Mulder and Scully back for 11th season
The X-Files’ return among week’s highlights, writes Chris Lackner.
TV
Big events: The X-Files (Jan. 3, Fox/CTV); LA to Vegas (Jan. 2, Fox/City); 9-1-1 (Jan. 3, Fox).
Big picture: Fox Mulder and
Dana Scully are back (yes, again) to solve more paranormal mysteries. Maybe they can solve the mystery of why most of the 2016 reboot was so mediocre?
The 10-episode 11th season brings back David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson in their iconic roles, but it learned some valuable lessons. Only two episodes fit into the show’s everconfusing and contradictory alien mythology, which means eight episodes will be standalone mysteries (a.k.a. the series at its best).
Meanwhile, the single-camera workplace comedy takes to the skies by focusing on the crew and repeat passengers of a regular weekend round-trip flight between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
The cast includes Dylan McDermott and Ed Weeks. If only Leslie Nielsen was still with us to make a cameo as Airplane!’s Dr. Rumack, and spout deadpan lines like, “The life of everyone on board depends upon just one thing: finding someone back there who cannot only fly this plane, but who didn’t have fish for dinner.”
Finally, writer-producer Ryan Murphy tackles a simple procedural for once — with no Glee clubs or ghouls in site. The new series 9-1-1 follows first responders (police, paramedics and firefighters) and co-stars Angela Bassett, Peter Krause and Connie Britton.
Forecast: By X-Files 12th season, Mulder and Scully will be investigating Marvel mutants, magical broomsticks brought to life by a bumbling sorcerer’s apprentice, and why Donald Duck doesn’t wear pants. With Walt Disney’s recently announced purchase of 21st Century Fox, Mickey Mouse and company effectively own the majority of fictional characters created since 1930.
MUSIC
Big potential 2018 releases: Bruce Springsteen; Jack White; Kanye West.
Big picture: Nothing new this week, so let’s look at three reasons to keep your ears tuned in the new year.
Springsteen is expected to release a new album influenced by California pop of the 1970s, much of it written before his most recent studio effort, Wrecking Ball. That could mean less politics than you’d expected from The Boss’s first album of the Trump era.
Meanwhile, West has been teasing a new album called Turbo Grafx 16 (one of his favourite gaming systems) since 2016.
A return to the spotlight, and a likely resurrection to his cancelled tour, would seem to make a new album well-timed.
Finally, White has described his first new solo album since 2014 as “good gardening music or roofing music or, you know, back-alley stabbing music.” (He was joking; we think. Either way. we want to hear the album.)
Forecast: The Boss will live up to his name; White will begin going by the nickname The Supervisor; West will get jealous and start going by Emperor God Boss Triple Stamped It No Erasies.
MOVIES
Big release: Insidious: The Last Key (Jan. 5).
Big picture: The toughest part of being a paranormal investigator is bringing your work home. Dr. Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye), a seasoned parapsychologist, faces off against a fearsome bogeyman in her own family home.
Let’s put it this way: The clawed spirit makes Freddy Krueger look like he’s wearing safety gloves. To beat the cunning evil, Dr. Rainier will need to venture “deeper into the Further” — a ghoulish purgatory of lost souls that makes the Upside Down in Stranger Things seem cheerful and bright in comparison. Forecast: There’s no place like home for the holidays — unless you’re Dr. Rainier.
Am I the only one who’d like to see Hollywood (for once) start the new year movie calendar with a couple of comedies? Maybe an inspiring documentary about people who actually keep their New Year’s resolutions to go to the gym.
@chrislackner79