After months of rumor and innuendo, Fox made an official announcement today that sent chills of excitement down the spines of nerds and fanboys across the land. The seminal 90’s TV show The X-Files is officially being brought back for a six episode television event.
Production is set to begin this summer and while there’s no news on a premiere, series creator Chris Carter and original stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson are all back on board for another round of weirdness and conspiracy.
The X-Files originally premiered in 1993 and ran for 9 seasons, becoming a cornerstone program for Fox and starting a worldwide phenomenon. In addition to the 9 years on television, the show inspired two movies (1998’s The X-Files and 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe) as a well as a spin off (The Lone Gunmen…two, if you count Millennium) and launched its two stars into superstardom.
“I think of it as a 13 year commercial break,” Carter said. “The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories.”
While little is known about how the new series will unfold, it certainly appears that Carter is taking the “monster of the week” formula that he perfected and applying it here once more. Still, given the secrecy and history of misdirection, it’s not hard to imagine that the show will delve once more into the UFO mythology that carried it through most of its near-decade long run on the small screen.
No news yet on if any of the rest of the former cast and crew is returning for the new run. I’m not sure it’ll feel quite like The X-Files without Mitch Pileggi along for the ride, however, and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul creator Vince Gilligan might be willing to dip his toes back into the pool where first he made his name.
All conjecture aside, the anticipation for this series has already built to a fever pitch, and it’s only been a few hours since the Fox made the official announcement. We can expect more and more information to trickle out as the new series gears up for production, so stay tuned. As we all know, the truth is out there, and we’re sure to get to the bottom of it as we continue on.
