 1990s that conspiracy theorists of every persuasion got convinced that there might be something to this Area 51 / Majestic 12 brouhaha – not just because the runaway success of Chris Carter’s The X-Files TV series or Independence Day and Men In Black movies but also that 1995 era “official revelation” that the “Roswell UFO Crash” was actually a secret US government program called Project Mogul which is all about balloon-born sensors to listen for secret Soviet era clandestine nuclear weapons testing. Given the Clinton Administration era subterfuge, why is it that US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton’s promise to reveal secret UFO files will be different this time? 

Unbeknown to most conspiracy buffs, it was during the first term of Bill Clinton’s presidency – back when Hillary Clinton was still the First Lady – that the Clinton administration managed to do the near impossible – i.e. managed to get an “environmental audit” of Area 51 – the famed top secret U.S. Air Force Groom Lake, Nevada facility rumored to house crashed remains of advanced extraterrestrial craft secured by the US government since the Roswell Incident of 1947. Thanks to this move by then US President Bill Clinton the top brass of Area 51 finally stopped using ozone depleting chemicals in the maintenance of their planes and other assets in favor of more ozone friendly options by the mid 1990s. If her husband managed to do that, then there’s a fighting chance that Hillary Clinton’s UFO revelations might be more substantial to their mid 1990s era counterparts – unless of course if you prefer Donald Trump style revelations of pulling stuff out of his own ass.

The New X-Files Season: No New ground Broken?

Even though it may have rekindled a sense of nostalgia to those who have seen it first hand, but does the new X-Files have something to offer to new prospective fans? 

By: Ringo Bones

Even though the previous X-Files season ended way after 9/11, it seems that post 9/11 issues had never been tackled in-depth though when Chris Carter made one tackling the issue in the so-called Season 10, it managed to raise some anger in the world’s online social networks. Especially to Muslims on the other side of the Atlantic who thinks that they are unfairly stereotyped in one of the most interesting episodes of the series – titled Babylon – where it managed to raise the post 9/11 unfair stereotype that all terrorist are Muslims. But to some people, Mulder’s drug-taking exercise in order to perform a so-called “mind-meld” to a terror suspect in a coma after a failed suicide bombing attempt seems to be a critique of the origins of Abrahamic Theology, which many claim to be nothing more than the result of some Stone-Age holy man taking Psychoactive substances and seeing God. 

It may not be as memorable and nostalgia as Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster episode – and that very episode may well be the very one that can attract new converts who didn’t experience first hand the 1990s era X-Files mania, but it seems quite inevitable that Chris Carter might express his own political satire against organized religion through one of the X-Files episodes and this could be a good place as any. Given that there are plans to create more episodes, I just hope that Chris Carter will be courageous enough to make episodes that make everyone – not just X-Files fans – question the status quo. Even if “the truth is out there”, most of us are actually seeing it through a prism manipulated by the powers-that-be.

The X-Files Series Reboot In the Works?

Given that David Duchovny already “spilled the beans” when he was a guest at The Late Show With David Letterman back in April 1, 2015, will there be an X-Files reboot for TV?

By: Ringo Bones

Well, its official, David Duchovny is gearing up to become Mulder once again with “The X-Files” revival going into production this summer, and he admits he’s always wanted the show to return. And it’s a high-time already for long-suffering X-Files fans.

“We always wanted to keep it going,” Duchovny told Variety on Thursday at NBC’s Summer Press Day in Pasadena, Calif., where he was on site to promote his upcoming drama “Aquarius,” which premieres May 28. “We always envisioned a movie franchise when we stopped the TV show, and we did two — the second one did well, but I guess not well enough to do a third, and we were all kind of disappointed that didn’t happen that way.”

“The X-Files” reboot will return to Fox with original creator Chris Carter for six episodes, which Duchovny says was appealing to him. “Television started to change in that now there are limited runs.” He added: “I think it’s the way the networks have to survive in the future. I think you can attract the talent you want by having a shorter season and you can tell more interesting stories.”

“I would never have gone and done another 22 episodes of ‘X-Files,'” Duchovny admits, “but we’re going to do six — well, that’s like doing a movie. That’s like continuing the show in a way that we all can do at this point in our lives so that’s it all came about.”

However, don’t rule out the franchise continuing beyond the six-episode run.

“Six to me sounds very doable at any walk of my life. It’s not a great hardship in terms of time,” he said. “I would hope it will be successful, I would hope we could continue, but right now, I’m just looking at it, as these six, and then we’ll see what happens.”

Since the original series went off the air in 2002, television has also evolved in numerous ways, including with regard to depictions of violence. So will the revival push boundaries?

“I suppose so,” Duchovny responded to reporters. “I’m not a violence fan, and I don’t look at it so much so I don’t think about it. I’ve seen some images from ‘Hannibal,’ he said, giving a nod to his co-star Gillian Anderson’s gruesome NBC thriller. “I think that’s well within what we need. I can’t imagine us wanting to get any weirder and darker than that, so I feel like we’re fine.”

Speaking of Anderson, Scully is returning, of course, but who else can fans expect to see in the upcoming series?

Duchovny stopped by “The Late Show With David Letterman” back in April 1, 2015 and revealed a few returning characters. “Mitch Pileggi will come back,” he said on the talk show, referring to the actor who played FBI assistant director Walter Skinner, plus “the Cigarette-Smoking Man — if this means anything to anyone — will be coming back,” he said.

But today, Duchovny coiled back a bit on the spoilers.

“I’m not even sure they’re signed up yet. I guess I spoke out of turn,” he fessed up. “But I assume they will. I assume we’ll have as many people as we can. The show is the show.”

How about “Breaking Bad’s” Vince Gilligan, who served as an exec producer and writer on the original “X-Files”?

“I don’t know. I don’t know,” he said, adding that he’s also not clear on the format, but assumes the limited event series will be a combination of standalone episodes, along with a recurring arc throughout.

The return of “The X-Files” marks just one of many TV revivals in the works. “Coach,” starring Craig T. Nelson, will return to NBC, “Twin Peaks” with Kyle McLachlan is coming back on Showtime and a “Full House” series is rumored to be in the pipeline at Netflix.

“I don’t know how I feel about this trend, but I feel that ‘The X-Files’ never really went away,” Duchovny told Variety. “It was always like people kept on talking about it.”

“I feel like so many shows have come out of ‘The X-Files,'” he adds. “So much of not only TV, but film, has taken a turn into science fiction and superheroes. ‘Twilight,’ to me, comes out of ‘The X-Files.’ So I figured, why not us?”

The X-Files I Want To Believe – Not?

Even though it dealt with the “lesser-known” / “less popular” aspects of the iconic TV series, does the second 2008 The X-Files feature film begs the question, “when is an X-Files movie not an X-Files movie? 

By: Ringo Bones 

It did receive mixed reviews by most of the fans and critics alike when the series creator Chris Carter decides to make a feature film about the more esoteric subject matter of the iconic TV series The X-Files. As the film premiered back in July 23, 2008 when it was already more than five years since the final episode of the TV series aired, most – if not all – The X-Files fans had been left wondering after seeing it if it was actually an X-Files movie at all as opposed to some J.J. Abrams style reboot. 

Even though The X-Files TV series is more famously known for its theme of the U.S. government denial / lack of full disclosure of the U.F.O. crash at Roswell, New Mexico back in July 20, 1947, Chris Carter’s The X-Files is also known for tackling other topical uncomfortable subject matters like “Christian Terrorism” during the wake of Timothy McVeigh’s terror attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City back in April 19, 1995 – not to mention Special Agent Fox Mulder’s “inexplicable” knowledge of Christian hagiography and Christian historicism supposedly reserved only for ordained priest and higher-echelon members of the clergy. 

There’s maybe a dearth of C.I.A. recovered alien technology cover-up in the movie The X-Files I Want To Believe, but other “B-List” The X-Files subjects are tackled with a scrutiny akin to that of the series’ mid 1990s heyday. Like the largely unknown to the general public but quite successful science of xeno-transplantation done by both the United States and the then Soviet Union during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Not to mention clairvoyance / telepathy / remote viewing in which the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency spent millions in scientific research and evaluation of the phenomena during the first half of the 1970s on what is now known to the general public as “Project Stargate”. All in all, The X-Files I Want To Believe probably only appeals to the smarter / nerdy echelons of The X-Files fanbase still fascinated with F.B.I. agents Mulder and Scully’s quite esoteric but thinly-veiled critique of Organized Christianity.      

Would The X-Files Be An Anachronism In The Obama Administration?

The “Christian Terrorists” and their ilk that bombed the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building seem to be the terror threat du jour for Clinton era TV series The X-Files, but is The X-Files just too anachronistic for the Obama administration?

By: Ringo Bones

 President Obama never seems to be plagued by “Christian Terrorism” for much of his tenure – unlike the Clinton administration and The X-Files who tackled the “Christian Terrorists” who brought us the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building bombing and other related treasons. But does the really austere fiscal environment of the Obama administration even make the salient political themes tackled in the TV series The X-Files seem hopefully too anachronistic by comparison?

Though there are a lot of “challenges” that the fictitious FBI agents Mulder and Scully missed to tackle that were de rigueur threat to “civil liberties enthusiasts” during the Dubya Bush administration before they signed off – i.e. rogue private security contractors, extraordinary renditions, etc. But will it spur on a reboot of The X-Files franchise probably by JJ Abrams?

Eight Reasons Why The X-Files Is Totally Unbelievable Back In The Mid 1990s

A lot of things may had happened since September 11, 2001 to dissuade the typical conspiracy nut but are there reasons why The X-Files was totally unbelievable during its heyday back in the mid 1990s?

By: Ringo Bones 

A lot of stuff may had happened since the September 11, 2001 WTC Terror Attacks or the Bush administration’s Quixotic search of WMDs in Iraq that resulted in the deaths of over a million Iraqi citizens, but did you know that there could be eight – or more – reasons why Chris Carter’s iconic TV series The X-Files was, and still is, totally unbelievable during its heyday back in the mid 1990s? Check out the following reasons: 

It’s a TV show about US government employees who are competent, committed and hard-working! This alone is a red-flag for unbelievability. 

There have been scores of UFO sightings on the show, but not a single one was made by a drunken redneck in a pickup truck! Well, maybe its just because this was back in the days before affordable mobile phone cameras came into vogue. 

The character oft referred to as the “Cigarette-Smoking Man” never gets hassled, no matter where or when he lights up! Or maybe the “tobacco lobby” was just as powerful as the gun lobby as today back then. Ever wondered how much America’s tobacco companies donated to erect Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut? 

A “hot sexy babe” like agent Scully surely would have been singled out for “special” Clinton White house duty way before then President Clinton’s second term! Instead, then President Clinton has just have to settle with that “reasonably attractive” then White House intern named Monica Lewinsky. 

The government that’s supposedly behind some grand, secret project involving the DNA documentation and collection of everyone born since 1954 is the same government behind the IRS, Ronald Reagan era 600 US dollar hammers, the ATF Waco cult raid debacle and the Richard Jewell investigation! Well, most conspiracy buffs still don’t even know about explosive self-destruct buildings that are built into US government buildings. Maybe those scores of unbelievable conspiracy theories are yet to come.  

The series is in its fourth season, and the two attractive, single lead characters STILL haven’t hopped into the sack! Well, FBI agents Mulder and Scully eventually “hopped into the sack” during The X-Files’ finale, but it is not a hot, torrid sex scene circa 1990s era primetime TV that everyone hoped for. 

Anyone as obsessed as FBI agent Fox Mulder is with aliens and other crazy conspiracy theories would definitely rater be working for iconic movie director Oliver Stone or the iconic supermarket tabloid The Weekly World News, not the Feds! Or maybe Fox Mulder is one of the FBI’s “very special agents”. 

Back then, The X-Files was a FOX show that’s consistently in the Top 20! Quite a feat given that NBC had virtually monopolized the American primetime TV schedule block back in the mid 1990s.

A lot of us may have still something to add any post 9/11 factoid that only strengthens the air of unbelievability behind the aura of The X-Files. For those who do, please post them in here whether you believe the truth is out there or in here.