The singing teens have left the building, but Fox viewers are gleeful about the return of another of its benchmark shows.
In case you haven't read all over the interwebs already, The X-Files will be back for a limited six-episode run at an undisclosed date — no doubt to create more suspense and hype around the network's biggest redux since 24.
The news offered another ecstatic moment for aging Gen X pop culture fiends who require a nostalgia fix after the comedown from the news that Twin Peaks is also returning to TV.
Jimmy Kimmel (@jimmykimmel) tweeted: "welcome back Mulder & Scully. I missed you terribly. @DavidDuchovny & @GillianA #XFiles."
If you were obsessed with the exploits (and awkward sexual tension) of Mulder and Scully, you're no doubt eager to revisit the still-sexy-after-all-these-years duo David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson; to make sense out of what you couldn't make sense out of the first time around, from the death of Mulder's father to the Smoking Man and his mercenary protection of classified secrets to that black oil.
And where will Mulder and Scully be in their personal continuum? Are they old-hat married people or (most likely) have they parted ways and are still dream-groping each other? Suffice it to say TV's all-time favorite co-ed feds will be working together on new assignment that will no doubt be too close for comfort. Their Hepburn-Tracy-style tongue lashings and complementary worldviews pitting the rationality of science (Mulder) against imaginings of the unknown (Mulder) provided reams of chatroom discussion before blogs were even a thing.
Fans who pine for X Files' nine-season-long fun from 1993 to 2002 (well, minus the last year or two) will surely be yearning for the production value and eerie suspense that set the show apart from other hour-long investigative dramas. Especially with today's onslaught of by-the-numbers CSI: Wherever/Law and Order crime dramas on every hour on the hour, TV viewers are craving the good stuff X Files had to offer: the moody cinematography, cryptic mythology, wild and weird investigative subjects, Chris Carter's tight Twilight Zone-esque storytelling and the elegantly drawn allegories that made us ponder the unknown and our place in this universe — all that good stuff that propelled The X Files to the top of the Nielsen charts and earned it Emmy awards.
In other words, less of the oblique meh that went into the second movie spinoff and final fizzling episodes in 2002, which dragged on after the stars left.
“I think of it as a 13-year commercial break,” Carter said in a press statement today. “The good news is the world has only gotten that much stranger, a perfect time to tell these six stories."
Expect an impressive slate of guest stars. The first run of the series featured famous stars of today before they were known, such as Owen Wilson, Ryan Reynolds, Octavia Spencer and Jack Black. Most likely there will be more of the crisp one-off episodes that established the series but an overarching mystery too.
Duchovny joked to the press that he was too old and tired for a full-season run, so Fox must make it snappy.
Recommended reading as you prep for the X Files' return:
Top 10 Funniest X Files Episodes.
The 15 Best X Files Monsters.
Top 10 episodes overall.
20 Mind-Blowing Facts about The X Files.
What Are the Main Story Arcs of The X Files?
The X Files Guide to Relationships
This article appears in Mar 19-25, 2015.