It’s official. Last year’s event series revival of “The X-Files” will not be a one off and the show will return to Fox for an 11th run during the 2017-2018 television season. Fox made the announcement yesterday evening, stating that the series would be back with a 10 episode season. It will likely begin airing this fall. Stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson will both return, as will creator/executive producer Chris Carter. No other specific creative details have been made available at this time.
President of Fox Broadcasting David Madden on its return…
“Iconic characters, rich storytelling, bold creators – these are the hallmarks of great TV shows. And they are some of the reasons why ‘The X-Files’ has had such a profound impact on millions of fans worldwide. Chris’ creativity, along with the brilliant work of David and Gillian, continue to propel this pop culture phenomenon, and we can’t wait to see what fresh mysteries Mulder and Scully uncover in this next chapter of ‘The X-Files’.”
As a fan of the series, I remain excited for its continued revival, despite being underwhelmed by the six episodes we were given last year. While I could rattle off a dozen “wants” for this coming new season, I really have only one must: cohesion. The biggest problem with the initial revival, even beyond some bad writing, was that it lacked a guiding hand. Simply put, it was a scattershot mess. Now that all involved have had extra time to plan Season 11, I hope that the end result will be far less of a messy rollercoaster ride. Expecting this show to return to the glory days of its initial five seasons is a bit of a pipe dream, but it would be nice to at least see it match the somewhat uneven, but still very much engaging 7th and 8th seasons. I don’t demand that “The X-Files” be perfect again, but I do want it to not be a directionless mess anymore.
