“The X-Files” is back for the 21st Century with a crazier Mulder, an edgier Scully, and a reboot of the conspiracy that puts the premise of the entire nine-season run of the original series in the 1990's and early 21st Century on its head. The new series also has a bigger and better special effects budget.

The first episode, “My Struggle,” starts when a crazy internet talk show host, kind of a cross between Bill O’Reilly and Alex Jones, comes to Mulder and Scully with news of another unfortunate alien abductee named Sveta, who apparently is being snatched, made pregnant, and then has the resulting fetuses removed from her body a whole lot of times.

The situation is just a set-up for the new version of the conspiracy.

In the original series, the conspiracy consisted of a shadowy group of rich, old white guys who were preparing to sell out the planet to the aliens in exchange for their personal survival. But, that story was just a smoke screen for the real conspiracy.

The real conspiracy has existed since Roswell when the government acquired alien technology and started hoarding and developing it for the inevitable big takeover of the world. The aliens, such as they are, are not involved and may have our best interests at heart. The narrative has everything. The evil oil companies have been suppressing alien energy technology to protect their profits.

9/11 was an inside job. Barack Obama was born on an alien planet.

Alright, I made up the last one, but the gentle reader gets the gist of the background of the new X Files. The conspiracy that Mulder and Scully think they have unmasked seems to be so powerful, with the ability to start wars, kill anyone they want, and manipulate the media, it seems pointless for it to overtly take over the world.

The mission has already been accomplished.

Mulder and Scully are still working out some relationship issues, the X-Files have been re-opened, and the Cigarette Smoking Man, taking puffs through a neck hole, is thoroughly perturbed. “The X-Files” is truly a paranoid series for a paranoid time.