1995: CINEFANTASTIQUE: THE X-FILES

From October 1995: CINEFANTASTIQUE magazine (volume 26, issue 6) devotes its in depth coverage to THE X-FILES to-date.  

There was certainly no shortage of coverage, in magazines and books, devoted to the show during this period where any tie-in seemed to fly off the shelves but (as usual) CFQ (along with SPECTRUM) offered the most sensible and detailed coverage rather than simply gushing about the relative sex appeal of the two stars.  

I watched, for the first time since the initial theatrical release, the first X-FILES movie (originally FIGHT THE FUTURE although any such title was conspicuously absent from the DVD release) yesterday (I got it for a £1 at the weekend) and although it was better than I remembered (and I remembered very little... the whole last part was something of a revelation as I'd forgotten it entirely) it still wasn't much cop.  I always thought the show was at its weakest when it indulged in the alien conspiracy mythology (creating a straight jacket that constricted the show's creative process and became increasingly difficult to sustain over the long haul) and the movie was very much along those lines.  It was basically an extended, better resourced (but still relatively cheap) episode which crammed a lot in but made very little sense of any of it.  And ended, pretty much as it had begun, with not much having changed.  

I prefer the far more low-key sequel (which seemed to pass the world by) because it sensibly ignored all the alien stuff which made it far more accessible to someone like me who bailed on the TV show about half way through the extended run.  I hope the new show takes a similar approach despite understandable audience expectations that The X-Files = alien conspiracies and lonely men oblivious to smoking regulations.