![]() ![]() This early episode features an Amish-ish community whose members have supernatural powers that amount, essentially, to gender fluidity - not exactly an alien concept by 2016 standards. Let these ten episodes, all worthy of being jettisoned into the paranormal abyss, remind us that even the best shows can take a few too many risks that age awkwardly. ![]() Fans have long been reliving some of the show’s best moments, either in preparation for its continually demanded return or simply because it arrived on streaming services, but to truly respect The X-Files as it is, it seems only fair to remember - and then, hopefully, promptly forget - the bumps it faced on the way to greatness. ![]() Now, eight years since the last X-Files movie - eight years in which patience for racial caricatures in Hollywood has dwindled significantly, though of course not entirely - agents Scully and Mulder are returning to the small screen in a six-episode mini-series, which debuts January 24 and 25 as a two-part premiere on Fox. Though our beloved X-Files was in many ways ahead of its time, it’s now been over two decades since its premiere, and some of these episodes are straight-up embarrassing. And when your scripts regularly imply that foreign cultures are related to or even rooted in the extraterrestrial and/or paranormal, you’re likely to end up with flat stereotypes and offensive us-versus-them narratives. The problem with that particular experimentation on The X-Files, though, is that it’s a show about searching for literal aliens. That’s part of what science fiction is for, after all. With that sort of genre carte blanche, it’s no wonder showrunners felt comfortable experimenting with dystopian metaphors and making commentary on society’s underbelly. Through nine seasons and two movies, Chris Carter’s paranormal FBI epic pushed the limits of what viewers were accustomed to seeing on network TV: intricate government conspiracies to hide alien life faceless zombie armies powered by black alien goo and wielded by Cold War adversaries one-offs about video-game characters becoming sentient. Of course, plenty of ghost-hunting reality shows (and all six seasons of Lost) have capitalized on this fact, but none has done so quite as masterfully or earnestly as The X-Files. When you make a show about the unexplainable, the only rule is that there are no rules. A scene from season-four episode “Teliko.” ![]()
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