I know I’ve already written about Fringe, and one day I’ll write a little something on the Twilight Zone, but in the 1990s there was an undisputed king of dark, moody sci-fi: The X-Files.
You can already hear the music, can’t you?
Developed by Chris Carter and airing in 1993, The X-Files took inspiration from earlier sci-fi shows like The Twilight Zone and Twin Peaks, where the alien or supernatural happenings were never monumental, culture wide clashes but small, domestic scale horrors where the malevolent forces are never entirely understood.
The show itself followed the investigations of FBI Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), the former a passionate believer in aliens, monsters and conspiracy theories, the latter a skeptical woman of science (albeit with a surprisingly spiritual side) who had been assigned to “debunk” the strange occurrences.
What followed was nine seasons that took the pair of agents across the globe, from investigating black magic rituals in small-town America, to hunting ancient parasites in artic research stations, to being part of alien experiments in Russia. The show featured some great “monster of the week” episodes (my favorite was the serial killer Tooms in “Stretch”), but the overarching plot followed Mulder and Scully’s attempts to uncover a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens.
Writing-wise, I never felt the character development was really the focus of the story. While Mulder and Scully had their ups and downs, most notably Scully’s on and off battle with cancer, neither character ends the show significantly different from how they started: Mulder is still the one who looks for the most outlandish cause to every case, while Scully, even after everything she’s seen, is still the evidence-based sceptic. What this show did have, and have in spades, was a slow-burn romance that is the envy of writers everywhere even to this day. Part of this was due to the smoldering screen presence of Duchovny and Anderson, and a lot of it was also due to writers who understood that the breathless anticipation of two lovers who are always seem just one more episode away from confessing is far more compelling than a couple who go straight to their happily ever after. The point was never to resolve the tension, it was simply to keep it stretched out for as long as possible.
In the same way, the point of the X-Files investigations was never to completely uncover any of the mysteries they encountered, particularly the ever-growing alien invasion conspiracy. The fun was watching the pair fumbling through the dark together as they got closer and closer to the truth. Anyone remember the ever-present poster of a UFO above Mulder’s desk, proclaiming “I Want To Believe”?
This is where we start to understand why this show was so damn compelling. One of the descriptions I’ve read for the X-Files considered it to be Gothic Horror, and the more I think about it the more this makes sense. Gothic Horror is all about the fear of being shut into a place or a relationship where the power has been taken from you. In the case of The X-Files, it wasn’t a crumbling English mansion that has trapped our heroes, it was the entire US government. Despite Mulder’s devotion, despite Scully’s intelligence, the Agents never get more than a tiny glimpse of the truth before it is quietly and efficiently erased, all under the gaze of the infamous Cigarette Smoking Man (William Davis).
Here is where Good Writing Matters. A good horror story understands the importance of what is implied, not what is explained. Horror isn’t seeing the monster in the lake – no, horror is swimming through the dark waters and seeing just the edge of a gargantuan flipper moving deep beneath you. Horror is then knowing that you’re all alone with something alien and dangerous and still unknown, and this is why we kept tuning in to The X-Files week after week, hoping for the thrill of just one glimpse more.
That’s it for this week, I’d love to pick apart a few of the best episodes in future, if you have any suggestions as to which one, please post below!
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