Close Menu
TechCentralTechCentral

    Subscribe to the newsletter

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube LinkedIn
    WhatsApp Facebook X (Twitter) LinkedIn YouTube
    TechCentralTechCentral
    • News

      Why the spectrum gold rush may soon be over

      23 June 2025

      Tech stability key to getting South Africa off damaging financial grey list

      23 June 2025

      ‘System offline’ scourge to end, says Schreiber – but industry must pay

      23 June 2025

      Naspers shifts to an AI-first strategy – and it’s paying off

      23 June 2025

      Letter: South Africa risks missing AI wave while world surges ahead

      23 June 2025
    • World

      Watch | Starship rocket explodes in setback to Musk’s Mars mission

      19 June 2025

      Trump Mobile dials into politics, profit and patriarchy

      17 June 2025

      Samsung plots health data hub to link users and doctors in real time

      17 June 2025

      Beijing’s chip champions blacklisted by Taiwan

      16 June 2025

      China is behind in AI chips – but for how much longer?

      13 June 2025
    • In-depth

      Meta bets $72-billion on AI – and investors love it

      17 June 2025

      MultiChoice may unbundle SuperSport from DStv

      12 June 2025

      Grok promised bias-free chat. Then came the edits

      2 June 2025

      Digital fortress: We go inside JB5, Teraco’s giant new AI-ready data centre

      30 May 2025

      Sam Altman and Jony Ive’s big bet to out-Apple Apple

      22 May 2025
    • TCS

      TCS | South Africa’s Sociable wants to make social media social again

      23 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E3: Behind Takealot’s revenue surge

      23 June 2025

      TCS+ | AfriGIS’s Helen Hulett on how tech can help resolve South Africa’s water crisis

      18 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E2: South Africa’s digital battlefield

      16 June 2025

      TechCentral Nexus S0E1: Starlink, BEE and a new leader at Vodacom

      8 June 2025
    • Opinion

      South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

      17 June 2025

      AI and the future of ICT distribution

      16 June 2025

      Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

      13 June 2025

      Beyond the box: why IT distribution depends on real partnerships

      2 June 2025

      South Africa’s next crisis? Being offline in an AI-driven world

      2 June 2025
    • Company Hubs
      • Africa Data Centres
      • AfriGIS
      • Altron Digital Business
      • Altron Document Solutions
      • Altron Group
      • Arctic Wolf
      • AvertITD
      • Braintree
      • CallMiner
      • CambriLearn
      • CYBER1 Solutions
      • Digicloud Africa
      • Digimune
      • Domains.co.za
      • ESET
      • Euphoria Telecom
      • Incredible Business
      • iONLINE
      • Iris Network Systems
      • LSD Open
      • NEC XON
      • Network Platforms
      • Next DLP
      • Ovations
      • Paracon
      • Paratus
      • Q-KON
      • SevenC
      • SkyWire
      • Solid8 Technologies
      • Telit Cinterion
      • Tenable
      • Vertiv
      • Videri Digital
      • Wipro
      • Workday
    • Sections
      • AI and machine learning
      • Banking
      • Broadcasting and Media
      • Cloud services
      • Contact centres and CX
      • Cryptocurrencies
      • Education and skills
      • Electronics and hardware
      • Energy and sustainability
      • Enterprise software
      • Fintech
      • Information security
      • Internet and connectivity
      • Internet of Things
      • Investment
      • IT services
      • Lifestyle
      • Motoring
      • Public sector
      • Retail and e-commerce
      • Science
      • SMEs and start-ups
      • Social media
      • Talent and leadership
      • Telecoms
    • Events
    • Advertise
    TechCentralTechCentral
    Home » Top » The truth is still out there: The X-Files returns

    The truth is still out there: The X-Files returns

    By The Conversation25 January 2016
    Twitter LinkedIn Facebook WhatsApp Email Telegram Copy Link
    News Alerts
    WhatsApp
    x-files-640
    David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson return as agents Mulder and Scully

    The return of The X-Files to television screens after a 14-year absence was met with justifiable excitement and trepidation. It was an important show, combining Twilight Zone-style fantasy with humour, drama and emotion. The X-Files took its subject matter seriously, and was taken seriously by viewers. Along with Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which aired at roughly the same time, it might well be seen as a precursor to titles like True Blood, Heroes, Game of Thrones or the relaunched Doctor Who. The X-Files was a template for shows that take traditionally wild or outlandish narrative themes and approach them with the kind of sincerity more usually found in “quality” television drama.

    The X-Files gave us the monster of the week, of course, and the overarching season-by-season story arc of alien invasion. But it was the relationship between agents Mulder and Scully, played by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, that undoubtedly formed the central thread of the show. Whether this relationship should remain platonic or develop romantically was a point of great contention among fans.

    Such engagement illustrates the show’s strong investment in human drama within its fantasy setting, and it’s no surprise that successful fantasy television titles that have since followed tend to focus on families and friendships as much as vampires, superheroes, dragons or monsters. It’s equally unsurprising that Mulder and Scully should have become the main focus of publicity for the show’s relaunch, given the deep attachment viewers had been encouraged to forge with the characters over the years.

    The show’s strong fan base guaranteed its status as “cult” television. Interestingly, it was already being called this at the time of its broadcast, rather than in a nostalgic or ironic way. The sense of belonging that the show engendered was potent during the 1990s; it was not uncommon to see “The Truth Is Out There” slogans mingling with Nirvana album covers or Tarantino movie posters on the T-shirts of teenagers. In this way, The X-Files coincided with a period in which television began to achieve a status nearing equivalence with film and music.

    Anderson and Duchovny in the original series
    Anderson and Duchovny in a publicity photo for the original series

    Those T-shirts are an indication of how The X-Files was seen as a marketable property, and themed merchandise like mugs, toys, posters and books also started appearing in increasing bulk. It also then became part of a growing trend in box-set television. Entire seasons of The X-Files could be purchased on boxed VHS sets and displayed as a collection on owners’ bookshelves. It was a change from the 1980s when a taste for VHS cases that had been designed to imitate book spines on shelves concealed the “guilty pleasure” of video watching from view.

    “The Truth Is Out There” T-shirt slogan refers, of course, to The X-Files’ consistent emphasis upon government conspiracy and the idea of a world hidden from us by unseen hands. As The X-Files returns, it’s obvious that these ideas haven’t gone away. But they have changed.

    In a television era that is post-9/11 and post-Iraq War we’re familiar with government and terrorist conspiracy shows like Homeland and 24. Against these titles, The X-Files’ paranoia about extra-terrestrial invasion might seem locked into a particular era, quaint even. The X-Files allegorised fears of otherness in the way that 1950s sci-fi movies allegorised Cold War anxieties but, now that shows regularly visualise immediate real-world threats and anxieties on screen, it may need to find a way of adapting its themes to make them relevant once again.

    The X-Files re-enters a television world that it helped to define and shape, but the ground has inevitably shifted. Since The X-Files was first broadcast, television has become far more ambitious, far more confident. After all, it was 12 years ago that Lost locked its audience into its bafflingly myriad, grand conspiracy stretching over six seasons.

    We live in an era in which seemingly nothing is allowed simply to end (or, at least, nothing that might yield a potential profit). Perhaps The X-Files faces the same challenge as another recent revival, Star Wars: offering fans enough that is familiar to remain faithful to the original, but providing enough that is different in order to remain relevant in a changed world. We’ll soon find out if it can match its earlier success. The truth will be out there for all to see.The Conversation

    • James Walters is senior lecturer in film and television studies, University of Birmingham
    • This article was originally published on The Conversation


    David Duchovny Gillian Anderson James Walters The X-Files X-Files
    Subscribe to TechCentral Subscribe to TechCentral
    Share. Facebook Twitter LinkedIn WhatsApp Telegram Email Copy Link
    Previous ArticleThe case against OTT regulation
    Next Article SweepSouth raises R10m in VC funding

    Related Posts

    Backspace: ‘Stranger than fiction’

    27 January 2016
    Company News

    IoT connectivity management in South Africa – expert insights

    23 June 2025

    Let’s reimagine Joburg using the power of tech, data and AI

    23 June 2025

    Netstar doubles down on global markets while backing SA growth

    23 June 2025
    Opinion

    South Africa pioneered drone laws a decade ago – now it must catch up

    17 June 2025

    AI and the future of ICT distribution

    16 June 2025

    Singapore soared – why can’t we? Lessons South Africa refuses to learn

    13 June 2025

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the best South African technology news and analysis delivered to your e-mail inbox every morning.

    © 2009 - 2025 NewsCentral Media

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.