By Dan Barrett
The eagerly anticipated return of The X-Files was warmly received in Cannes overnight with the first episode of the new series airing to a full audience at the MIPCOM Conference.
Returning to the screens in January 2015 for a six-episode 10th season, the show has been off the air since the series finale in 2002.
Creator of the show Chris Carter appeared before the audience following the screening, telling the crowd: “I never imagined that I‘d be sitting here in Cannes introducing more television episodes! It’s surreal. It’s really a dream come true for me to do something. I’ve been doing this now for roughly a little over a third of my life. I jumped at the chance to do it.
“Every day I look at the newspaper and I see a possible X-Files episode, so this is obviously something that I did for a longtime and you never quite lose the eye for what would be good X-Files storytelling. It’s a perfect time to come back with the X-Files considering global politics.”
In a review for Indiewire, critic Adam Benzine noted that the new series is deeply rooted in the current era with “brief glimpses of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, clips of President Obama laughing on Jimmy Kimmel, footage of 9/11, Bush Jr. and the Iraq war”. Benzine even reports about a reference to Uber.
Michael Idato in The SMH reports: “Brilliantly, it manages to box up all the touchstones of the original series, in a very present framework. It plays fast, like modern television must, but as the pieces of its jigsaw slowly assemble themselves, we’re almost slowly, subtly turning back the clock to the point that Mulder and Scully are re-partnered and the X Files re-opened”.
Fans of the series will be happy to know that the opening title sequence used for the show will be exactly the same as when the series premiered in 1993, remaining completely unchanged.
The truth remains out there.