It had been quite the bombshell back in 2015 when actor David Duchovny announced that the celebrated Fox sci-fi detective drama series “The X-Files” would return for a tenth season, with him and gillian anderson back in the lead roles, after it ended in 2002. The season, comprising only six episodes and airing in 2016, got mixed reviews as a whole; some episodes were highly acclaimed and others not. It was not until April 2017 that a season 11 was green-lighted, and for 2018 to boot. Rumors ran rampant over the general story arc of the show given the status of Agents Mulder and Scully in the season 10 finale.
Finally, a first actual trailer was released to tease some plot.
Search for the son
The trailer was released to some very eager viewers at the New York Comic-Con over the weekend, and its contents are exactly what “X-Files” aficionados have been expecting ever since the season 11 announcement came out. It is set around a framing device, of FBI Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) in a hospital bed, weakly asking fellow agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) to find their son William, last featured in the old series run when Scully gave him up for adoption in 2002.
Some of the trailer footage takes a scene from the finale of “X-Files” season 10, with the triangular UFO shining its light down on Mulder and Scully on the bridge.
Then there is some sinister voiceover coming from who is arguably the franchise’s main antagonist, the ubiquitous Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis). He is threatening FBI X-Files director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) to work with him and “betraying humanity,” claiming that civilization has reached its final stages.
A scene then features Duchovny's character being exhorted by Lone Gunman member Langly (Dean Haglund) to kill somebody before that somebody kills them all.
Things to expect
“The X-Files” season 11 brings back the expected writing staff of series creator Chris Carter (also executive producer), with Glen Morgan, Darin Morgan, and James Wong among others.
Impressed enough by the performance of the tenth, the production has upped the episode count to 10, with 8 standalone stories and two myth episodes. Much of the season is devoted to presumably the search by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s characters for William, though Carter has also teased a flashback episode featuring a young director Skinner. The series creator also broached the possibility that, in pure series form, season 11 will end in yet another cliffhanger.
As the eleventh season of the highly-acclaimed long-running series gets ready to premiere on Fox next year in January, fans can agree with Anderson’s Scully reminding Duchovny’s Mulder at the end of the trailer, that “The Truth still lies with the X-Files.”
