The Roswell incident and the subsequent UFO hysteria left a deep mark in the collective unconscious of Americans.
The pilot episode of the reboot of 'The X-Files' will be released on the streaming service Hulu. The director and writer of this episode will be Ryan Coogler, the director of 'Black Panther', 'The Harder They Fall', and 'Creed: Rise of Rocky'. Actress Danielle Deadwyler ('The Watchmen', 'The Taste of Life') has reportedly "secured one of the two coveted lead roles in the series," according to Hollywood Reporter.
The showrunner of the reboot will be Jennifer Yale, who previously worked on the series 'Legion', 'See', and 'Friends and Neighbors'. Chris Carter, the creator of the original 'The X-Files', will be the executive producer of the show, not involved in writing the script.
It is reported that the synopsis of the reboot will differ from the premise of the original Fox series that premiered in 1993. It goes as follows:
— Two high-ranking but completely different FBI agents unexpectedly bond when they are assigned to a long-closed division that dealt with cases related to unexplained phenomena.
The release date of the reboot is currently unknown.
As we know them, 'The X-Files' was created by producer and writer Chris Carter — a man of extraordinary imagination and armored persistence. He viewed this television show as his chance to leave Walt Disney Pictures, where he had to make toothless children's comedies. He spent not a few kilograms of nerve cells trying to convince the bosses at Fox that the new show and its characters should be as he envisioned them, rather than standard and familiar to viewers. Fox was reluctant to spend money on a dubious plot about aliens and a government conspiracy with elements of urban legends, whose main characters were an extremely odd pair of FBI agents. Eventually, the stubborn Carter did receive his two million dollars to shoot the pilot episode, a carte blanche in casting the lead roles... and the most inconvenient time slot for airing — Friday night.
However, a miracle happened: the pilot of 'The X-Files' received a very high rating — 15% of the viewing audience. Television bosses were surprised and greenlit a full season. Then another season... and another... Stopping this machine, which consistently brought the network money and Golden Globes, became impossible after a while. Carter tried to do so, realizing that the narrative potential of the series was gradually being exhausted. Partly because of this, the eighth and ninth seasons came out "somewhat rushed." Chris Carter and his characters tried to jump off a moving train, and such jumps can only be graceful in the movies.
The success of 'The X-Files', like any success, is partly based on luck and partly on careful calculation. Chris Carter began to sketch the main storyline of the series after reading a study by his friend, medical doctor and psychiatrist John Edward Mack, about the fact that three percent of Americans firmly believe they have been abducted by aliens. The Roswell incident and the subsequent UFO hysteria left such a deep mark in the collective unconscious of Americans that a series dedicated to the pressing theme of "the government conceals" comfortably settled in this mark, like Simon's cat in a box.
The second pillar on which the success of the series stands is Chris Carter's favorite TV show, 'The Twilight Zone' (1959–1964) — a collection of vivid fantastical and mystical stories united only by a sense of oppressive absurdity and paranoia. There were no common characters or a single storyline in this series, and Chris Carter figured out how to fix that.
In 'The X-Files', there is an episode that serves as a direct homage to 'The Twilight Zone' both in plot and style. This is the sixth episode of the eighth season — 'Redrum' (murder spelled backwards). Its protagonist, prosecutor Martin Wells (named after Herbert Wells), is accused of murdering his own wife. And Martin perceives the time of his life as moving backward, day by day, and this peculiarity is not explained in any way. Wells is played by actor Joe Morton, who once starred in 'Terminator 2' with Robert Patrick, who plays Agent John Doggett, Scully's new partner, in the eighth season.
The main characters helped 'The X-Files' give a cohesive structure to the collection of supernatural stories and keep viewers engaged with the events. Fox William Mulder and Dana Katherine Scully became "handcrafted" characters, not assembled from ready-made serial clichés, but they nevertheless possessed enough traits that allowed viewers to empathize with them and identify with them.
