The X-Files reboot: Hopeful or already doomed?
The X-Files returns: Fox announced Tuesday that it will reboot its 90s sci-fi, conspiracy-theory thriller, "The X-Files." How do fans feel?
Gillian Anderson, left, and David Duchovny will both star in the upcoming X-Files reboot.
Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP/File
Fox announced that multiple key members of the hit 90s show – stars Gillian Anderson, David Duchovny, Mitch Pileggi and creator Chris Carter—will join forces to bring “The X-Files” back to the screen.
The show ran for nine seasons and produced two movies, the second of which in 2008, six years after the series ended. Perhaps there is enough interest to give it another paranormal life.
The sci-fi drama will make a six-episode comeback, enough to test the waters and determine the show’s true fan following. The show's limited episodes are also necessary to accommodate the stars’ schedules – Anderson currently appears in the BBC’s “The Fall” and NBC’s “Hannibal.” Duchovny also mentioned their age as a factor.
“We’re all old, we don’t have the energy for a full season,” he joked in Vanity Fair.
Production will start this summer, and the air date has not been announced. Carter, the series creator, said that he sees no reason to view the series as re-starting; if anything, the last decade has just provided more material.
“I think of it as a 13-year commercial break,” Carter said in a statement. “The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories.”
Fox Television Group chairmen and CEOs Dana Walden and Gary Newman, who were both on board when the show launched more than 20 years ago, said the reboot is a reunion of sorts. The show had – and continues to have – a large fan base as Fox’s highest-rated show of all time. In its peak between the fourth and sixth seasons, it received almost 20 million viewers per week. The chairmen are excited to see what happens this time around, and how fans will respond. They said in a statement:
‘The X-Files’ was not only a seminal show for both the studio and the network, it was a worldwide phenomenon that shaped pop culture — yet remained a true gem for the legions of fans who embraced it from the beginning. Few shows on television have drawn such dedicated fans as ‘The X-Files’, and we’re ecstatic to give them the next thrilling chapter of Mulder and Scully they’ve been waiting for.
Shortly after the announcement, Twitter exploded with excited fans. Some are over the moon, and others are skeptical about whether or not the reboot will truly capture the classic series.