More conspiracy theories than aliens...Someone should investigate why the ‘re-boot’ of The X Files was such a mess, by Jim Shelley 

The return of Mulder & Scully in the new ‘re-boot’ of The X Files was full of surprises.

For the most part there were no aliens for a start – unless you count Scully who appeared to suggest that, far from being the sceptic she used to be, was actually partly comprised of alien DNA - Gillian Anderson always was kind of odd.

As for her partner in the FBI’s investigation unit, whose obsession with the mysterious abduction of his sister had driven the series from 1993-2002, Fox Mulder had come to the conclusion: ‘what if there is no alien conspiracy? What if everything we’ve been lead to believe about The X Files is untrue?’

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The return of Mulder & Scully in the new ‘re-boot’ of The X Files was full of surprises. For the most part there were no aliens for a start - bar Scully who appeared to be half-alien

This was such a strange premise for the comeback of The X Files you felt someone should look into this rather than the existence of extraterrestrials.

‘All that time I was being led by my nose, down a dark alley, to a dead end,’ he told Scully, sparking a mixed metaphor alert. ‘All these years we’ve been deceived.’

On this evidence you wondered if perhaps he was right – and the original X Files had been nonsense all along.

It really was a mess, a horrible hotchpotch with more convoluted conspiracy theories than actual aliens. Where the X Files was concerned, this seemed like Dr. Who with no monsters.

‘I figured it out,’ he babbled at one point. ‘It all makes complete sense.’

This was debatable.

All the tech but no aliens: It really was a mess, a horrible hotchpotch with more convoluted conspiracy theories than actual aliens. Where the X Files was concerned, this seemed like Dr. Who with no monsters

The theories Mulder had replaced this with were arguably even more wacko/paranoid and, more importantly, certainly less entertaining or exciting in terms of good TV, making the ‘re-boot’ a horrible hotchpotch of convoluted conspiracy theories and frankly dull idealistic hokum.

As the episode progressed he came to believe that any aliens out there or visiting the planet had been ‘concerned for mankind’, and that the real threat came from ‘a well-armed, multi-national, uber-violent, fascist elite.’

This multi-national group was plotting to ‘use aerial contaminants and high altitude electro-magnetic waves’ to start ‘a global warming scenario that leads us to the brink of extinction’, and was then going to ‘move off the planet into space’ - which they had ‘already weaponised’ against ‘the poor, humble, masses of humanity’ it hadn’t ‘exterminated’?

Hey it could happen….

They were going to do all this using the technology copied from the alien and spaceship retrieved from the notorious 1947 Roswell ‘incident’/nonsense.

Back to the forties: Mulder's theories now focused on Elites rather than a series of cover ups

And if a sinister organisation such as this, did indeed exist, its first move would be ‘a takeover of America.’

‘It will probably start on a Friday,’ stressed Tam O’Malley, Mulder’s surprisingly unlikeable new sidekick, right-wing ranter and host of Truth Squad.

No wonder it was left to Scully to act as the voice of reason (even if she was part alien), telling Mulder this was ‘bogus and stupid, isolationist paranoia’ and ‘fear-mongering clap-trap’.

She had already described her relationship with Mulder to O’Malley as‘quite honestly the most impossible’ one she had ever had. So much for their famous ‘chemistry’.

For the start of the new re-boot, it did not bode well.

A real lesson: Alien aren't as intelligent as we've been lead to believe as they keep getting spotted! Something Mulder pointed out: ‘There are 10,000 sightings each year in North America alone’

Here are 10 more key lessons we learned from Episode One.

1. Aliens aren’t as intelligent as we’ve been lead to believe

‘There are 10, 000 sightings each year in North America alone,’ claimed Mulder, adding even more problematically ‘and so it’s been since the dawn of time – in the Stone Age and even Biblical references.’

Which poses the question: if aliens are so intelligent, why are they always being spotted?

2. ‘Screen memories’ used on their victims by aliens don’t really work

The same applied to ‘screen memories’ – which, according to Sveta, were planted in the minds of abductees to blank out what had happened to them. Damn, they’re good, you thought. Until Sveta mentioned moments ‘still come back to me’ – ‘the tests, the harvesting, the stuff.’ The ‘stuff’ sounded particularly alarming.

Screen memories: Damn, they’re good, you thought. Until Sveta mentioned moments ‘still come back to me’ – ‘the tests, the harvesting, the stuff.’ The ‘stuff’ sounded particularly alarming...

Stuck in time: The problem with the re-boot is that we’ve got bigger, more urgent, world issues to worry about than conspiracies and aliens

3. Aliens are so 1990s

To back his belief in their existence, Mulder cited such authorities as eventual US President Gerald Ford, Cyrus Vance and ‘the 6th man to walk on the moon’ Dr Edgar Mitchell. He also said mournfully: ‘but now people only laugh. Only Roswell is remembered.’ This was true - as this storyline (about Roswell) proved and was in fact the problem with a re-boot of The X Files. ‘Now we must ask ourselves: are they really a hoax? Are we truly alone? Or are we being lied to?’ might have seemed urgent to him but to be honest we’ve also got bigger, more urgent, world issues to worry about.

4. The X Files was not worth bringing back – especially for just six episodes

The obvious question the re-boot of The X Files inspires is not so much ‘do aliens exist?’ but ‘why did they bother bringing it back?’ The 2008 movie was a dud and the plots had nowhere left to go.

‘You ran the X Files. You were the X Files. You all but wrote the book,’ Tam O’Malley told Mulder. Oh the irony.

‘We’ve moved on with our lives,’ Scully observed dryly.

‘Yes we have,’ agreed Mulder. ‘For better, for worse.’

‘Well that’s besides the point,’ O’Malley countered.

‘What IS the point ?’ wondered Mulder.

With dialogue like that, a very good question.

Was it worth bringing back? The obvious question the re-boot inspires is not so much ‘do aliens exist?’ but ‘why did they bother bringing it back?’ The 2008 movie was a dud and the plots had nowhere left to go.

5. X Files creator Chris Carter seems to have forgotten the original point of the show

‘My name is Fox Mulder,’ David Duchovny opened in his clichéd and quickly abandoned voiceover. ‘I’ve been obsessed by a controversial phenomenon since my sister disappeared when I was 12 years old, in what I believe was an alien abduction.’ For new viewers this must have sounded promising. Sadly, Samantha Mulder was never mentioned again as Mulder and Carter forgot all about her. We were none-the-wiser about Scully & Mulder’s son William too.

6. The character of Sveta was not so much ‘mysterious’ as being made up as they went along

Sveta had, supposedly, been abducted and impregnated by aliens, and was ‘the key’ according to Mulder - and certainly her rubber stomach was full of probe-holes.

‘I have alien DNA for sure,’ she said.

Ever the scientist and the sceptic, Scully was less convinced.

‘Have you had a doctor confirm that?’ she asked.

What do you think?!

‘No....I can move things with my mind,’ she added.

‘Would you care to demonstrate?’

‘I can’t do it all the time…’

It wasn’t looking good, especially when Scully’s DNA test came back normal – until (inexplicably) she did a second test. Perhaps it was a blessing that poor Sveta was blown up in the end – either by a spaceship or a replica built by the dreaded Syndicate. It was hard to tell – or care that much.

Made-up rather than mysterious: Sveta had, supposedly, been abducted and impregnated by aliens, and was ‘the key’ according to Mulder - and certainly her rubber stomach was full of probe-holes

Boys and their toys: Mulder was just as excited as seeing an ARV (Alien Replica Vehicle) as he would have been the real thing

7. Mulder was just as excited as seeing an ARV (Alien Replica Vehicle) as he would have been the real thing

The good guys aiming to bring down world capitalism had re-constructed an alien spaceship using materials gathered from the 1947 Roswell, New Mexico, incident.

It ran on ‘zero point energy - the energy of the universe’, i.e., ‘free energy... No fuel, no flame, no combustion.’

This technology had been kept secret from us for 70 years ‘while the oil companies made trillions’ muttered Mulder, in case we hadn’t got the picture. They could even make it invisible – like a David Blaine-mobile. Fantastic. Until crypto-fascist paramilitaries destroyed it and the heroic scientists behind it. Damn.

8. The real enemy was not aliens but man – or rather very rich men

Yes according to Mulder, O’Malley and Carter, alien technology was being used against us – not by aliens but ‘by a venal conspiracy of men against humanity’, ‘a well-armed, well-oiled, multi-national group of elites’ that was ‘going to cull, kill and subjugate.’

Yikes. He cited various yo-yo conspiracy theories like ‘the Manhattan Project’ and ’the Venus Syndrome’ – both of whom sounded like abstract jazz bands.

Mulder and O’Malley riffed off one another trading paranoiac worldviews that made David Icke and Oliver Stone sound like John Major envisaging ‘a state of perpetual war’ being falsely evoked to ‘distract, enrage, and enslave American citizens.’ The militarization of police forces, the building of prison camps, the corporate take-over of food, agriculture, pharmaceuticals and health care’ would all follow – with a clandestine agenda ‘to fatten, dull, sicken and control a populace already consumed by consumerism.’

They would tap our phones, collect our data, monitor our whereabouts ‘with impunity’ – all ‘to use it against us when the final takeover begins.’

This as we know was probably going to be on a Friday – when all our ‘digital money’ would ‘disappear’, followed by the ‘detonation of strategic electro-magnetic pulse bombs to knock out major grids to seem like an attack on America by terrorists or Russia.’

Damn they’re good, you thought – or rather Bad.

‘You look exhausted Mulder,’ fretted Scully later and who could blame him?! Weren’t we all?!

9. One of these ‘elites’ was Cigarette Smoking Man

Once known as plain old CGB Spender, this was a cult character from ‘The Syndicate’ much loved/loathed by X Files geeks who had once again returned from the dead for the re-boot. Impressively, he was now even more evil and possibly more alien than we ever thought.

10. The X Files was officially back (albeit for only six episodes - so far)

It took Cigarette Smoking Man to confirm it: ‘we have a small problem,’ he drawled blocking the hole in his throat with what looked like a cigar or a cork. ‘They’ve re-opened The X Files.’

They have indeed. Let’s hope the remaining five shows make more sense. 

A hopeful outlook? They’ve re-opened The X Files - let’s hope the remaining five shows make more sense