Review: 'The X-Files' - 01/24/2016

We live in a time of #PeakShowrunner.

The showrunner of a television show is literally the person who runs the show and while sometimes this person is also the person who created the series, it can just as likely be a person brought in by the studio or network to make sure the trains run on time and make sure the series has a steady and hopefully successful creative vision.

A decade ago, the average television viewer would be hard-pressed to name one TV showrunner but in this time of #PeakShowrunner, it's a position that is as well known as the lead actors. The showrunner for most shows has become the public face of the series and that's why you'll find interviews with showrunners filling the trades after a series has premiered. The TV show premieres and then the showrunner tells us what it all meant.

The problem with this is that sometimes the showrunner (and by extension, the show's creator) don't have all the answers. Running a television series is no different than any other artistic endeavor. Sometimes even the smartest person can lose their way.

I was first exposed to this phenomena back in the late 1990s, when I made friends with a guy named Lawrence Hertzog. Larry has toiled for years working on a string of action series, many of them for veteran producer Stephen J. Cannell. He had finally gotten the chance to create and run his own series and the result was the UPN series NOWHERE MAN.

If you're not familiar with the series, it starred Bruce Greenwood as Thomas Veil, a well-known photographer. One night he's out to dinner with his wife and when he returns from the bathroom, she claims she doesn't know who he is. In fact, no one seems to have ever heard of him. His photos have disappeared, his life is gone and as far as the world is concerned, Thomas Veil never existed. While the show had its flaws, it was also a magnificently constructed story, with a season one finale that truly left the viewers with a WTF moment.

The thing is that NOWHERE MAN was a mythology-heavy series. Every episode was centered on this conspiracy to some degree and the entire series rested on that mythology. There were even this subtle audio cue (the sound of breaking glass) that popped up when Tom recollections of his former life collided with the present-day reality. And yet Larry insisted the series wasn't about the mythology, it was instead a portrait of relationships and what identity means in an increasingly technological world. He didn't even pay attention to the details of the mythology and the backstory sometimes changed from episode to episode. He might have created a wonderful series, but at some point he lost his way about what was really important to the audience and ultimately to the story.

I've always felt the same way about THE X-FILES. Chris Carter created a wonderful series and he assembled a cast and crew that put together some of the best hours of television ever on the small screen. Yet for all of the talk about that the "Truth is Out There" and all the other alien trappings, the mythology of THE X-FILES was the part of the show with the worst execution. The episodes of the show fans love tended to be the stand-alone hours and even the mythology-heavy episodes that were wonderful didn't make much sense when taken as a whole.

After nine seasons of television and two feature films, I was left feeling as if Chris Carter still doesn't have a coherent backstory for the conspiracy. And that muddled vision is frustrating, because I love the show and the characters. I want it to be as great and sharp as I know it can be. And it drives me slightly insane to realize that Chris Carter is pretty comfortable with with the world he's built and the flawed mythology that drives it.

As much I wanted to see these characters again, I worried that the flaws of the past would still be present in these new episodes. And while I can only judge the efforts by the three episodes I've seen so far, it seems pretty clear that nothing much has changed.

The premiere episode is mythology-heavy and it's also the weakest episode of the three. In fact, I don't think it's a coincidence that episode three - the most stand-alone of the trio - is also the best hour of the new season. THE X-FILES was always capable of cranking out a great hour of television.

Chris Carter has been giving interviews arguing that episode six of this new season resets the series for the future and I hope that's the case. I so want this show to not just be great but consistently coherent. And so far, it's still about 75% of the way there.

Last year I binge-watched the entire run of FRINGE. That was a mythology-rich series that really struggled creatively for the first season or so. But watching multiple episodes back-to-back, I was struck by the consistency of the vision and the mythology. Despite the weird production schedules and its uncertain future season-to-season, FRINGE had an overall arc that is impressive to see. The final three seasons all tie together in a way that THE X-FILES has never managed to accomplish. That's what I want from Chris Carter and company. I want to know that if someone asks "explain the conspiracy to me," there is a concrete backstory underlying the series. Viewers don't need to know all the details, but the muddy vagueness of the show's mythology seeps into every episode.

I want to believe.