The truth is out there -- the return of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully is real! The premiere episode of The X-Files revival, which is more of a miniseries but is also being referred to as Season 10, made its debut at New York Comic-Con today. Not surprisingly, the fans in attendance loved it. But even stepping back from that fan response, it appears that the return of those much-loved monster and alien hunters is getting off to a good start. ( Click here for what went down during the panel Q&A today with David Duchovny, Chris Carter and Mitch Pileggi.)

Some minor spoilers follow.

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The episode, called "My Struggle," begins with a spaceship crash -- a UFO -- from decades ago. The young medical military officer who is brought in to help investigate the crash is horrified by the fate of the being that occupied the ship… a fate ordered by humans. The crash itself is a big, flashy effects sequence, higher-end than anything from the original show.In the present day, Mulder and Scully are very much not together, and their X-Files lives are long over. While Mulder spends his time in his secluded cabin scouring the web and still hunting for “the truth,” Scully has moved on -- or at least pretends to have moved on -- and is now working as a surgeon. The relationship between the two has soured since we last saw them, and Mulder is the worse for wear as a result. He doesn’t even shave regularly anymore!But the two old partners and lovers are reunited because of a new character played by Joel McHale. He co-stars here as Tad O'Malley, a Bill O’Reilly type online news anchor who has even crazier conspiracy theories than Mulder, if that’s possible. But unlike Mulder, his fearmongering has made him rich.The interesting thing about McHale’s character, and this episode in general, is how it roots things in the real world to some degree. 9/11 is invoked a couple of times, Obama and George W. Bush are seen in news footage, and the outlandish theories Tad O'Malley hurls are seemingly eaten up by his audience, no matter how little bearing the theories actually have on regular people. Mulder is sucked into O’Malley’s racket to a degree here, though it remains to be seen how the character or his relationship with Mulder will play out. (Or his relationship with Scully for that matter, who goes for a limo drive with Tad O'Malley to sip champagne. Whoa!)Generally speaking, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson have slid back into their most identifiable characters for this new adventure. There are some clunky and weird dialogue moments where they literally yell the slogans from the show at each other -- “The truth is out there, Scully!” and the such. But fortunately, these bits are outweighed by the scenes that do work, and one senses that this episode, and that dialogue, is weighed down too much with the expository need to catch up potential newcomers to the show.But the new X-Files is also mindful of its long-time fans, even running the original (more or less) title sequence for its opening credits. The crowd in Hall H roared when this came onscreen, and admittedly I felt a bit of a chill myself when I saw it. Mitch Pileggi’s Skinner is back too, still at the FBI and seemingly missing his crew, and another familiar character shows up by episode’s end. The question moving forward will be whether or not this new X-Files can strike that balance between what has come before and satisfying any need the creators and network feel to bring in new viewers. It’s off to a good start. Let’s hope it gets better.

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