As the closing credits rolled on the first episode of the “X-Files” reboot, I asked myself, Is it possible that the show, which originally aired from 1993 to 2002, was always this bad? Everything in the new series felt familiar. Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) offers laconic and matter-of-fact litanies of conspiracy indicators. His former partner, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) remains skeptical and competent and then is surprised when some of the theories turn out to be true. Plot twists turn conspiracies inside out and back again, until we’re not sure what’s true. There are flashbacks, secret groups working to uncover the truth and others working to cover it up and sympathetic characters who turn out to be dangerous and vice versa. By the end, we don’t really know what to believe. It’s a familiar ride containing all the elements I remember, but none of it really works for me.

I went back and watched a handful of my favorite episodes, trying to recapture the magic. I was relieved to find that they remain good television, notwithstanding that anything made before the rise of the smartphone now feels like a period piece. I remembered how they used to dominate my Sunday nights, after “The Simpsons” and whatever fare Fox tried to sandwich between them.



So what’s changed? One problem is that the new show expertly tries to re-create the Mulder-Scully dynamic without really acknowledging their shared past, beyond a few meaningful silences and looks. The bigger flaw, though, is that it’s hard to tell stories about conspiracies in the age of Edward Snowden.



Our sense of what we should fear has changed dramatically since the original “X-Files” went off the air. The new episode refers to 9/11 and the National Security Agency but doesn’t really deal with the fact that so many secret government activities are now out in the open yet nothing has changed.

Since 9/11, America has been at war against enemies that cannot be defeated on the battlefield. Our government has been given and has seized broad powers to infiltrate our lives. Perhaps even more significant, we grant access to our most intimate secrets and desires to corporations that turn around and use that data for advertising. As Bruce Schneier says, “Surveillance is the business model of the Internet,” and the government ensures that it can access private data whenever it needs. There are no safe secrets.

Against that backdrop, does it really make sense to fear a government conspiracy with advanced technology trying to control our lives? The technology is here. Moreover, the cabal trying to run the world isn’t secret either. Charles Koch and David Koch regularly and openly invite it to their California oceanside retreat and decide which political candidates to buy. We don’t get to see the guest list, but that’s just so we don’t boycott any products our corporate masters control, not because the nature of their power is secret.