It seems that everything that's old is new again in TV land. The most recent zombie to rise from the grave is The X-Files, and I'll be damned if I'm not excited.
I know I'm a little late to the game on this one, but I'm still getting the hang of this personal blogging thing (as opposed to my fiber arts blog Lone/Maple Studio) where I feel less compelled to talk about what's making me happy this week.
So, back to The X-Files.
I can remember the very first episode of The X-Files that I ever saw. It was Mind's Eye, a standalone "monster of the week" episode, where a blind girl was able to remote-view through the eyes of a killer, and it turns out SPOILER ALERT (for an episode that aired 16 years ago) that the guy who's vision she is sharing is that of her father, who had killed her mother while the girl was in utero. In the end the girl kills her father so she no longer has to share his vision.
While generally considered a middle of the road episode, as a 13-year-old, it was totally scary and wonderful at the same time. And I was hooked. However, this was back in 1998, getting back episodes of anything was a challenge, and flipping expensive. I would save up my allowance to buy the VHS sets that would have 6 episodes and cost $50. I recently found my stash of X-Files on VHS in my parent's attic and donated them, well not the tape with Jose Chung's From Outer Space, because I wore that tape out. There is something that my younger cousins (who were born after this episode came out and are now older than I was when I started watching it) have no concept of, wearing out a VHS, or please be kind, rewind.
Also speaking of VHS, I happen to have a copy of the finale (from 2002) at my apartment. It was recorded by my friend Sarah (who has an AMAZING blog and is all around awesome person) because I was away that weekend at Girl Guide camp. I think I was suppoed to give it back to her over a decade ago, so I will be sure to bring it to her next time, because I'm sure she has a VHS player to watch it on, rather than pulling it up on Netflix.
While this rambling digression doesn't really tell you how much I enjoyed the show but maybe my contributions to a website called Mulder and Scully's Bogus Journey might. I was the Ara of Ara's Top 8. Thanks to the good people at the WaybackMachine you can read this site in all it's glory, circa 2003.
So there are few details about the new series, other than it will be a handful of episodes and will not be a reboot or a retcon, but a continuation of the series. That we last saw in the dreadful X-Files: I Want To Believe in 2008, a sad victim of the Writer's Strike.
So much has changed since the X-FIles first graced our screens, the internet (as we know it today) for one, the size and reliability of cell phones, and 9 years and two movies fewer of mythology.
The show is coming with some serious baggage, some of it called William Mulder (the magic child of ... oh never mind it will take far to long to explain), and some of it the foretold destruction of the world as we know it in 2012 by aliens.
Thankfully lots of the best writers have been lured back to the series, and so with good actors (Skinner and the Cigarette Smoking Man will also be back!) and good writers, this thing has half a chance of being quite enjoyable.
There has been some discussion of getting the band (Macavity, Ara, The Amazin Beardo, and The Nicotine Gum Chewing Man) back together, but there has been no consensus, as some of these people have PhDs now. But I'm pretty sure The Amazin Beardo still has a beard, so all is right in the world.
It's nice having things you love come back, and build on their universes, however after being burned by Arrested Development Season 4, I'm a little worried, but really it can't be much worse that "I Want To Believe" so I await the return of the X-FIles.