The X-Files: "My Struggle II"

It is 22 February 2016 and time for the Season 10 finale of The X-Files.

People across America begin falling ill with what seem like a collection of serious viral infections. While Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Einsten (Lauren Ambrose) struggle to identify a cure, Mulder (David Duchovny) - who is already badly infected - races to North Carolina for a confrontation with the infection's source: the Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis).

There is something genuinely sad about what has happened to The X-Files. For its first few years it was hands-down the best American television series on the air. It was provocative, atmospheric, intelligent and unexpected. It followed Twin Peaks in pushing the visual aesthetic of television drama towards a properly cinematic look, and it arguably pushed that shift much harder and for much longer. It was successful enough and effective enough to become properly iconic. Then it started to slip a little, an episode here or a story arc there. The long-running story arc of Mulder's quest to prove the existence of UFOs became overly complicated, and then hopelessly muddled, and eventually flat-out contradictory. By the time the series ended at its ninth season, the arc was not only failing to work but was actively destroying the series.

The X-Files: "Babylon"

It is 15 February 2016, and time for another episode of The X-Files.

Two Muslim suicide bombers commit a mass murder in an art gallery. One of the bombers has survived but lies in a vegetative state. In two separate attempts to contact the man and discover the location of his terrorist cell, Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) team up with two young FBI agents.

"Babylon" is a red-hot mess. There are scenes where the viewer is clearly expected to engage on a dramatic level, but there are also scenes that provide the same kind of overt comedy upon which "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster"focused. Having the two styles in the one episode causes them to chafe against each other badly. Throw in some appallingly insensitive material on Islamic terrorism, and you have a pretty jaw-dropping recipe for disaster.

The X-Files: "Home Again"

It is 8 February 2016 and time for another episode of The X-Files.

A run-down part of Philadelphia is being redeveloped and gentrified, which means relocating all of the homeless people currently living on the streets. Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) are called in when a Federal employee faciliating the removal is brutally murdered. While Mulder tracks down the mysterious killer, Scully receives upsetting news much closer to home.

"Home Again", which marks the series return of writer/director Glen Morgan - who use to co-write with James Wong ("Founder's Mutation") - is a weird blend of old-school monster-of-the-week thrills with weirdly awkward melodrama. The result does contain sufficient X-Files scares and weirdness to entertain the viewer, but due to Scully's personal sub-plot it is a pretty shaky experience.

The X-Files: "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster"

It is 1 February 2016, and time for another episode of The X-Files.

Mulder (David Duchovny) is already disenchanted with his return to hunting down paranormal creatures and UFOs. While investigating a string of murders in which the victims have had their throats torn open, Mulder uncovers evidence of some form of humanoid lizard creature - but is he willing to believe what he sees?

Now that James Wong and Chris Carter have both returned to the kind of episodes they generally wrote for the original X-Files, the task now falls to Darin Morgan to deliver the kind of off-kilter, comedic take on the series that made him famous. Morgan was the writer of such episodes as "Humbug", "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "War of the Coprophages". He brings his entire bad of tricks to bear on the series again, including humorous characters, satire, unreliable narrators and an energetic glee at puncturing the entire style and tone of the series in general. It is wonderful.

The X-Files: "Founder's Mutation"

It is 25 January 2016 and time for another episode of The X-Files.

A computer programmer at a military-supported medical research company commits suicide. While investigating his death Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) stumble upon what appear to be genetic experiments being undertaken on abandoned children.

There is a big narrative jump between the end of "My Struggle", the season premiere, and "Founder's Mutation". That episode ended with Mulder and Scully deciding they need to return to the FBI and the X-Files. This episode begins with them already well into a professional routine of investigating the paranormal again. The jump may irritate some viewers. Personally I was thankful that the series is moving on from its pretty dire first episode and concentrating on doing what it does best.

The X-Files: "My Struggle"

It's 24 January 2016, and time for the first new episode of The X-Files in close to 14 years.

Former FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) are reunited to meet with a conservative TV host named Tad O'Malley (Joel McHale). He claims that the alien visitation investigated by Mulder and Scully throughout the 1990s were simply a smoke-screen for a clandestine operation by the American government.

The return of The X-Files to Fox after a 14 year gap was certainly a surprise. All previous indications were that the franchise died when its second feature film, I Want to Believe, under-performed in cinemas. While surprising, it was to my mind a welcome development. I have always felt that The X-Files was a robust enough format that it could in theory run indefinitely. This new six-episode season was in a sense a victory lap, with key writers from the original series returning to tell all-new stories featuring former agents Mulder and Scully. This premiere episode is written and directed by Chris Carter, the series creator. I have always felt there were two kinds of Carter. One of them wrote some of the series' best key episodes in the early years. The other kept writing key episodes as the series went on, but they become tortuously complicated and dramatically inert. His series finale "The Truth", the last TV episode preceding this, was pretty much the worst thing Carter ever wrote.

The Pull List: 9 March 2016, Part II

Action Comics #50 was released this week with a large page count and a higher cover price: US$4.99 for 40 pages of story, which is pretty good value by US comic book standards. The issue also marks the end for creative team Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder, who now step off for fresh properties elsewhere. Overall they have had a strong, nicely entertaining run. They introduced some great new supporting characters and made great use of some returning favourites - particularly Lana Lang. On the other hand the later issues of their run have been crippled by needless tie-ins and multi-title crossovers. I kept reading Action Comics, and to their credit they have made it possible to follow storylines while only reading one instalment in four, but it has been a challenge for me as a reader and I can't imagine it was great for them as creatives.

This issue sees Superman against the wall. He's leading a fight against Vandal Savage, and it is a fight he is losing. He has lost all of his powers, and is only still fighting because he's re-powered himself with a fatal dose of kryptonite. Much of the Justice League has already been knocked out of action. This issue marks something of a final stand.

Broadly speaking it's pretty great. A quite astonishing number of artists have contributed to this issue, so in visual terms it is a little all over the shop. There's a lot of emotion running through it, however, and Kuder's layouts do manage to broadly keep everything together. The good part of the issue is that it really does feel like a triumphant climax to Kuder and Pak's run. The bad news is that despite this it still ends on a cliffhanger and the story continues in Superman/Wonder Woman. I'm going to assume Superman wins the day. (3/5)

Action Comics #50. Story by Greg Pak and Aaron Kuder. Script by Greg Pak. Layouts by Aaron Kuder. Art by Aaron Kuder, David Messina, Javi Fernandez, Bruno Redondo, Vicente Sifuentes, Gaetano Carlucci and Juan Albarran. Colours by Tomeu Morey, Arif Prianto and Wil Quintana.

Under the cut: reviews of Detective Comics, Doctor Strange and The X Files: Deviations.

The X Files: "The Jersey Devil"

It's 8 October 1993, and time for The X Files.

In "The Jersey Devil" Mulder and Scully travel to Atlantic City, where a dead body has been found with its arm missing. When it becomes clear that local law enforcement don't want the FBI around, Scully returns to Washington while Mulder goes rogue - investigating the possibility of a Neanderthal-like "beast man" hunting the streets at night.

With the announcement that The X Files was returning to television with six all-new episodes, it seemed appropriate to jump back and revisit some old episodes. I started a rewatch of the series some time ago, but stalled after four episodes because I knew the fifth was "The Jersey Devil". There's no point in beating about the bush: this is a really awful episode.

The X Files: "Conduit"

A teenage girl vanished from the shores of Lake Okobogee, Iowa, leading Mulder on the hunt for evidence of alien abduction. Scully is concerned, however, that Mulder's growing obsession with the case has less to do with the missing girl and more to do with his sister Samantha, abducted by aliens when he was a child.

So with the format and tone of the series firmly established, this fourth episode takes the time to better explore Fox Mulder's background and motivations for researching the X Files. It also does some remarkably good work in defying traditional genre stereotypes. Ask yourself this: two FBI agents investigate a crime. One is pragmatic and responsible, concerned with evidence and logic. The other is emotionally compromised and foolish, following their heart and their feelings at the expense of proper procedure and responsibility. Which agent would typically be the man, and which agent the woman? This episode may be focused on Mulder's backstory, but it continues to craft Dana Scully as one of the strongest female protagonists in American television.

The X Files: "Squeeze"

A former academy classmate of Scully's requests her assistance in a string of brutal murders in Baltimore, in which victims are found with their livers ripped out. Mulder comes along for the ride, tying in a string of identical murders 30 years in the past, and 60 years, and even 90 years. Facing growing resentment and opposition from their peers, Mulder and Scully close in Eugene Victor Tooms, an unusual human being with a horrifying physical ability.

"Squeeze" marks what we might consider the opening trilogy of The X Files. The pilot established Mulder and Scully, the FBI's "X Files" program and the idea of alien abductions. "Deep Throat" established the government conspiracy story arc. As a follow-up "Squeeze" marks the first of the series' celebrated "Monster of the Week" episodes: stories about freakish creatures, monsters and mutants that generally stand alone but which provide some of The X Files' most memorable and iconic moments.

The X Files: "Deep Throat"

The X Files pilot episode did a great job of introducing viewers to FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, as well as the overall thrust of the series: two detectives investigating the paranormal and unexplained across America. This second episode, "Deep Throat", teases in the second critical pillar for the series: a government conspiracy to hide the existence of aliens among us on Earth.

Shortly after being called to investigate the disappearance of a US Air Force pilot, Mulder is met by an anonymous middle-aged man (Jerry Hardin) who warns him from following the lead. When Mulder and Scully arrive in southern Idaho they uncover what seems to be a military program to use UFO technology to build super-powered stealth fighters. Before long there are black helicopters, illegal surveillance, kidnapping, men in black and all manner of archetypal and stereotypical conspiracy elements.

The X Files: "Pilot"

It's been 20 years since The X Files first broke onto television screens. These days it's remembered, and rightfully so, as one of the most significant and popular American dramas of all time, so it's actually a little hard to go back and rewatch the pilot episode as if you don't know what's coming. I have attempted to do my best.

Medical doctor and FBI academy instructor Dana Scully is enlisted by an FBI section chief to join Special Agent Fox Mulder on the "X Files", FBI cases that defy explanation or traditional investigation. Her task in not just to assist him, but also to report back on the validity of his work. Together they travel to northern Oregon, where a string of deaths in the woods have failed to be explained.