Well buckle up fans, here we go again. After fourteen years, Scully and Mulder are back together after a TV talk show host dabbling in conspiracy theories intends to launch on the government in order to expose it's complicity in hiding the truth from every day Americans. Tad O'Malley (Joel McHale) offers up an alien abductee in the person of a young woman named Sveta (Annet Mahendru), and the technology gleaned from sixty years of studying alien science that produced an ARV, an alien replica vehicle.
But then things get murky when a doctor (Giacome Baessato) who was present at the Roswell crash cautions Mulder (David Duchovny) that he's being deceived. In true X-Files fashion, the show offers up conflicting information to keep the viewer off balance, not to mention Mulder switching his position once again to somehow consider that aliens don't exist.
Followers of the original nine season series will be able to pick up on some continuity issues as this story moves along. For one, just as in the 2006 movie "I Want to Believe", reference is made to Scully's sister having been abducted by aliens, when it was revealed later on that the military and the government were behind it. And because I just finished a marathon re-watch of the entire series, it's still fresh in my mind that when The X-Files were disbanded in the series ender 'The Truth', Agent John Doggett (Robert Patrick) rolled up Mulder's 'I Want To Believe' poster and took it with him. In this story, when Mulder first enters his old FBI office, he sees it on the ground and with some measure of disgust, kicks at and tears it.
As for the principals, one would expect that Duchovny and Gillian Anderson show their age since the prior series, and that's true enough. Scully's face appears thinner and more angular, Mulder looks like he put on a few pounds in addition to the facial hair making him look older at the beginning of the story. Same story with Mitch Pileggi reprising his Skinner character. All three actors appear a bit tired, although that could be chalked up to the direction of writer Chris Carter.
It probably shouldn't be surprising that the Scully/Mulder relationship hit the rocks during the intervening years, what with Mulder's obsession and forced seclusion at play. Reference is made to the baby Scully gave up for adoption, and one wonders if the child might turn up in a future episode. That would be something, wouldn't it? An interesting tidbit thrown out to the viewer was Tad O'Malley's mention that he wanted to see Scully again, suggesting that there's some sort of relationship in the past.
Speaking of continuity issues, here's one more. When the doctor in the story picks up the dead alien in the 1947 Roswell flashback scene, the body of the alien is stiff in rigor mortis. However when he turns around and carries the body off, it's limp in his arms. I Want To Believe that that was a pretty obvious mistake.
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