The New York Times stumbled upon some serendipity a few days ago—on top of the existing serendipity that has helped it survive the death of print media—when Fox announced that it was bringing back The X-Files just before someone from the paper was scheduled to interview David Duchovny. The plan was to talk about Aquarius, Duchovny’s new show that isn’t The X-Files. Instead, like every nerd in the ’90s, The New York Times dropped everything it was doing so it could talk about The X-Files.
Duchovny didn’t divulge any real secrets about the show’s revival, but he did give some hints about what to expect from it. For one, he and Gillian Anderson are going to act better than they did all of those years ago. That’s what he claimed, at least, when The New York Times asked if he was nervous about becoming Fox Mulder again. He’s not nervous, but he says it’s going to be “weird” when he gets on set with Anderson, adding, “I think we’ve both gotten better as we’ve gotten older…If I were to look back at the first or second year of the show, I wouldn’t try to act like that guy. I’m capable of doing more. She’s capable of doing more.”
Speaking of being older, Duchovny says the new X-Files won’t ignore all of the time that has passed since the series ended. He doesn’t want it to be a reboot or whatever where they just make the same show again, it’ll be a continuation that takes into account how “legit” The X-Files has been since the beginning. Finally, in terms of actual information about the new X-Files, Duchovny expects it to be a mix of serialized mythology stories and monster-of-the-week adventures, and he’s “pretty sure” it will “begin and end with the mythology.”
So, if you don’t care about Mulder’s sister, Krycek, or the black oil, you can probably skip the premiere and the finale. Of course, you’ll miss out on some of Duchovny and Anderson’s new-and-improved acting abilities if you do that.