PG: PSYCHO GOREMAN (2020)

Say, I have a question: why isn’t EVERY movie PG: Psycho Goreman?

The latest horror-comedy from the creative team formerly known as Astron-6, Canada’s beloved cult filmmaking group, marries together all of their go-to trademarks for outrageous gore, very specific humor, practical effects, and homage to ‘80s and ‘90s Hollywood sensibilities, resulting in their best collaboration to date. Written and directed by Steve Kostanski (his latest was the better than expected solo effort Leprechaun Returns), who helmed most of the group’s other titles like Manborg, Father’s Day, straight horror The Void, and episodes of their web series Divorced Dad, PG: Psycho Goreman can best be summed up as: What if E.T.: The Extra Terrestrial were actually a horrifically violent monster movie but still aimed at kids? What if it contained all the stalwarts of ‘80s/’90s Spielbergian filmmaking like childlike awe and absentee fathers, mixed with Lucas-like galaxial politics, and finished with a healthy dose of Cronenbergian/Verhoeven-ish bodily horror? PG: Psycho Goreman is what would happen, and it would be an utter fucking joy.

With nods to iconic horror titles like Phantasm and Videodrome (as well as Astron-6’s own beloved short film Biocop), and one particularly hilarious homage to Jurassic Park, specifically Sam Neill’s wardrobe, PG: Psycho Goreman embraces the entire horror genre and is seldom unfunny to an alarmingly selfish degree. PG: Psycho Goreman is that scene in a self-serious movie where the hero looks upon the technological creation or mystical conjuring of the main villain and remarks, “This is too much power for one person,” but this time, the power in question is Kostanski’s confident grasp on such strange, unrelenting, and consistent hilarity. Nearly every line of dialogue, confused reaction shot, or extremely strange behavior from one of its characters aims for the funny jugular and always hits its mark. PG: Psycho Goreman is so obsessed with making you laugh that it willingly sacrifices several of its own jokes along the way because there’s no way you’re still not laughing over them from the most previous gag. It’s a smorgasbord of surreal, absurd humor that after a while borders on emotional abuse.

Staying true to its premise, our very young main characters are Mimi (a glorious and all-in Nita-Josee Hanna) and Luke (a perfectly put-off Owen Myre), two otherwise normal kids who spend their time playing video games or their own recklessly complicated version of dodge ball called Crazy Ball. After a very strange bet, they inadvertently dig up an alien craft in their backyard, retrieve a glowing gem, and resurrect an imposing and horrifying alien warrior from the planet Gigax, whom the kids name Psycho Goreman, “PG for short” (embodied by Matthew Ninaber and voiced by Steven Vlahos). Now under Mimi’s control, the kids begin using PG as their own personal action figure, forcing him to play with them or perform various feats of strength for their own amusement. But after his awakening catches the attention of Pandora (Kristen MacCulloch, Anna Tierney, and Roxine Latoya Plummer), a member of a purposely unclear and corny intergalactic council, PG finds himself in danger, along with Mimi, Luke, and their parents, Susan (Alexis Kara Hancey) and Greg (scene-stealing Astron-6 member Adam Brooks). With the fury and might of a galaxy far far away about to rain destruction down over them and their entire planet, this dysfunctional family must band together to save their new friend Psycho Goreman, an angry and bitter alien menace who very willingly discloses that he’s going to kill them all anyway at the next possible moment. You know, for kids!

Every performance in this madness is pitch perfect, especially from the two kid leads. If you’ve explored the depths of every genre, then you know kid actors can run that gamut from great to grating, but not only do the very young Nita-Josee Hanna and Owen Myre do capable jobs, each of them perfectly encapsulates not just PG: Psycho Goreman’s overall approach but the experience of letting it into your brain and embracing its cinematic lunacy: Hanna’s Mimi is fully on board with everything happening, and she throws an unstoppable enthusiasm and exuberance into her character not seen since the earliest days of Jim Carrey; meanwhile, Mimi’s brother, Luke (Myre), is the audience – the one looking around at everything Mimi is doing and asking two things: “What the fuck is happening?” and “Isn’t this a really, really terrible idea?” It may sound like small praise, but he can rattle off a “…what?” with the perfect amount of confusion.

Also helping to bring PG: Psycho Goreman to joyous life is the blistering soundtrack by Blitz//Berlin that’s equal parts Carpenter synth, ‘90s mega-metal, and over-the-top epic orchestral, not to mention a handful of lyrical additions that are each a play on obscure soundtrack selections from ‘80s hits – like the closing-credits original rap song “Psycho Goreman (P.G. for Short)” straight out of The Monster Squad and the power metal mash-up of “Eye of the Tiger” and Commando’s concluding track “We Fight for Love” called “Two Hands, One Heart.” (I’ve also been listening to “Frig Off!” on a very loud loop in my car all week and staring hard at anyone who looks at me weird.)

Along with an unending line of genuinely imaginative and intricate physical costumes, makeup, and monstrous creations, PG: Psycho Goreman is exactly what it set out to be and is exactly what my broken, post-2020 soul needed. It’s the only comedy I’ve ever temporarily turned off during play because I was afraid I was going to pop a blood vessel in my brain from laughter. If there really is such a thing as killing someone with comedy, PG: Psycho Goreman is the closest I’ve come yet.

Though I’ve rattled off a thousand words that utterly gush over PG: Psycho Goreman, you have to know going in that you’re in for a very specific comedic experience and it’s absolutely not going to be for everyone. If you’re unfamiliar with Astron-6’s previous work, which also includes their giallo spoof The Editor, you can start right here with their Biocop fake trailer. If you’re not in on the joke, stay far away from PG: Psycho Goreman, but if you find yourself laughing and want to see more, then your whole life is about to change for the better.

PG: Psycho Goreman is now on Blu-ray from RLJE Films, and thank fuck for that.

GEOSTORM (2016)

Please, someone call Dean Devlin on his gigantic Zack Morris cell phone and tell him the ‘90s are over — have been for over 20 years. That he and his former partner, Roland Emmerich, keep insisting on destroying the planet over and over and over is a concept that worked exactly once — with 1996’s Independence Day, which, frankly, was saved by the actors in the cast, not by the concept of aliens with far advanced technology being bested by the kind of computer virus your mother accidentally downloads when she clicks on the funny looking email from your Aunt Doris that says Best deal on pharmaceutical drugs boobs pics other deals: http://GoodDrugsDeals.ru/AJf984jh5jfG95

But that hasn’t stopped them both from repeatedly trying, with Devlin going solo for Geostorm, the latest, the worst, and hopefully the last in this unending trend of planet-flooding/burning/freezing/ miscellaneous destroying.

Devlin gets credit for trying to convince the movie-going public that climate change is real, a very bad thing, and we should maybe do something about it, but his credibility is instantly lost if he actually thinks Geostorm is going to be the thing that turns that ride. When 99% of scientists say that it is real and the spate of ridiculously dangerous storms the world has seen over the last 20 years isn’t enough, seeing a town in Africa filled with frozen-solid citizens or having Ed Harris scream at you over a video monitor will doubtfully do much to help. 

Geostorm, you might argue (if you’re feeling charitable), means well, but all it does is turn a very real problem into mindless and harmless popcorn escapism and something that can be solved by the guy from Dracula 2000 because he’s good with car engines.

Geostorm is terrible. Even when someone is dangerously outrunning fiery explosions shooting through city streets, causing entire buildings to tumble, it’s boring. And offensively brainless. Do me a personal favor: instead of seeing it, go to your nearest nursery, buy a modestly priced tree, and plant it. That would be a much more productive use of both your time and an actual contribution to solving the problem. 

AFTERMATH (2017)

A long time ago, Arnold Schwarzenegger  set out on a task to accomplish three very specific edicts: to win the title of Mr. Olympia and obtain the prestige of being the world’s greatest bodybuilder, to become Hollywood’s most famous and highest paid superstar, and to become President of the United States (although he would have to settle for Governor, the highest political office his status as an immigrant would legally allow him to obtain.). To have obtained at least one of those goals is a remarkable achievement. Regardless of what you or anyone may think of him, he accomplished all three, which makes him superhuman. Following his exit from political office, he made it quite clear that he intended on rejoining the Hollywood industry, but this time, without any goals in mind or precedents to set. I, however, long ago predicted my own goal that the Austrian Oak may have in store for himself, even if he’d never admit it: the Oscar. Unlikely? Sure. Even those who fully enjoyed Schwarzenegger’s action output over the years would feel hesitant to laude the superstar’s acting skills, which can often become entrenched with his screen presence — an altogether different thing. But following his restrained and intimate turn in the zombie-drama Maggie, during which he showed audiences a side of himself never before seen, he proved his sincerity about exploring different kinds of roles. In keeping with that, Schwarzenegger turns on the tears again for Aftermath, produced by director Darren Aronofsky (which is appropriate, being that he has built a career on films about characters who chase their obsessions to the point of self-destruction).

Immediately addressing the Austrian in the room, Schwarzenegger, again, proves he has the chops to enter into the dramatic genre that, for a long time, was something he admired from afar rather than attempted for himself. The actor’s biggest obstacle is finding ways to overcome that he’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has been mired so long in parody, and who has been such a gigantic part of pop culture since the 1980s, that it’s extremely difficult to sometimes see past the actor to the part that he’s playing. And that’s what makes his work in both Maggie and now Aftermath so laudable. In his most quiet moments, where he allows his expressive eyes and grizzled face to carry much of the emotional weight, Schwarzenegger can be extraordinary. He approaches these new haunted characters in the same way he’s approached so much of his life’s watermark achievements: in a no-bullshit, 100% genuine manner. When his Roman Melynk is holding the still and frozen body of his deceased daughter, and when his eyes glisten with tears and his mouth stretches unbearably open as he begins to sob, you feel it like a punch to the gut. In moments like these, Arnold’s twenty-plus year career as an immortal bad-ass, finally, works for him. Because he can play broken and weak just as well as anyone else. 

But that’s what makes Aftermath so frustrating. It begins with the screenplay, which in too many ways comes off cheap and manipulative, delivering lazy exposition by having one character talk to another and tell him things he already knows — all for the audience’s benefit, of course. The film opens with Arnold proudly walking around his worksite, his family’s ongoing return flight from traveling abroad fresh in his mind. A co-worker reminds him, aloud, that his family is coming home, and hey, that’s a good thing! Roman goes home to his modest house and fixes the “welcome home” banner that’s gone askew on his wall. He dresses in his finest (garish) clothes to retrieve them from the airport. Keep in mind: the death of his family in a plane crash isn’t a twist or a sudden shock. The trailer, the poster, the synopsis for the film tells us this. We know they are doomed. So all the set pieces leading up to Roman finding out what we already know feels, again, like cheap manipulation. It’s that scene in every sitcom where character # 1 has really disappointing news to confess to character # 2, but character # 2 keeps going on and on and on about how happy he is, etc., which the news that character # 1 has to share is going to destroy. Only we’re not in sitcom territory; we’re in weepy, bleak, tear-strewn drama territory, and it simply can’t survive it.

Like Arnold, Scoot McNairy as Jake offers similarly devastating work as the air traffic controller indirectly responsible for the crash of the plane which killed 227 people, including Roman’s family. In more than one scene, the camera goes in close as he sobs in the face of what he’s done. Small moments like these are scattered throughout Aftermath, which give it the occasional boost of emotional weight. Likewise, Arnold being forebodingly led into the back offices of the airline where we know he’s about to receive the news (and where some other family members already have, and their anguish comes through the wall), or his sneaking onto the crash site under the guise of being a volunteer so he could locate his deceased family — which he eventually does — are extremely effecting. But all of that is mired in an awkward screenplay where characters engage in consistently unnatural-feeling conversations, or where certain characters are painted to be so unlikable, thereby manufacturing cheap sympathy for those affected, that it comes dangerously close to parody. Kevin Zeggers’ small role as a cold and unfeeling lawyer representing the airline comes off so cartoonishly unlikable that it feels more appropriate as the villain of a frat-boy college comedy. (Not to mention, and absolutely nothing against the young actor, but the presence of Judah Nelson as Jake’s son deflates the drama of every scene he’s in, being that he most famously played the son of Ron Burgundy in Anchorman 2. Onc can’t help but remember, even when he’s cowering in fear with tears streaming down his face, that he once stood on the shore next to Will Ferrell, looked out at the ocean at a shark, and said, “Bye, Doby. I hope you eat lots of fish and people.”)

There’s a nugget of a good film somewhere within Aftermath, and director Elliott Lester and director of photography Pieter Vermeer work in tandem to offer a gloomy and bleak environment, but the screenplay by Javier Gullón (Enemy) — like Ron Burgundy Jr. — continuously robs the final product from any sense of drama. 

It’s my sincere hope that Schwarzenegger sees past the indifferent reaction that Aftermath has been receiving and continues to pursue dramatic work. His age, his failure to reignite the box office as he once did, and his own personal misdeeds in life are no doubt a constant presence in his mind and all of that has been serving his dramatic work very well. Let’s hope he’ll be back for more. (Sorry, I had to.) So long as Arnold keeps up his dramatic work, I don’t think it’s impossible for him to one day achieve that Oscar. And that might be a statement to snicker at, but one thing’s for sure: Schwarzenegger has consistently proven people wrong. Maggie was a step in the right direction, and muddled finished product aside, Aftermath was too. In both films, he’s played a man grieving for his family in different ways, and in both films he’s managed to prove that he’s more than just a cyborg in a leather jacket.

MOVIE MOMENTS: THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (1986)

"What is your favorite use of a pop song in a horror movie?"

Tobe Hooper’s sequel, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, is one of the most beloved titles in horror history. A daring sequel that completely circumvents expectations, it does not attempt to match the tone or mood of the legendary 1974, overtly horror original. I also hate it. I mean, I just absolutely, positively, have-to-get-my-hatred-there-overnight for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2; it’s the equivalent of the original’s disturbing dinner sequence stretched out to an agonizing 90 minutes. It’s important I note this hatred so I can then transition into how much I legitimately love the opening sequence, which sees a couple of rowdy frat boy types finding the wrong end of Leatherface’s blade while Oingo Boingo’s “No One Lives Forever” blares from the kids’ car stereo. 

Before Danny Elfman composed for film, Oingo Boingo was his new wave, somewhat gothy baby, and like his numerous genre film scores, the band leaned on the darkness of life, and the theme of death was found in many of their songs. Its use in this sequence isn’t just ironic, nor just a way of alerting the audience that they’re in for a very different experience when compared to the original, but it’s also just a toe-tapping good time. And, if your time is up, and you’ve gotta go, go with Oingo Boingo

[Reprinted/excerpted from Daily Grinhhouse.]

ARRIVAL (2016)

At times it feels like the theater has gotten so used to sci-fi films where laser guns are zapped and mutant alien races wage war on Planet Earth that it’s easy to forget the genre can still be used for messages and morals of merit. Stemming back to the 1950s with The Day the Earth Stood Still and Invasion of the Body Snatchers – both about the imminent threat of communism (although some theorize the latter was actually about homosexuality) – the genre was once used for purposes beyond intergalactic pulp escapism. Like any other genre that’s well utilized and handpicked to effectively tell two stories at once – the surface story and the hidden story – the sci-fi genre has a lead over its counterparts in that the very tenets of its foundation are based on being limitless. As science knows no bounds, neither does science fiction.

When watching Arrival play out during its opening moments, it’s hard to disassociate it from its immediate and more well-known colleagues. Scenes of people looking across the landscape in awe will trigger memories of Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Bystanders huddling around televisions will (perhaps unfortunately) recall Independence Day. And Arrival, along with these associations, hits a lot of familiar beats that call forth concepts that are necessary to tell its story. But what sets Arrival off from the rest of the pack, despite its similar surface story, is its hidden story – or really, it’s double-hidden story. Because in the multi-layered Arrival, you slowly piece together the story you think is hidden until unearthing the one that you didn’t see coming, which just happens to have the power to bring you to your knees.

As more audiences discover Arrival, their reaction will be inevitably polarizing. If you were bothered by the ambiguous nature of Christopher Nolan's Inception or the abstract philosophical nature of that same director’s Interstellar, you’d be advised to stay far, far away from Arrival. Because multiple viewings will be required before it’s possible to begin piecing together what exactly took place on the day the Heptapods came to earth.

By purposeful design, Arrival is dark and dour. Even scenes set in exterior environments are purposely dim. Arrival was meant to look this way because the outlook for our planet isn’t good. The mystery of why the aliens have landed pervades across every inch of the screen. (There’s another reason why everything looks so dour and void of vibrant color, but to discuss it would ruin one of Arrival’s many surprises.)  

So much of the story is told through Arrival’s sound design, from the musical score by Jóhann Jóhannsson to the creation of the Heptapods and their space ship, to a slight and uneasy ambience that filters through almost (almost) unnoticed during many scenes. The film opens and closes with what has apparently become a controversial use of Max Richter’s famous song “On the Nature of Daylight” (used, among other films, in Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island), and despite what you might think of the choice, there’s no denying the emotional power that the song carries with it.  

Director Denis Villeneuve continues a career of unique, dark, and somber films with Arrival, which so far might be his best. Not necessarily his most accessible, but — and despite the inclusion of aliens — possibly his most relatable, Arrival is a gut punch in the beginning, throughout, and especially at the end, and all of them for different reasons. There were tears on my face before the first five minutes had even concluded, and this in a movie about an alien invasion. Please don’t miss it.

Z FOR ZACHARIAH (2015)

We should all be so lucky, in the face of nuclear fallout, to stumble upon at least one person as beautiful as any of Z for Zachariah's cast, let alone all three. But it's somewhat comforting to know that even after having survived what appeared to be a significant worldwide crisis which left most of its population dead, these beautiful people are undone by something like...feelings. Gross!

Z for Zachariah serves as just one more cinematic reminder that we as a people are no good for each other. But it also tries to remind its audience of that in kind of a rote and unconvincing way. The first act of the film, which sees Ann (Margot Robbie) surveying the countryside and tending her home, and then meeting Tom Loomis (Chiwetel Ejiofor), unravels realistically and effectively. And to see them slowly establish a friendship, and then a bond, and then...something unsaid, is honestly compelling. But when the character of Caleb (Chris Pine) interjects himself into the plot, you can almost hear the air being let out of Zachariah's tires. What begins and masquerades as a character study about love and dependence in the face of nuclear annihilation soon devolves into a tired and predictable love triangle that you're forced to witness unfold with a tedious inevitability. 

You might also think because one-third of this love triangle consists of a black man, brought to life by the tremendous Chiwetel Ejiofor, that there would be parables of race figuring into the conflict between them, but except for one line of dialogue that near-borders on unintentional humor ("Ya'll go be white people together!"), this concept is either accidentally or purposely left under-explored, and the film somewhat pales because of it. That Pine also drops allusions to himself and Ann being devout, while Tom is not, might also suggest the film is willing to explore societal differences that contribute to its isolation, but again, this is something left teased but never fleshed out.

Have there been many other, if any, apocalyptic love triangles? Perhaps, perhaps not. Though it cavorts as being "about" something, Z for Zachariah falls victim to the same overwrought dramatics that we've seen in other films, though lesser, which don't purport to be more than they are. It’s well-made but forgettable – is the definition of a middle-of-the-road cinematic experience. Its competent cast do what they can with the somewhat undeveloped material, and it's beautifully directed and photographed, but the film's unease in tapping into what keeps society as isolated as it does entrenched falls by the wayside in favor of some been-there/done-that conflicts dealing with love and betrayal, and it suffers all the more for it.

BORN AGAIN, HOME AGAIN: THE RETURN OF ‘THE X-FILES’

I’m a ‘90s kid. I think a lot of us Internet dwellers are. It was during this magical decade where three gigantic pop-culture phenomena TV shows came into prominence; they entertained and captivated audiences, forever contributing strange references and expressions to the lexicon: Seinfeld gave us “master of our domain,” Friends offered “how you doin’?” and The X-Files, well...the one-hour paranormal drama gave us much, much more. It gave us intrigue, mystery, horror, humor, icky monsters, complicated love, and most importantly, it resurrected one of the biggest life lessons which flourished during the cinematic movement of the 1970s: trust no one.

For nine seasons and two feature films, Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) hunted the things that bumped in the dark, kept watching the skies, and slowly fell in love. And during this mostly '90s-set series, I literally grew up watching it all unfold. It was the first "grown up" show I followed with any regularity, and during my formative years, the impact of it all was that much greater. My boyhood peaked during the show's best seasons, and when the realization set in that said boyhood was nearly over and "grown up" things were soon coming, it just so happened to coincide with the series losing its luster. The magic was vanishing both in real life and the land of make believe. It made coming of age a little bit harder, and in a way, made having to say goodbye to the show something to dread, not anticipate with the usual amount of excitement.

1998's feature film The X-Files: Fight The Future was meant to be the first of many theatrical endeavors that were planned to transition the series from the small screen to the big, with the show's fifth season originally meant to be its TV series swan song—a move that would allow time to flesh out the alien mythology in a streamlined story while reaping the benefits of fans anticipating seeing Mulder and Scully reunite in their never-ending quest to find the truth, which, for all intents and purposes, was out there. (Somewhere.)

This didn't happen.

Fox wasn't about to let go of its largest viewership, even if they could have easily collected their X-revenue from the box office instead of TV advertisers, so The X-Files remained on the air far longer than it should have. It stayed on the air for so long that Duchovny (one of the leads) excused himself from the show’s stranglehold during the last couple seasons in an effort to do something—anything—different. This caused several complications, on top of ones previously caused by a show having already satisfied its main conflict several seasons ago. Obviously, a new new conflict would be needed, and in Duchovny’s absence, new characters, which are almost always a sign of a creatively bankrupt show.

After its disappointing finale in 2002, The X-Files, it appeared, had been permanently sealed.

Enter the series' second feature film I Want to Believe six years later, which picked up on our beloved agents in the next stages of their lives: Dr. Dana Scully was now a staff physician at a children’s hospital, and Fox Mulder was now an unemployed and bored as hell recluse treating his home office ceiling like a dartboard. Not nearly as bad as many fans claim it is, nor as good as some well-meaning but misguided articles might have you believe (how you doin’, AV Club?), The X-Files: I Want to Believe resurrected our beloved FBI agents in a way that felt more perfunctory than ceremonial, leapfrogging off a series finale that found them on the run and pursued by the FBI, but lazily neutralizing that conflict by stating, basically, “Good thing the FBI stopped trying to kill us!” The series finale saw attempts on their lives; their first appearances in I Want to Believe found them barely hiding out, with Mulder lazing around his house protected by a single gate, and Scully working as a prominent doctor under her real name, neither of them at all concerned about having a needle shoved into their medullae oblongatae by a man in black.

Still, The X-Files was back—in theaters!—so if their so-called wantedness by the FBI was the creative hurdle to overcome in order for that to happen, fine. And I Want to Believe presented what ultimately would have been an above-average adventure for our duo…had it been pared down and relegated to the small screen. But with it being a feature film, anticipation for something large in scale and teeming with aliens was expected, though not received, so the reception was not great and its box office haul was pitiful. (Note to Fox, who chose to open it one week after The Dark Knight: counter-programming doesn't work against the geek demographic.)

Ordinarily, I Want to Believe would have signaled the end of the franchise. A low-budget sequel produced to test the waters resulted in a resounding “no thanks” from fans, not helped by its marketing campaign which opted to eschew indication of its actual plot and instead drape its trailer in ambiguity that, hopefully, would be surmounted by the return of Mulder and Scully. Fox was banking on audiences saying, “They’re back? I’m in.” And it didn’t work.

Eight years later, and well into the trend of resurrecting established properties for the small screen, the The X-Files returned with mostly pitiful results. While it was an absolute delight to see Fox Mulder and Dana Scully once again calling each other by their surnames, checking in via cell phone, and doing that cool FBI thing where they point flashlights and guns as they charge into dark rooms, unfortunately, Seasons 10 and 11 made the same mistakes as its most immediate predecessor seasons.

To determine the worth of these new episodes, we need look no further than the book-ending episodes of each new season, "My Struggle" Parts 1 through 4.

With the first episode, the introduction of Mulder and Scully felt perfunctory. The first scene with A.D. Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) felt obligatory. Nothing about it felt big. And every moment should have been big. It was The X-Files back on television after fifteen years, people! Tepid second feature film aside, this was a big deal and should have been treated as such. But Duchovny looked bored, appearing as if he’d shown up late on set for the first day of filming without time to slip back into his character (including his wardrobe). Anderson still seemed to be in the process of shedding the cold disassociation with reality her Bedelia Du Maurier had exhibited during her run on the short-lived Hannibal. Neither of them seemed comfortable revisiting their most famous characters—not to mention the arduously stupid dialogue with which series creator Chris Carter had saddled them.

The opening episode is in such a hurry that it hits the ground running but doesn't know what to do when it lands. There's so much to do, and so little time in which to do it—not just in the 45 minutes of an episode, but in the six episodes of the new season. (What first sounded like a good idea—the six-episode thing—became a handicap. Two mythology episodes and four standalones that found subtle ways to move that mythology along, or reintroduce us to these characters and allow us to see how they've grown and changed, all sounded well and good, but so much it felt like "hurry up and wait" that the wind was taken out of its proverbial sails.) Thematically, where “My Struggle” failed the hardest was in Mulder’s complete willingness to shed his philosophy about the alien invasion that had served as his personal crusade for the entire run of the show, finding him too eager to believe it was all just a distraction from the "real" truth. Fans crucified the episode for this—"My Mulder would never sell out like that"—and they were right to do so.

As to why Carter would introduce such a revelation, there are two possible explanations. One: it was a graceless fumble to concoct yet another alien mythology to order to give The X-Files its purpose, this being the third alien conflict for our duo to investigate. Or two—and one that I’m more inclined to believe, given the endless developments that support it: this was his attempt to attract a whole new audience previously unfamiliar with The X-Files by saying, “What, that? Those previous nine seasons? Forget all that, don’t worry. All you need to know is: Mulder’s got a hard-on for alien conspiracies, Scully’s along for the ride, and they once had an alien baby." And the reasons to support this theory go on, from a statement on the pre-Season 11 greenlight potential for more episodes from Fox entertainment president David Madden where he referred to it as "Season 2” instead, to the befuddling announcement that a series of prequel books geared toward "young adults" are being written to explore Mulder and Scully in their teens—before they joined the FBI or even knew each other.

As for "My Struggle: Part II," Carter borrowed from another of his Fox television series, Millennium, by relying on a conspiratorial group of shadowy men attempting to mass produce a biological contagion as a means to decimate the world's population while leaving a "chosen" few behind. Likely shot following Part 1, Duchovny again looked awkward in the role, and Carter's dialogue—"There's talk all over the Internet!"—again sounded corny and unrealistic. However, not all was lost, and the episode was a remarkable improvement over Part 1. Anderson exhibited a better ease at finding Scully again after so many years, and this episode rode mostly on her shoulders. Carter, who pulled double duty as writer and director, managed to show some directorial flare that bordered on damn near cinematic (speed-ramping fight scenes notwithstanding). Devotees of the series might have felt a rush at certain moments—the returning Monica Reyes' (Annabeth Gish) phone call to Scully, for instance, or, finally, a significant amount of screen time for C.G.B. Spender (William B. Davis)—but they weren't enough to sail this episode, and by proxy the season, through to the finish line.

As for Season 11's mythology-"concluding" episodes, Chris Carter seems to have pursued a purposely dialed-down resolution to the Mulder vs. Cancer Man conflict, which became an organic backbone of the series throughout its run. After being hilariously and stupidly destroyed by a tomahawk missile fired directly into his face following the first ending to The X-Files waaay back in Season 9, Spender not only survived with some minor dents to the fender but he's still as dastardly as ever. But instead of the big, flashy, Hollywood ending Carter tried the first time, now, things for Spender ended with a whimper...and with a single gunshot. He survived a missile to the brain, but Mulder's gun finally does the trick, I guess, castrating this bigger than life conflict between them, relegating Spender to a simple monster of the week, as if he had never been hugely significant to Mulder's ongoing struggles with who he is and the real truth he's seeking.

Speaking of monsters, the new series' "monster of the week" episodes all did admirable jobs of trying to find that careful balance between satisfying the old fans, intriguing the new ones, and presenting episodes that appealed to the many diverse sensibilities of its audience. Different fans of old-school X-Files loved the different approaches to the episodes: the horrific, the silly, the pensive and quiet, and the mythological—all in equal measures. In order to give every faction their due, and within the confines of a six-episode season, they did as well as they could have. The problem, however, wasn’t the tone, but the actual writing. If nothing else, Season 10 has the dubious honor of unleashing upon its fanbase probably one of the worst—if not the worst—episode of the show’s existence. (Do I even have to say “Babylon”? Couldn’t you all have assumed that?)

Line-dancing! Gangsta rings! Cameos from dead dorks! What is happening! 

Amidst all of these disappointments, one stood head and shoulders above the rest. It wasn't the lackadaisical performances, the questionable story choices, and the wildly uneven tone. It's that with Season 10, The X-Files lost its intelligence. It sacrificed subtlety to satisfy how apparently angry with and saddened by his country Chris Carter has grown. What made the original run of The X-Files so thrilling and beloved was how American it was. And I don't mean Reagan's America, but the real America—history book America. The original series was socially relevant and mindfully political because it pertained to a certain bygone era of America's modern history, off which the show created a lot of mystique. The most political it ever got was by insinuating that J. Edgar Hoover had once been part of the conspiracies that ran rampant—and by implication, President Nixon, easily roping in that tangible sense of paranoia. This specificity to an era of American history is always going to be relevant because that aspect is so ingrained in/with American culture. It's vital to our culture in the same way baseball is our national pastime. There's no explaining why—it just is. This is what gives The X-Files strength and purpose: the paranoia of the blue-collar nobody attempting to circumvent the trials and tribulations of everyday life in order to find the truth. Is there a conspiracy? If so, who's in on it? Who can you trust? How high does it go? Equal parts The Manchurian Candidate, All the President's Men, and The Day the Earth Stood Still, The X-Files endeavored to embody that same spirit—American stories about American conflicts featuring American men and women standing up against invading threats. They were about us fighting corruption at the very top.

Carter's new X-Files was no longer interested in subtlety. Far more interested in broad strokes and empty meaningless gestures about how we can improve as a people (talking and love can fight terrorism! homelessness is bad; someone should do something!), the new X-Files didn’t skewer American culture as much as focus on the things that have hindered that culture. It's Carter's insistence on making the series socially relevant that forced it to stand out like a sore thumb when compared to everything that’s come before. With the introduction of right-wing TV host Tad O'Malley, Islamic extremism, and references to drones, constant surveillance, the Iraq War, anthrax, and Edward Snowden, it's tried so hard to feel current that it somehow already felt dated by the end of the episode. One day there will come a time when religious extremism and ISIS and suicide bombings become a thing that just was. Down the road, new fans will discover the show, and these new episodes, and think, "Was this ever part of your culture?" But the original conflicts that really gave The X-Files its power—Watergate, the JFK assassination, Roswell—aren't just pages of our history, but shapers of our culture. They're never going to dissipate, and they exemplify what Fox Mulder is trying to do: expose the shadowy government officials at the highest levels for what they are and prove to the American people they've been lied to.

Even if we want to take a step back from all the pseudo-philosophizing and examine the show for nothing more than a piece of entertainment, the rebirth still existed on shaky ground. Carter wasn’t able to overcome the recognition that The X-Files achieved pop-culture status. Even people who never watched a single episode in their lives know the names Mulder and Scully. They know "trust no one." And they know, without ever having seen a frame, that Mulder and Scully totally wanted to do it to each other. Carter was so aware of this pop-culture status that he seemed unable to refrain from elbowing his audience in the side, in every episode, to remind them of this. Too aware of its own legacy to just be a show, it tried to be a show at the same time it was reminding people, "Hey, this was a show before it was a show!" Scenes of Mulder being confused by iPhones are played for laughs, oddly suggesting that following I Want to Believe, he lived in a closet while culture continued to advance without him. The "mini" versions of our characters that appear in "Babylon"—down to Lauren Ambrose's red hair and her ultra-cynicism—have all the subtlety of a fireworks factory exploding. And the list goes on and on.

Different intellectual properties have been explored on television in various ways, whether they be the resurrection of previous series or film properties being explored in inventive reboots. But none of them ever felt the need to remind their audiences, "Hey, we've done this already." It caused The X-Files' return to feel obligatory, exhibiting a seeming "Oh, is it our turn?" mentality. As if they didn’t really want to be back.

And that sucks.

Though Seasons 10 and 11 seem to be the final word on The X-Files in terms of television (and Anderson, who has been enjoying one celebrated role after another since then, has made it very clear she wouldn’t do another season), Carter has been claiming for years that he's written a film script for The X-Files 3, and his comments on that script suggest the events of these new seasons don't really complicate what he's already concocted. The problem is he already had a long break between Season 9 and I Want to Believe, and then another long break between that and Season 10, to focus on the story he wanted to tell and how he wanted to tell it. Hence why Season 11 didn't fare much better.

If Chris Carter loves The X-Files as much as I believe he does, the best thing he can do for it is close the lid of his laptop and hand over all future writing responsibilities to someone else – either to the staff he’s assembled over the years which includes Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, or to the dreaded ‘new class’ of writers who could take that concept of The X-Files and re-create it as something new while giving it a clean slate.

Regardless of what form in which it returns, The X-Files could be great again. After seeing how low it can go, any eventual returns would have to serve as some kind of marginal improvement. Or maybe that's the fan boy in me holding out hope that such a thing is possible. Maybe, at this stage, after so many disappointing seasons, it's simply not possible.

But, let's just say I want to believe it is.