The Truth is Coming...

Not much to really add here. This should interest those who follow the Paranormal, Conspiracy Theories, or Crypto Politics.


Sometimes, there's very little that needs to be said.

I would be curious to get peoples thoughts more than offering my own, comments?

When Duty Calls...

Two promo X-Files trailers to debut Monday night...

We were asked by FOX publicity to mention the two part promo trailers for The X-Files Season 10 episodes that will debut tomorrow night, Monday, during both Gotham and then Minority Report.

You can tune in to “Gotham” at 8/7 central to view part 1, and the following this, on “Minority Report”, you can view part 2 at 9/8 central to view part 2.

The descriptions Monday regular programs are as follows:

On GOTHAM at 8/7c, a deadly escape rocks the city and following his reinstatement, it’s up to Gordon (Ben McKenzie) to track the Maniax. Meanwhile, Galavan (James Frain) plans his next move, while Bruce (David Mazouz) enlists the help of his father’s old friend to unlock the secrets in his office, and Nygma (Cory Michael Smith) attempts to ask out Kristin Kringle (guest star Chelsea Spack). 

Then, on MINORITY REPORT at 9/8c, it’s a match made in….the future. Dash (Stark Sands) and Vega (Meagan Good) team up again to find a killer who is currently down on love. Meanwhile, Dash continues to reach out to his siblings for help.  



The Two-Night season premiere of The X-Files is Jan, 24th, 2016, Sunday, 10:00-11:00 PM ET 7:00-8:00 PM PT, and Jan 25th, 8:00-9:00 PM ET/PT

Chris's Comic Corner - The New Season, Issue 1

The new review from Christopher Irish is up for the new season. We have a new relationship with IDW Comics for The X-Files, season 11, and hope to offer the best insight possible, but that is really up to the fans to determine that. Once again, Chris’s work is always a pleasure to read. Feel free to drop us input about how we are doing. – Matt

Season 11
“Cantus”
Issue 1

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Chris Mowry
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter

This new season begins with a recap of season 10’s events. The main story begins in Zion National Park in Utah. A group of people are being led into a cave by a mysterious figure in a hood. The hooded person talks to a man wearing goggles and walking ahead of him who is working on a handheld device. We find out they’re heading to some sort of work site. The man working the device talks to the hooded person while he tries to get the device to work. Unable to get the machine to work, he hands it to the hooded person. Another one of the members walks ahead and we find out it’s the leader, a redheaded lady named Tyler. They mention that if the signal is weak, it could mean someone else might be using the signal at the same time. Tyler says it could be the proverbial “Men In Black” and recounts information about the government losing track of a sophisticated spy satellite. We find out that she and the rest are part of a salvage team, most likely working towards finding this supposed lost satellite. Tyler talks to one of the members who was questioning her while working on the tracker and calls him Mr. Blake. The rest of the team teases him about having the worst codename “Anthony Blake” and how it sounds like an old TV character. The frame shows a clear shot of Agent Fox Mulder with a fake moustache as a disguise. (This is a new look for him; in all the seasons of The X-Files and all of Season 10 I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mulder with a ‘stache. Given his proclivity toward adult entertainment, I think it’s long overdue).

The redheaded woman corrects the man, saying it’s Bill Bixby the Magician they’re thinking of. They discuss further details of Blake’s suspicion that the satellite that supposedly burned up actually had parts that survived, hence the salvage team. The redhead tells the group that if they manage to find the downed satellite they could have a future. Just as Tyler gets a lock on the signal, Blake mentions that the present concerns him more, and that if they knew what he knows about the future they’d be worried.
   
The next scene opens in Jose Marti International Airport, in Havana, Cuba. We see people boarding a plane. One of them is Scully, who turns to look at a person walking down the alley out of frame but who has a vaguely familiar mouth line. She turns down and looks at a file titled “Cantus”. The plane takes off in the next frame.

   
Now in Virginia, Scully is working on her laptop late at night. She types in “trust_nnl@x_” to check her messages, and has none. The next panel is a familiar one, Scully sitting before an FBI investigative panel to explain herself sans Mulder. The board mentions that Assistant Director Skinner has been placed on administrative leave and that Scully has no idea of the whereabouts of Agent Fox Mulder, who is wanted for questioning. The board warns Scully that the Attorney General is considering pressing felony charges. Scully reiterates that she hasn’t heard from Mulder in two months and has no idea where he is. They bring up the efforts made to streamline the X-Files, using a consultancy and efficiency contractor the Bureau has hired called “Cantus”. Scully is familiar with it and lets them know she is aware of the organization’s efforts.
   
The next scene is back with Mulder and the salvage crew, who have found the downed satellite. She instructs two of them to make their way back to their truck to lock it up while the rest of them work. Mulder (or Blake) and Jasco (another member of the salvage team) make their way back, hefting a large box along with them. Jasco complains about Tyler and Mulder deflects. On the way down Mulder mentions that he heard something. Jasco says it’s just the echo of the canyon as they make their way down a slope. Once at the bottom, Jasco continues to talk about Tyler. He warns Mulder that she’s “up in his business” and if he’s not careful she’ll continue to be wary of him. Mulder tells Jasco to watch his step, but he doesn’t listen and continues to talk about Tyler. As he does this he trips over a rock and falls to the ground. Mulder helps him up and offers to take the heavy end. Jasco claims that Tyler may have taken credit for allowing him to join the group, but says it was actually him that convinced her. Right then he also mentions that he didn’t tell her who he really is; he pulls a knife and says there is a reward out for him since he’s an FBI fugitive. Mulder falls back as Jasco lunges with the knife, but Mulder sends him staggering with a solid karate chop to the thigh. Mulder tells him that he’s only after the satellite wreckage and if he can take it he’ll leave him and the group out of it. Jasco doesn’t listen and claims that Mulder is just setting the group up. Right before the fight can resume they hear an ominous growling noise behind them. It turns out to be a pack of wolves. One wolf jumps on Jasco, and before Mulder can help him he’s killed with a bloody “ggggglrg”. Mulder tries to get back to the equipment as a blood-covered wolf approaches. An odd speech bubble tells Mulder that he has to retrieve the communications hardware from the Medici Satellite. Mulder says it’s not going to be easy and that he won’t do anything else till he knows how Scully is doing. The wolves take off down the canyon and Mulder tells them the team are just scavengers and not mercenaries. The wolves, who are inexplicably communicating with Mulder, warn him to remember who his friends are as they move down the canyon.

Back to Scully, who’s being grilled on her unauthorized trip to Cuba. As one panel member brings this up, another one falls asleep but another suffers an ischemic stroke and won’t remember any of the proceedings, while the main panel member narrates both occurrences. Scully says “My god, Gibson” as she pulls her phone out to call in a medical emergency. She begins to assist the panel members, who have all passed out now. The scene ends with the face of the member who had the stroke, and it’s A.D. Morales.
   
Now in Beaverton, Utah, we find ourselves with The Lone Gunmen. Frohike is talking to Mulder about getting back home. As they finish their talk, the other two Gunmen open the sliding door of the old VW bus they work out of and tell Mulder and Frohike that they have something. They have discovered that the chipset from the downed satellite was manufactured by Cantus, the same organization that the panel brought up to Agent Scully. The communications chip they’ve been working on has a signal the satellite picked up on before it went down. They haven’t figured out what it is yet, but they continue to work on it. They are able to tell that the satellite received this signal about 15 minutes before it entered the atmosphere, which leads them to believe that it didn’t crash in error. The two possibilities are that someone caused the satellite to crash or someone else shot it down.
   
Back to Scully, she is in Mulders dungeon-office. A familiar speech bubble-the same one the wolves had- comes up telling her he was wondering when she’d be back. A man is in the office and tells her that he needs Mulder’s help now. She tells the man that he knows where he is. It turns out that the man is Gibson as Scully accuses him of being a traitor and tells him that he’s out of his mind. She pulls her gun on him, but he uses his mind’s power to snatch the gun from her hand. Scully asks where Mulder is and Gibson tells her that he’s serving to do what he needs him to do. Scully asks what she’s supposed to do and he tells her to help him as he telepathically hovers a file to her.

    The issue ends with Mulder. We’ll leave it at that and keep the review spoiler-free. The ending does leave you wanting to continue with the upcoming Season 11 #2 however. This season has started off strong. The artwork is excellent and it capitalizes on new aspects brought forth from Season 10 and starts to lay groundwork for another season full of twists, turns, and heavy X-Files conspiracies for our duo to navigate through. We shall see how it goes as this exciting series progresses!

Special thanks to Liz Tray for Editorial assistance.

Chris's Comic Corner 4

The next set of reviews by Christopher Irish are up, another wave of good work, and we hope to see the end of the season 10 reviews shortly and see what develops with season 11! –Matt

Issue # 11
Pilgrims, part 1

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Robbie Robbins
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter
   
This issue begins in the Saudi Arabian desert with Arab soldiers guarding an oil field being attacked by a jihadist with a car bomb. One terrorist gets shot, knocking another one off a Jeep. Another man in a head wrap tells him to follow if he really wants to fight. The injured terrorist follows along to a pit where they find two scientists. One is trying to get the other to abandon the cave, but the other refuses. The scientist looking to evacuate continues to try but gets shot in the head by one of the terrorists. The mysterious terrorist asks about where a “source” is and takes aim at the running scientist, but the other terrorist who fell off the Jeep tells him not to kill her . The terrorist in the pit scoffs until he finds himself standing in an ominous pool of black oil. The scientist guesses that this terrorist isn’t one of the rest as he tells her to leave. She continues to protest as the terrorist in the oil starts being overtaken. Just as his eyes turn black, the other terrorist pushes a button on a remote and blows them all up inside the cave.   
   
The next scene opens at a Saudi Arabian airport with Mulder joking with a couple Arab guards. The guard informs Mulder that all alcohol and pornographic material are prohibited, and knowing Mulder the latter might be difficult. Scully tells him he’ll survive and that they have higher priorities. She’s wearing a hijab that she’s trying to straighten. Mulder helps her as they discuss how strange it is that they got pegged for this assignment. A.D. Morales meets them and tells them where they are going. As they move along the corridor and discuss it, there’s a suspicious man reading a newspaper. After Mulder, Scully, and Morales head out, the man is gone.

At the oil field Mulder is reviewing security camera footage of the attack. He notices the camera glitches right before the bomb went off. Mulder asks if the tape has been spliced, but the Saudi guard says they can’t request anything more than they’ve been given. They head out to the oil field, and Scully criticizes the investigation since they covered up the crime scene just to get back to production. Scully asks about a hazard crew cleaning up a different area and how they haven’t received any casualty information. Across the field two more shady-looking men in suits are watching them. One pulls his sunglasses down, and we see that he has black eyes. Mulder and Scully then head to their helicopter to ride back to the hotel, and Mulder says he’s going to go shopping.

Scully chooses to go to the hospital to interview a survivor. He claims that the oil rig was never the real target and the terrorists were after the “other people”. Before she can clarify what he means, a nurse comes to change the man’s bandages. Scully goes to wait in the hallway and asks about why there’s a guarded room. The Saudi men ignore her, and she shows her frustration about the way she’s treated in that country. She sees a fire alarm and asks herself “what would Mulder do?”
   
Meanwhile, Mulder is in a market district using a computer. He’s communicating with the Lone Gunmen, who are helping him get the frames that were cut from the security footage. They identify the same glitch that Mulder noticed, but they identify a skip in the code in the middle of the attack. Mulder interprets this as a time loss event. Furthermore, before the time loss, the back of the second Jeep had only one passenger. After the jump there are two.
   
Returning to Scully, she’s pulled the fire alarm and is investigating whom the door guards are protecting. Once in the hospital room, she finds a person completely bandaged speaking to her in German. It is Doctor Eva Krause, the doctor the terrorist from the beginning advised to run away. Scully begins to be concerned for what she was exposed to after the doctor mentions that they found what they thought was oil seepage. The doctor tells Scully about the man who blew it all up. Just as Scully asks what man she saw, we cut back to Mulder.
   
Mulder is sitting in the computer room still talking to the Lone Gunmen. As they exchange some banter, a couple Arab men take out AK-47s and fire at Mulder. He escapes by crashing out a window. Just as he lands a man calls him by name, standing over him. As Mulder goes for his weapon, the man pulls out his and tells him not to do it. Mulder says, “But how are you...,” with a surprised look on his face. The issue ends with the man taking off his headwrap, revealing to Mulder that it’s Krycek.
   
The last time we saw Krycek alive was in the episode 21, season 8 “Existence,” when A.D. Skinner shot him in the head, supposedly killing him. Judging by previous appearances by past characters that we thought have been dead, could Krycek be another clone-like player in the greater conspiracy? Krycek has played about every side possible during the series, always one step ahead of Mulder and on multiple occasions coming to blows with him. Mulder thought he was dead, as did we all, so how will his reappearance bode with Mulder now?

Issue # 12
Pilgrims Part 2

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Neil Uyetake
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter
    
This issue begins where the last one left off, with Alex Krycek standing over Mulder, aiming a gun at him. Mulder acts confused as to why he’s seeing him again, and Krycek seems to be confused as well. Mulder overpowers him and asks if he shoots would he bleed out or dissolve into the green goop the others turned into. Krycek still doesn’t know what he’s talking about, or he’s feigning ignorance. (In light of Krycek’s checkered past, either event is plausible.) The men who tried to shoot Mulder catch up to the window and begin firing at them both. Mulder gets a hold of the Lone Gunmen and asks for help to guide them both out of the market area. They attempt to guide them into an alley, but the interference with the satellite grows, and the men pursuing them even stop to look into the sky. Krycek says that it’s like last time, and the “cradle is full.” Mulder can’t tell the Lone Gunmen what he’s seeing exactly as there is a bright light and a loud “fpfpfpfpfpfp” sound. In the next panel, Krycek has vanished, and the Arab men have cornered Mulder.
   
Scully is in the hospital talking to Dr. Krause. Scully assures her that she will try to clear her name. Dr. Krause is unwilling and tells Scully about a man who is looking to take what they found in the ground out of the country. Dr. Krause disconnects her life support system, causing an alarm to go off. Three guards head toward the room, but one of them shoots the other two. The shooter has black eyes and pushes a nurse aside before returning to normal. Two more guards appear and shoot the man. They ask the nurse if she’s alright. Scully yells for help again, but when the nurse appears, Scully is gone. The nurse looks around the room, but we see that she is now infected with the black oil. The nurse approaches the window, and we see Scully hanging off the ledge by her fingertips.
   
Back in the U.S. Embassy, Mulder is being grilled by A.D. Morales. Mulder isn’t giving any information to her. Scully enters the room, to both Morales’s and Mulder’s surprise. She mentions that she hung from a ledge while bullets flew around. Scully tells Morales that Dr. Krause took her own life.  Morales tells them that Dr. Krause was an archeologist working on a secret dig that the Saudi government might not have even been aware of. Morales informs Scully that the CIA was looking to interview Dr. Krause before Scully snuck into the room and she died. Morales knew about the doctor but only tells Scully that “I know what I’m told, Agent Scully...”
   
Mulder and Scully meet in the hallway after their meeting with Morales. Mulder asks Scully what time it is. She states her time, and Mulder asks if she remembers what she saw in Yellowstone, the gigantic alien UFO (back in issue #5). Back then, the Acolytes witnessed the same UFO as it rose from the ground and said the same thing Krycek said before he disappeared: “The cradle is full.” Mulder shows Scully his phone’s clock, and it is two minutes behind Scully’s. This proves that he experienced another time loss incident when he saw the bright light in the sky. As they leave, Scully tells Mulder what Dr. Krause told her. Behind them, a janitor is mopping the floor. He looks up and his eyes turn black.
   
Mulder takes Scully to the Saudi desert, and they discuss the case they’re on. Scully expresses her characteristic skepticism with Mulder’s lost time and seeing Krycek. Mulder places one stopwatch on the road and keeps the other in the car. Between panels of Mulder waiting for the light to return, we see Morales talking to someone. Whoever is talking to her is accusing her of failing. Between this, Scully tells Mulder to get out of the road, just as he sees a light. It turns out to be a large truck that he barely dodges. Whoever is talking to Morales tells her of secrets they are privy to that are ominous and terrible. Mulder, having dodged the truck, finds his stopwatch smashed in the road. He turns to look at Scully, but she has disappeared. We’re left seeing CSM smoking and standing in the shadows talking to Morales, and Mulder standing at his SUV yelling for Scully, who has vanished.

Scully’s vanishing harks back to Season 2’s episodes “Duane Barry” and “Ascension,” when Scully was abducted. We’ll have to find out what happened in issue #13 to know for sure, but there are a lot of old details in this series that fans can appreciate.

Issue #13
Pilgrims Part 3

Written by: Joe Harris
Art by: Matthew Dow Smith
Colors by: Jordie Bellaire
Letters by: Robbie Robbins
Editor: Denton J. Tipton
Executive Producer: Chris Carter
   
We begin this issue in the Lone Gunmen’s secret Arlington lair. The last time we saw the guys, they were trying to assist Mulder in escaping gunfire in a Saudi Arabian market district. Now they are tracking a perimeter intrusion on their own screens. Byers is trying to track whatever it was and notices fighter jets scrambling from Andrews Air Force Base. The big screen flashes an “Intruder Detected” alert. Frohike and Langly are in the bushes trying to find whoever is signaling their system. They stumble across a figure stooped in the grass and offer assistance. When the figure turns around they realize that it’s Alex Krycek. Krycek says, “I have to find it,” and quietly, “the cradle is empty”. As Krycek walks away we are left seeing Scully standing in the mist, presumably left by the same UFO that took Krycek and left him in Arlington.
 
Meanwhile, Mulder is standing in the Saudi desert. He is walking from the location where Scully was abducted and has no cell signal. Luckily for him a truck drives up and allows him to hop in for a ride. The driver is a woman in a hijab, which is odd since Saudi Arabia doesn’t allow females to drive. This could be good for him or very bad, considering he is a highly sought after individual in the country after prying where they didn’t want him to.
   
Back with the Lone Gunmen, they have Krycek in a chair with headgear hooked on. Obviously it is some sort of lie detector of the Lone Gunmen’s own design. Krycek claims to not know how he arrived in Arlington, and Langly confirms that he isn’t lying. Langly and Frohike note that he might think he’s telling the truth, but seeing as it’s Alex Krycek they are wary. Not to mention the fact that he’s been presumed dead for the last decade. Krycek seems surprised by this news.( If he is the same kind of resurrected player from a game that should have been over after the failed colonization conspiracy, does this mean the other clones were unaware of their status? We’ve already seen Mr. X dissolve into the same green goo that previous alien hybrids have turned into when killed). Further research into Krycek reveals abnormal brain wave patterns that Scully notices. When they run the raw data they’ve recorded from his brainwaves  they get the word “SHELTE.” Langly points out that it could be “shelter” without the “R,” but Frohike thinks it could be an anagram. Scully asks Krycek if he knows anything about it, but he denies knowing. Though, between his denials there is a clear flashback of when he was locked in a missile silo pouring black oil from his mouth, eyes, and nose.
   
Scully and Krycek are outside in the next scene. Krycek tries to put his jacket on her since it’s cold out, but she refuses. He then tries to explain that he’s confused to how he’s in this situation at all, but Scully isn’t buying it. There are more flashbacks to Krycek hemorrhaging the black oil as he denies any memory. Scully knows he’s hiding something, but he maintains his claim that he is clueless.
   
Back in the Saudi desert, Mulder is riding with the woman still. Mulder discovers that she speaks English and asks if she can take him where he can make a phone call. She informs him that it’d be a bad idea, and he responds with how odd it is that a female is driving at all and wonders why she thinks it’s a bad idea. She tells him, “They are studying you.” Mulder continues his questioning and discovers that Krycek is the one studying him and he is being used to hunt “the forsaken ones.” She says that “they” are using Krycek, and he is using Mulder. Mulder finds an AK-47 under his seat and pulls it on the lady and demands to know what Krycek is after. As he does this, her eyes turn black, and she drives the vehicle off the road, sending it careening off a cliff and crashing at the bottom.
   
Back with Scully, she is in Crystal City, Virginia, waking up a shirtless A.D. Skinner. Scully begins to explain the situation, but Skinner assumes correctly that Mulder is missing. As he says this, Krycek enters his apartment. Skinner is shocked to see him, as the last time he saw Krycek was when he shot him in the head. Skinner tells Scully that he received a phone call from Mulder saying he was on the way back, which he just said to get Kryceck alone.  He tells Scully to go home and wait for him and that he’ll take care of Krycek. Right after he shuts the door, he slams Krycek against the wall.
   
In the next scene, the truck Mulder was in that was crashed is lying at the bottom of the cliff. The lady driving the truck wakes up inside the cab and seems confused. She asks Mulder, who’s standing outside, for help, but he uncharacteristically walks away. Back in Virginia, Scully is in her apartment typing out her thoughts into a MacBook. She thinks about the Yellowstone incident from the beginning of the series and expresses how she is lost without Mulder. The next scene is at an airport in King Khalid International Airport in Saudi Arabia. Mulder is on the plane, like Skinner told Scully. However, we see that CSM is also on the plane a few seats behind him. Once Mulder arrives back home, where Scully has been waiting, she greets him, and Mulder tells her not to worry. He tells her that he’s trying to figure out what is happening as well, just as his eyes turn black.
   
This is not looking good for Mulder or Scully. Mulder has had several run-ins with the black oil in the past. It has been a large part of the series story arc dealing with the alien race attempting to colonize the Earth. The Season 10 comics have rekindled the conspiracy very well in my opinion. In the original series, the alien colonization was set for 22 December 2012. All the similarities to the first mythology arc in The X-Files series seem to be reoccurring, albeit in a different fashion. We’ve seen major players like Mr. X, CSM, and Alex Krycek return. Mr. X dissolved into the green goo, as mentioned above, and we’ve seen CSM be overpowered by a shadowy figure using telepathy of some sort. If the hierarchy is consistent from the first conspiracy, then CSM would be controlling Krycek, although Krycek is notoriously unreliable on either side. If we’ve seen this many players return to the game, could more Syndicate members end up rejoining the conspiracy?

We’ll have to follow the series further, but thus far, it has been a very well-crafted story. The artwork has also been excellent! The use of shadows and colors has enhanced the mood that The X-Files demand. Now with this cliffhanger, we will continue the “Pilgrims” story line next with Part 4.

Special thanks to Bellefleur for editorial assistance.

Why We Believe

At the beginning of America’s involvement in World War II, Hollywood produced a series of news reels titled “Why We Fight” to contextualize its importance. I have taken the same liberty while mulling over why this revival, with six new episodes to air starting in January, is so important, and the ways that fans have demonstrated a faith that mirrors Fox Mulder’s faith. I’m speaking of several layers of the word “faith”: one meaning is the belief in intangibles that can’t be verified with facts; I also mean the word “faith” in that a segment of fans, while their trust has been challenged by the creators of The X-Files in the later seasons, remain hopeful nevertheless. There is also the interconnected issue of trust and faith, and I want to examine the questions of the nature of faith, from my perspective: what do X-Philes believe in, what causes Philes to believe, and can Philes take the work of the creative writers on faith that they can tie up loose ends and leave the audience satisfied with the remaining pieces of the puzzle?

Banner of bar on Geary Street, San Francisco

There’s a lot to process here, and I’d like to mirror comments that X-Files News’s Avi Quijada made in her blog post from June. It’s difficult for creative people to own up their work, in just about any field, but it’s very true with fiction writers who work in television or film. I’ve seen this often, even by established greats: “I wish I could do something good.” But this also applies to the casual fan of The X-Files who writes fan fiction. What has always been great about fan fiction of any genre is that it helps the author to build up confidence in their writing, when it’s received well, and can develop tools for them to take the next step, that next leap of faith to write original fiction, where they become the masters of their own universe and the masters of the characters they create. But indeed, getting good isn’t easy; it’s a slow process to find your voice, and the voices of your characters, and to have that voice come through the characters you create. Those of us who work in the arts, those of us who work in film and television, have a different insight into how difficult it is, and it is so intrinsic for creative people to understand the process.


Therefore, it’s valid to argue to give the creative team of Chris Carter, Glen and Darin Morgan, and Jim Wong the benefit of the doubt that they, as the masters of this universe, can deliver something that will connect on many levels. But fans have been frustrated for years, and there’s a history behind such frustration. Chris Knowles has started a very lucid piece about the last four seasons, starting with season six and seven, and the politics that were involved in the Los Angeles years. Why is the context he offers  important in relation to fans whose trust was breached? Exploring the “how and why” can help us understand where we are in relation to these revival episodes and what we might be able to hope to expect. Of course, the “how and why” doesn’t offer a full excuse, just greater understanding.

The consternation I have seen for the past three months is nothing new within fandom; it’s the reason why the XFL site has archived articles from Richard Preece, and similar complaints were mirrored in 2000-2001. His defense of the mythology and his comments about fans’ feelings about season nine are still valid, and it boils down to two notions – faith and trust.

If we look at it in a broad sense, faith is a complicated matter; some would co-opt the word in its simplest terms and suggest blind faith, but having true faith means being racked by doubt, and skepticism. Faith is messy and amorphous; it ebbs and flows; you have your good days and bad days. But The X-Files has been a show that many people have been inspired by, either directly in their personal lives, or indirectly on some subconscious level. It has inspired outsiders to feel less alone, to be true to themselves, and to speak their own truth whatever that might be. It has inspired people to face the darkness of the real world, regarding social issues or politics, and to not take anything at face value when it comes to media outlets, and what is officially sanctioned in the real world as opposed to the “reel world.”  Ideas from the show have acted as a beacon for decency in an indecent world. It shouldn’t be any surprise that Vince Gilligan has such deep affection for The Lone Gunmen characters – they were heroic in a world full of unheroic people. Faith requires doing what is right as opposed to doing what is easy, and it is so very tempting in this life to do what is easy.

Art by Spotman

But faith also has ripple effects, small actions during one year that manifest themselves in later years. Mulder and Scully’s actions in the first four seasons led to the unraveling of the syndicate and the colonists’ agenda in the later years, and that is a huge idea that has always been subversive to world leaders or corporate moguls. But you see this faith in community churches, regardless of one’s faith, programs that are set up to help the disadvantaged, with the hope those actions will have ripple effects to those helped and that they will do the same in turn for others at some future date. Faith builds up communities, as what’s happened with The X-Files, and even Millennium, and The Lone Gunmen spinoff.  Fans have applied lessons and have tried to be decent with one another, and have been inspired by the show with philanthropic enterprises, and have tried to build bridges, to emulate some of the ideas presented in The X-Files, to make a better world and move a little farther away from the darkness.

But fundamentally the show has been about, for many, embracing the unexpected, and being less afraid of things that are not easily explained, and gazing with a sense of wonder with things that bring us out of our typical consciousness. In the real world, people who tend to be paranormal researchers, or followers of esoteric subjects, face being outcasts for their openness, or conviction. It’s understandable, of course, but in the cases of individuals who do no harm to others, it does feel unfair to rush to judgment. One of the problems with, not individual atheists, but the mass market brand of atheism, has been the dismissal of faith based religions as mass delusions, or naïveté, to individuals who do no harm to others, there are good people of faith, and other’s whose faith is superficial and harmful, and that has always remained evident throughout history.

But I know people who follow, with interest, paranormal subjects, and many are quite lucid, normal, present, and sincere in their curiosity, and one of the things that drives this interest is the desire there’s something more and higher than our mere existence, and this desire seems ingrained in the human condition. It isn’t just religious faith; it’s the desire for a broader life, to better oneself, to experience things beyond one’s cul-de-sac. One aspect that I have taken away from the example of Fox Mulder is to not accept fate, as some are wont to do, as something preordained, and to treat fate as passive. Mulder demonstrates the idea of fate being determined by individual actions; fate is what we make it. You can’t passively wait for a higher power to determine your fate; you can’t let others decide your fate for you.

You have to take actions to make your dreams, your goals real. Blind faith that leads to a passive outcome of fate is often too easily confused, and assumed, and misses the message of what faith can do. Faith can move mountains and heal, but it doesn’t come about without actions being taken. Friedrich Nietzsche’s Amor Fati, the embracing of an undecided fate, offered up some interesting ideas:

“I want to learn more and more to see as beautiful what is necessary in things; then I shall be one of those who make things beautiful. Amor fati: let that be my love henceforth! . . . And all in all and on the whole: some day I wish to be only a Yes-sayer.”

Actions necessitate change, and the fandom that has remained dedicated to The X-Files since 2002 has brought about that change. Four years ago, everything was an open book; we had no idea this day would come, but it is here. I have never wavered in my faith and hope that Chris Carter would deliver, as I expressed during the campaign for The After. I have always liked this idea of an undecided fate, of fate as an open book, where your actions write the pages. If there is a higher power, I have little doubt it sends us signs we have to read correctly, and this goes back to the episode Improbable, where God spoke about learning how to properly read the correct numbers, listen to our instincts, and take the proper actions. Those are some of the examples I feel I have learned from watching The X-Files for over twenty years. The entire mission of this blog has been to look deeper into mythology and symbolism and learn how to apply it to our daily lives.

In closing, I have to beg to differ with some of my colleagues about the role of super fan sites, and one of the reasons I wrote several specific articles for Den of Geek about the activity of fandom over these last thirteen years. I don’t really think any one fan site represents the fandom; even The X-Files Lexicon doesn’t represent everyone. Such super fan sites represents demographic pockets of a fandom that is global and remains ongoing. But such sites act as a flashpoint for various aspects of fan appreciation. 

The fans got us here, and we are in each other’s debt for holding true and firm to see this story finished.

Art by Spotman.

I maintain a faith that Chris Carter will give us not just what we want but what we need, in a changing society that is very different from 1993. I don’t know what those stories will unfold, but I hope we remain open to the unexpected, as life is often full of the unexpected in our day-to-day lives, and with each breath we can remain grateful we are here, and here for this moment.



Special thanks to Bellefleur for editorial assistance and insight