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 |  | Don't Give Up On 'The X-Files'
By Sharon E. Barnes
posted: 10:00 am ET
23 May 2000
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| Opinions | | The X-Files had a mediocre seventh season, and viewers are drifting away. But it's not too late for the series to recapture its onetime glory, writes X-phile Sharon E. Barnes. | 
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| |  | The X-Files television show is losing ground in the war for viewers. Ratings are plummeting. Some fans are frustrated enough with the show's current offerings to write angry letters to forums such as SPACE.com. Many more, however, are simply vanishing, finding other shows to watch instead.
Fortunately, The X-Files is still too appealing and lucrative a show to simply drop. There are still enough fans, and former fans who might come back, to justify transmuting and revamping the story.
In the cliffhanger season finale, series creator Chris Carter appears to be trying to do just that. Agent Fox Mulder has finally found aliens, and they have abducted him in front of his boss, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. The show will certainly look different when it comes back for its eighth season.
These new developments could have the restorative power of a good tonic. If handled poorly, however, they could have the killing power of a strong poison.
Low ratings are nothing new for The X-Files. The show started with a small audience but strong writing, appealing characters, and a plausible mythology arc. Fan word-of-mouth brought it to the awareness of the nation. By its third season the show's cast and crew were critically acclaimed. The honors and the breathless attention of the fans continued for three more years.
As with the hero of a Greek tragedy, however, the show's strengths have become its fatal flaws. How long can Fox Mulder obsessively investigate the paranormal and extraterrestrial while seeking clues to his sister Samantha's whereabouts? How long can his partner Dana Scully remain a dedicated skeptic in the face of all she's seen? How long can the writers maintain the agents' unconsummated sexual tension?
The audience played along for six years. Unfortunately, but understandably, most then gave up caring.
The seventh season has reflected this ennui. The stories and the acting have been pedestrian. The long-awaited solution to the mystery of Samantha's fate was unconvincingly mawkish, and the episode failed to attract much attention. The show's return for an eighth season was not even covered in my local paper.
The strengths of the coming X-Files could be phenomenal. The search for Fox Mulder could easily outpace the search for Samantha. A converted Dana Scully -- one who wields scientific knowledge as a weapon, not a shield of skepticism -- could be a formidable character.
A well-drawn ensemble cast of new agents -- possibly gathered and directed by a grimly determined Assistant Director Skinner -- could contribute new points of view on extraterrestrial and paranormal phenomena.
As with the hero of a Greek tragedy, the show's strengths have become its fatal flaws.
The success of the show will depend on the creative crew's attention to its former errors. Most fans are savvy enough to notice borrowings of plot lines and images from early science fiction, most notably The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and the long-suffering Professor Quatermass.
They are also sensitive to the development and abrupt abandonment of appealing characters such as Gibson Praise, Sharon Skinner, and Diana Fowley.
Finally, though, they are keenly attentive to the kind of imaginative stories that marked The X-Files in its heyday. Maybe, like some of its characters, The X-Files can rise from the dead. After all, the truth is still out there.
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