Deeply traumatized by Mulder's 'return' in This is not Happening, and still reeling from his earlier blink-and-you'll-miss-him appearance in Per Manum, I'd like to start off by saying that never in my wildest nightmares could I have imagined a scene as devoid of even the tiniest spark of originality as the one that gave us the legally required minimum dialogue between two consenting adults about to engage in the process of procreation - a scene so lacking in grace and style, in emotional as well as actual plot-related content, it had me gaping at the screen in sheer disbelief. There's nothing to be said against valiant efforts being undertaken to keep the tension *alive*, but I'm afraid this pathetic excuse for a pivotal moment of platonic passion could quite possibly have murdered what mystery may still have lingered in the Mulder-Scully partnership, and (aside from the fact that the arrival of a child will change things irrevocably for everyone involved) no ever-so-sensitive "I wouldn't want this to come between us" could hope to salvage the situation. Anticlimactic, in every sense of the word. Not only are we witnessing the deliberate dismantling of what used to be a if not THE most outstanding character combination in recent years, but on top of that we are being treated to some of the worst cliches not seen since the good old days of season one, when we could have accepted the faux pas of two characters telling each other 'secrets' they should have known for years as a means of supplying the audience with vital pieces of information. But sadly, in the case of Scully's 'inability to conceive', and Mulder's actions to preserve her ova there was no need to inform the audience of anything: those *facts* have been in the public domain, as it were, ever since they were introduced in seasons two, four and five, and the waste of precious air time is all the more irritating since no further use is made of the information given - other than that of establishing Scully's rather sudden desire for motherhood and Mulder's equally as unmotivated eagerness to comply with her 'request'. Of course, Scully's maternal instincts and Mulder's propensity for procreation become a little clearer in light of last season's virtually impossible cliffhanger scenario that left us with a missing Mulder and an inexplicably pregnant Scully - which, in turn, left Mr Carter and his creative team in the acutely uncomfortable position of having to provide an after-the-fact explanation for her condition. Whereas under normal circumstances one would of course expect things to work the other way round. But circumstances are far from normal for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. The solution Mr Carter and his colleagues came up with is as brilliant as it is blatantly self-evident: simply rewrite seven years of television history, and – hey presto! – everything will make perfect sense again. After all, this is the X Files, and leaps in time and logic aren't exactly unheard of. It's a fact that excellent use has in the past been made of various gaps and lapses. However, this latest after-the-fact revelation is hardly the kind of leap that allows the plot to move forward, or which intrigues us with the thrill of...infinite possibilities concerning what has been said or done in our absence. More than anything, it is an exercise in damage limitation, aiming to reverse past decisions the consequences of which are proving too daunting, too revealing or – with regard to Scully's pregnancy - too difficult to handle within the narrow confines of 'reality' as we know it. Twisting the boundaries of time and space is the prerogative of any work of fiction. Nevertheless, persistent abuse of those privileges will eventually erode the audience's willingness to suspend their disbelief indefinitely, especially if 'reality' keeps being reinvented time and again: instead of adding new pieces to the puzzle, the 'facts' presented this season are threatening to render meaningless seven years of character growth and a common history that both the show and the fans alike have shared. Mr Carter has referred to this technique as 'pulling the rug from under people's feet', and he has expressed his delight at our perplexed reactions. Having suffered through the rug-pulling extravaganza that has been season eight so far, I do no longer share Mr Carter's enthusiasm for blithely creating faits accomplits whenever a narrative dead end has been reached. And the most devastating dead end this season has been the Mulder-Scully tragedy.

continued from previous.... Over seven seasons, our imagination was constantly being tickled by the very vagueness of their private lives. Somehow I'm not convinced reducing this slow, deliberate seven-year tease to a mere thirty-second cliche will do anyone any favours, least of all the two characters involved. It will also come as a major disappointment to an ever-active, ever-resourceful fan community, who have grown used to the idea of a wide range of competing interpretations existing peacefully next to each other. Any attempt on the part of the show's own writers to define the Mulder-Scully relationship is doomed to fail - simply because any attempt to 'explain' a mystery will destroy the very mystery it is attempting to explain. The sad thing about a 'definitive' version being of course that it is precisely that: definitive. Unequivocal. Final. As long as the relationship remained an undercurrent, always present but never explicitly dramatized, we were free to draw our own conclusions. That freedom has now been taken away from us, and I cannot for the life of me imagine how such a (self-) restrictive, stifling move is supposed to boost interest in either the show or its characters beyond the quick fix of a short-lived ratings peak. Aside from the relationship disaster, season eight has failed to deliver in more ways than one. Its very existence, to my mind, is a contradiction in terms: it was only a few months ago that I still felt safe in my conviction that a continuation of the series with its main character missing would not only be unwise but also quite simply unthinkable. Time and Mr Carter have taught me otherwise. Still, fool that I am, I allowed myself to hope against hope that the much-publicised promises about Mulder forming the 'absent centre' of the show's eighth season would at least be honoured. Promises that, I might add, were given only after the highly controversial campaign that claimed the new line up would make us forget Mulder failed to achieve the desired effect. Ah, but I was wrong again. And now that Mulder has been restored to us, my excitement at the oh-so happy event is considerably dampened - seeing that far from celebrating our hero's homecoming, This is Not Happening had an agenda of its own to serve: for not only did Mulder's 30-second re-appearance cause viewing figures to soar, in doing so it also secured maximum exposure for the latest 'cast addition', who, rather conveniently, happened to be making her debut that very same night. While our hero's life-in-death return may be a well-made cliffhanger in the classic XF tradition, its cosy familiarity could also be its greatest flaw, and the tentative suggestion that perhaps Fox William Mulder has already been dead one time too many is only one possible explanation for our less then enthusiastic response this time. There was a period when the summer hiatus actually made us hold our collective breath. When the series format requirements were compatible with the 'natural' narrative rhythms of the story that was being told. Now the show's rhythms - and other, much more *natural* ones - have been ruthlessly twisted out of shape to conform with the more rigid and more easily predictable patterns of the the sweeps calendar - without any regard to how radically the shift is undermining the crediblity of the show and its characters.

In earlier seasons finding the protagonist alive after the customary...creative break would have been a prerequisite for the continuation of any story line. Now the question of whether Mulder lives or dies is barely touching the concerns of the surviving characters, and their newly-forged alliances. Years ago, the Search for Mulder would have been a game, a tease, as was the case with his (albeit badly resolved) 'suicide' at the end of season four: we took the bait and we enjoyed the tease because we felt safe in the knowledge that the status quo would be restored eventually. This time, however, his torture, 'death' and subsequent resurrection are anything but a gentle tease. By presenting Mulder's ominous absence as just another routine occurence in the ever-elusive 'Greater Scheme of Things', it merely succeeds in prolonging our agony and denying Mulder the courtesy of a dignified departure. If there is one pattern that's been emerging of late, it is the increasing irrelevance of Fox Mulder: what more could he possibly hope to achieve after this season? He's been abducted, he's been tortured, he's beed dead and buried, the Conspiracy is in tatters, Samantha has been 'found', and Scully has a new partner. She's also pregnant, but her pregnancy too is proof of the fact that The X Files as we knew it no longer exists. Mulder's quest, the one defining and uniting theme is long since gone, and it is only a matter of time before the (former) hero himself will finally be made redundant. His 'return', therefore, can only grant a temporary reprieve from the growing deadlock that has already sent much of season eight into a state of paralysis, both physical (Mulder 'progresses' through various stages of immobility from being held captive by his alien tormentors to the ultimate Freudian nightmare of being buried alive) and temporal (no clear time frame has materialized as yet in which to place events and developments chronicled in season eight). Not only do we seem to be stuck in some kind of eternal present tense, in most of the scenes involving Mulder we have actually been moving backwards in time, and it's highly unlikely his re-animation (!) will reverse that trend and present us with a bright future for the new/old hero. Mulder is virtually brought back from the dead to do, well, what exactly? His creator admits, "he'll be somewhat hobbled by what's been done to him", but Mulder's somewhat delapidated state fits in quite well with his plans for the continuation of the show. In Mr Carter's immortal words, "he's going to be a third wheel, if you will" (LA Times). There was a time when 'Fox Mulder' and 'The X Files' were virtually synonymous. Not any more, apparently. There was a time when The X Files used to set the standards, when it captured our imagination with unique character creations, intriguing stories and innovative ways of telling them. Now it's sadly lagging behind a variety of second-generation copies and third-rate competitors, desperately trying to catch up: manlier men, scarier monsters, more inane dialogue and gratuitous violence, plus a new, improved Uber-Scully: all woman in her twelfth (real-time) month of prengancy, and still showing off her slim waist and black lace bra, while her ineffectual ex-partner is orbiting the planet in a flying saucer, stark naked and strapped into a sadistic dentist's chair. Maybe it's just me but I can't shake the impression that what we're witnessing here is a sad travesty of what used to be one of the most creative, one of the most *intelligent* shows on television. This is not happening. Indeed. "How will they remember us?" Poor Mulder's anxious question in Hollywood AD seems eerily prophetic now that season eight has come to pass. One would hope, though, that our image of 'Mulder and Scully' was established long before it was decided that in order for the show to have a future it would become necessary to assassinate its characters and rewrite its past.