Watch Essential 21-Minute ‘X-Files’ Miniseries Preview
With less than a month to go before The X-Files returns from its “13-year commercial break” for a six-episode event series, the long-running sci-fi series has provided a 21-minute video as a preview for the miniseries. The extended clip doubles as a refresher for old fans and introduction to uninitiated viewers who didn’t grow up with David Duchovny’s Fox Mulder and Gillian Anderson’s Dana Scully. For viewers who don’t have time to marathon-watch The X-Files‘ nine seasons on Netflix, the “Re-Opened” featurette is mandatory viewing.
Like the original X-Files, the miniseries’ arc will feature a combo of “Mythology” episodes – Mulder and Scully’s series-long search for proof of extraterrestrial life – and standalone “Monster of the Week” episodes, where the agents are roped into a bizarre investigation outside their UFO pursuits. This time around, the two types of episodes will bleed into one another (as opposed to the original series, which kept the storylines and its consequences separate). “Even in the standalone episode, there’s some story to advance,” Duchovny says. “It’s not just about the case.”
At the heart of the six-episode miniseries is the continuing story of Mulder and Scully. “We’ve always tried to have a human element. It was always tied to how it affected Mulder and Scully as human beings, and same here,” writer Darin Morgan, who penned some of The X-Files most beloved and offbeat episodes, says in the preview. “They’re going through all these weird stories but the throughlines is them confronting their age and confronting their life choices.”
The X-Files‘ miniseries premieres January 24th. In addition to bringing back the majority of the main cast – even supposedly deceased characters like the Smoking Man – creator Chris Carter and the series’ main stable of writers returned for the new episodes.