Season 9

I'm finally making my way through Season 9 for the first time in a while. Okay, I've only watched the first episode, but the mythology by Seasons 8-9 has become so convoluted that it's kind of difficult to watch sometimes, and I want to reflect on that a bit, and the ways that the show has changed in order to adapt to the changing times and it's own confusion about its thesis. One major issue has to do with the overwhelming amount of information-- or at least, an apparently overwhelming amount of information-- packed into a 44-minute television show. There is a lot going on in these later seasons, but it's never fully explained, and a lot of characters spend a lot of time running around and talking around major issues of alien invasion, the origins of Scully's baby, how the hell Krycek gets his information and what he really wants, etc., without ever clearly elucidating what is really going on. There is so much mythology built up by this point, much of it labyrinthine and contradictory, that one starts to suspect that at the heart of it all there may be nothing but smoke and mirrors. Or inevitable alien invasion and doom to the planet.

But, come on. This is The X-Files. What was I expecting?

There is a shift, though. Part of the difference between the obfuscation of the earlier seasons and the later ones has to do with a change in line-up. Through Seasons 8-9, the character of Doggett changes the dynamic of the show, especially as the characters who have been around from the beginning start to acknowledge the truth in the seemingly outlandish claims Mulder has been making all along. I think Doggett is a great character, and that Robert Patrick' energy and enthusiasm in the role are a boon to the show, but it is sometimes to the detriment of other characters. By this point in the series Scully and even Skinner start to believe in extraterrestrial phenomena. Especially with Mulder vanished, Scully feels the need to fill his shoes, a job she isn't really cut out to do. Not only that, she's pregnant and hormonal, and so the character of Scully suddenly inhabits this emotional, intuitive territory that viewers aren't used to seeing from the cool, level-headed scientist. She can't pull of indignation the way Mulder can, and it's kind of off-putting at times.

Despite the uncomfortable change to Scully's character, I still think many of the standalone episodes of Season 8 and even into Season 9 are excellent. The initial Scully-Doggett dynamic is compelling as they work to forge a partnership and learn to trust each other. The monsters are scary, and honestly, it works better in the first half of the season with Mulder gone than after he returns. The addition of Doggett to the team makes Mulder seem like a real asshole, though I should probably save that discussion for another time. Doggett, the straight-laced New York cop, puts Mulder's penchant for doing whatever he wants into perspective. When Mulder comes back from being abducted and dead, he hardly fits into the show anymore. It's kind of jarring, when you consider that Mulder's investigations into the paranormal once drove the entire narrative of the show. In Season 8, Mulder's absence drives Scully and Doggett to pursue cases, but when he returns, no one is sure what to do with him.

Whereas it was once a toss-up as to whether the X-Files was about government conspiracy, aliens, or the compulsions of the brilliant, unstable mind of Fox Mulder, in the later seasons, the truth of paranormal activity has to be taken for granted, even if we're not really sure what it is that we are expected to believe. Scully's in on it, Skinner's in on it, and even Doggett is forced to believe in things he might not believe in otherwise. Deputy Director Kirsch is the lone government baddie (who hasn't been turned into a super soldier or been replaced by an alien), and he seems to play by the book out of stubbornness more than anything else. Why does he have to be such a jerk? Because, at this point, someone has to be the naysayer.

Thus the introduction of the Super Soldier. Here we have some new aliens, some unstoppable ones, who take the place of abductees (or, it starts to seem, whomever they feel like replacing), and have skeletons made of metal, super strength, and can breathe underwater. The creepy shadows, the unseen aliens, and flashes of unreliable memory have been replaced with unstoppable super villains! With new characters, new menaces, and and even more unknowns than ever before, it's almost as if the X-Files has undergone an alien replacement of its own. On the outside, I'll buy that it's the same show, but I can't help but wonder if there is something fishy lurking below the surface.