By STEVE TILLEY - Edmonton Sun
In the beginning, Chris Carter created the Conspiracy.
And the Conspiracy was without form, and darkness was upon the face of the Cigarette-Smoking Man.
And Carter said, "Let there be FBI agents to probe the paranormal and expose secret government agendas."
And Carter saw the FBI agents, and they were good.
And Carter called the spooky agent Mulder, and he called the rational agent Scully, and he divided the Mulder from the Scully.
And Carter blessed them, saying, "Be fruitful and investigate strange and creepy cases each week, and fill the television airwaves with suspense and intrigue. "
And Carter saw everything he had made, and behold, it was very good.
One has to wonder if Chris Carter is teasing X-Files fans by titling this season's premiere episode The Beginning.
Because The X-Files that enters its sixth year Sunday (at 10 p.m. on ITV, Cable 8) is a very different extraterrestrial biological entity from The X-Files that first introduced us to two mismatched federal agents investigating ghostly hauntings, UFO sightings and mutant murderers.
Sure, the series has been transplanted from the suitably gloomy environs of Vancouver to shiny, happy Los Angeles. Note the opening shot in Sunday night's episode of a blazing sun over a very un-Vancouver desert, a Carteresque sight gag if ever there was one.
But the move from darkness to light is more than just a location change. Everything that was once shadowy and secretive about The X-Files is now out in the open. And behold, it's not very good.
Do aliens really exist? Heck, Sigourney Weaver would feel at home on the show now. Cigarette-Smoking Man? Why, he's the father of Mulder's nemesis, and maybe Mulder's own dad, too. The bees? Explained. Black oil? Explained. Shadowy consortium of old white men and their conspiracy for world domination? Explained.
So ... what's left?
Well, tonight's episode picks up from where last year's season finale (titled The End) and the summer's X-Files feature film left off, as Mulder tries to tell his superiors just what the deal was with that massive UFO that blasted its way out of the Antarctic ice.
They don't believe him, of course, and
Mulder's seemingly paranoid ravings are so
extreme, they decide not to reassign him and
Scully to the reopened X-Files.
Instead, Mulder's former partner, Agent Diana
Fowley (Mimi Rogers), and his arch-foe,
Agent Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), are
handed the X-Files caseload.
This is one of the bright spots in the season
opener. With two good actors in the roles of
the anti-Mulder 'n' Scully duo, the stage is set
for lots of conflict. And with assistant
director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) no
longer looking out for the twosome, who
knows what might happen?
So when one of those badass, sharp-clawed aliens from the movie gestates and escapes in Arizona, there's a three-way race to find the beastie, between Mulder (and Scully), Spender (and Fowley) and Cigarette-Smoking Man (and the telepathic chess-playing kid from last season's finale, who Cancer Man has kidnapped.)
Enough new tidbits are revealed to make you go "Hmm," including a hint at the relationship between the nasty aliens and the wide-eyed Greys we've seen before, and between the aliens and all of humankind.
But is that enough to keep us from hearkening back to the simpler days of yore, when giant fluke men, creepy hillbilly families the barely hinted-at existence of EBEs chilled and thrilled us? More importantly, what's next?
Carter has said there are several "lighter" episodes on tap for the first part of the season. You can decide for yourself if this is a good thing in two weeks, with an episode inspired by - wait for it - The Wizard of Oz.
While in the so-called Devil's Triangle, Mulder gets warped back to 1939 and taken aboard a luxury cruise ship, replete with a cast of characters who strongly resemble Scully, Skinner and the rest of the gang.
It's a cool episode to watch, in that it's filmed as a single shot - no scene breaks, no cutaways, just a Steadicam moving with the actors. It's different, if nothing else.
But like much of the series over the last couple of years, it's definitely a fans-only affair. Casual viewers won't find the sight of Cigarette-Smoking Man in an SS uniform sly or meaningful. And some hardcore X-philes are sure to be put off by the levity. (Personally I thought the whole thing was fairly cute and clever, and a particular event we've waited more than five years for finally happens. Sort of.)
Whatever the case, Carter is going to have to pull some tricks of biblical proportions out of his hat if he wants to keep us satisfied through two more seasons (and at least one more feature film) of this much-worshipped show.
Here's hoping - nay, praying - he can do it. Amen.
