All 6 episodes of ‘The X-Files’ 2016 miniseries, ranked

It was great to have “The X-Files” back with the six-episode miniseries earlier this year on Fox, and now it’s available on DVD, and you get a lot of nice bonus features (including commentaries on three episodes) for your $14. I prefer the small-screen method of reviving the show, rather than the big screen, as it allows different types of “X-Files” stories to be told for about the same time and cost commitment as a movie.

Like they never left

In this miniseries, we get two mythology episodes (which bookend the season) and four standalones, one of which is the most brilliant Darin Morgan comedy piece yet. The other three aren’t quite typical standalones, as Mulder and Scully’s low-key grief over the loss of their son William to adoption 15 years earlier (something they felt was necessary for his safety) underscores two of them. And the other one features a human monster rather than a typical X-Files monster.

The best part of the return of “The X-Files” is simply that: “The X-Files” is back, and Chris Carter, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson haven’t forgotten how to do this. Rather than a nostalgia trip, the 2016 “X-Files” feels timely and urgent, as the first episode references the laundry list of post-9/11 horrors, even if it does so in monologues from Mulder and “Truth Squad” host Tad O’Malley (Joel McHale) rather than by working those elements into the script directly.

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It makes sense that M&S would want to return to their old jobs; indeed, Scully says that she had forgotten how much fun these cases could be. Still, the old believer/skeptic dynamic was shattered long ago, so when Scully tells Mulder or O’Malley that their conspiratorial assertions are dangerous, we know it’s only a matter of time before she’ll be fully on their side.

Additionally, early attempts to show that Mulder loathes O’Malley don’t ring true, as they share the same world view and goals. Mulder shouldn’t be so petty as to begrudge O’Malley the fact that he’s making a living by digging into conspiracies; and also, what’s Mulder’s excuse for not having written that book yet?

Streamlined mythology

Casual fans should have no trouble picking up the broad strokes of the mythology again – or for the first time, even. It’s basically the stuff we knew before, except that the aliens’ motives have been recast.

Rather than an evil partnership between aliens and the Syndicate, it’s actually the Syndicate alone (well, at this point, it’s the Cigarette-Smoking Man alone at the top, with the wheels of government and international coalitions doing the dirty work out in the open) that has big plans for the human race. The aliens actually had good intentions when they first visited in 1947, but they were immediately betrayed, and their technology was hoarded by the secret cabal.

Missing pieces

It’s actually die-hard fans who might be thrown off by the fact that M&S somehow became estranged since the events of 2008’s “I Want to Believe,” that they have not returned to the X-Files beat as per IDW comics’ Season 10 in 2013 and that the Lone Gunmen are still dead (in the comics, they faked their deaths). It’s clear now that the IDW comics are on a separate continuity, despite being overseen by Carter.

While the Season 10-11 continuity is over, this new one seems to have some legs: IDW launched a title following from this miniseries, but even more notably for TV fans, it seems like we’ll get more “X-Files” on the tube. The miniseries finale ends on a cliffhanger – with Mulder’s life in serious jeopardy — and the last two episodes build two new agents, Einstein and Miller, into the proceedings. Mulder and Scully are still central to the goings-on, but if Duchovny’s and Anderson’s schedules are limited, it seems the storytelling could work around that if it had to.

(Of course, that leads to the question of whether the property would have good ratings for very long without M&S. After all, ratings dropped when Doggett and Reyes took over in Seasons 8 and 9. But count me in, at least, for an Einstein and Miller series. Perhaps they could take over the X-Files beat with Mulder and Scully serving as consultants. And M&S could also work cases on their own when E&M are on other cases.)

Here are my rankings of the six episodes from the miniseries:

1. “Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster” (episode 3, written by Darin Morgan)

The man responsible for the famous offbeat episodes of the original run, starting with Season 2’s “Humbug,” Morgan has always been a perfectionist. For example, he dislikes his “War of the Coprophages,” even though fans love it. “Were-Monster” is what a Morgan script looks like with a decade to perfect it (although he probably wasn’t working on it for quite that long), and it’s a masterpiece.

Rhys Darby gives a pitch-perfect guest turn as a monster who is bitten by a human – a reverse of the standard were-monster mythology. Thus, he turns into a human and goes through the horrifying and bizarre experience of feeling like he desperately desires a job, money, the companionship of a pet, and to lie about his sex life. Another humorous guest spot comes from Kumail Nanjiani, who in addition to being an actor is also the host of “The X-Files Files” podcast, which was instrumental in drumming up interest for this miniseries.

2 and 3. “My Struggle” (1, Chris Carter) and “My Struggle II” (6, Carter, Anne Simon, Margaret Fearon)

This two-parter restates, revamps and somewhat simplifies the mythology. At first, it gets by just by feeling like vintage “X-Files,” then it peppers in references to the modern police and spy states (“Now they police us and spy on us and tell us it makes us safer,” Mulder says. “We’ve never been in more danger.”)

Amid some misleads (Scully doesn’t have alien DNA … oh wait, yes she does) and silly devices (O’Malley’s Internet show flickers on the screen to illustrate that the infrastructure is collapsing), we learn the Syndicate isn’t working with aliens after all. And their plan of culling the weak with a virus and restarting a humans-with-alien-DNA race is coming to fruition.

After the exposition-heavy premiere outlines the basics, the kinetic second part is a thriller in the vein of “Outbreak”; co-writers Simon and Fearon are doctors who Carter likely brought in to provide some hard science behind Scully’s talk about forging a cure from her own alien-hybrid DNA.

The virus has been spreading since 2012, says former agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish), blackmailed into helping the Cigarette-Smoking Man, whose nose and right cheek are now artificial, a nice Darth Vader parallel. (It’s a hoary way to bring back Reyes, but I guess it’s better than not having her back at all, as is the case with John Doggett.) The idea that the virus was released in 2012 is a way for the show to tie in its promise from the Season 9 finale that the end of the world coming in December 2012, as per the Mayan calendar.

In the end, all the William references from the mini-season pay off when Scully realizes she’ll need stem cells from the son she and Mulder put up for adoption in order to save Mulder. But she doesn’t know where he is. And also, an alien ship arrives. Unlike the end of Season 9 or “I Want to Believe,” this is hardly a note of finality – it’s a promise that more adventures are coming. Here’s hoping it’s not a lie.

4. “Babylon” (5, Carter)

This episode struggles to serve several different masters, but it’s still engrossing. Rather than monsters, the villains are humans: Islamic terrorists who blow up a Texas building; the X-File element is that Mulder thinks he can read a comatose bomber’s mind to learn the motive and future targets.

When Mulder takes pills that will allow him to communicate on the astral plane, the tone shifts to a hallucinating Mulder line dancing to “Achy Breaky Heart” and “Honky Tonk Badondadonk” and playing cards with the late Lone Gunmen. Admittedly, it’s hard to not enjoy this bizarre sequence. Then it concludes with a hopeful denouement where M&S believe the worldwide cycle of violence — the greatest challenge of our time – can be overcome.

But the best part of the episode is the introduction of Agents Einstein (Lauren Ambrose) and Miller (Robbie Amell), who are visually younger versions of Mulder and Scully. They play out the believer-skeptic dynamic with a fresh spin. Einstein is the red-haired skeptic, but she’s the fiery older agent whereas open-minded Miller is the more tentative younger one.

5. “Home Again” (4, Glen Morgan)

Despite the title and the fact that it’s written by Morgan, this is not a sequel to “Home” (for that, check out the excellent IDW Season 11 comic story of the same name). One nod to the original “Home” is that an old radio standard – in this case, “Downtown” rather than “Wonderful! Wonderful!” – plays atop the killing scenes.

This is one of those “X-Files” where the goings-on are completely inexplicable: a golem-like creature puts up paintings around town and can also make them disappear. And he can make himself appear and reappear at various places at will. An episode highlight is Anderson’s acting showcase, as Scully deals with her mom’s death and daydreams about herself as a mom dropping William off at school.

6. “Founder’s Mutation” (2, Carter and James Wong)

This is “X-Files” meets “X-Men,” as the perpetrator turns out to be a boy who can get into people’s heads and send them messages or make them do things. Unfortunately, the message is in the form of a grating, screeching sound that illustrates the point well but isn’t too pleasant for the home audience.

Still, since this is the agents’ first case since returning to the job, the episode gets a lot of mileage out of the thrill of the familiar, engaging routine. And just as the Scully-William scenes are a highlight of “Home Again,” this episode ends with Mulder poignantly imagining that he’s teaching William how to launch model rockets.

What are your rankings of the six miniseries episodes? And do you think “The X-Files” will be back on TV in the future? If so, in what form – as more miniseries, or as a regular series with Ambrose and Amell in the lead roles?

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