Case 10, File 03: Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster

AKA: Okay The Episode Title Is Already Too Close To An AKA Title I'd Use

Is this a better DVD menu shot? Let me know in the comments

In order for a writer on a tv show to become a household name, they usually have to be a constant presence in the credits. Darin Morgan is therefore a bit of an anomaly among TV show writers. Most X-Files fans know his name, despite only writing 4 episodes on the original run (and punching up the dialogue on a 5th). Still, his episodes were so popular, so critically acclaimed and so frequently imitated, that the entire fanbase basically knows his name. So when it was announced that he was returning to pen an episode for the revival season, his first episode written since season 3 20 years ago, people were hyped.

Case 10, File 02: Founder's Mutation

AKA: New Founder's Mutants, Oh God That Was Awful 

Sorry bout the awful DVD menu pics, Season 10 doesn't have episode menus

Much like seasons 8 and 9, the real test of the revival wasn't going to be the big plot focused episodes, it was going to be seeing how Mulder and Scully handled being back on the Monster of the Week plots, since those were the major draws for a lot of viewers. But the dynamic has changed; With a lot of plot and character work to cover and only 6 episodes (10 in Season 11) the new Monsters of the Week have to share a lot of space, which might throw off the balance.

Case 10, File 01: My Struggle

 AKA: Oh, It's All Of Our Struggle

Reviving a series that has been dormant, by and large, for over a decade, is a risky proposition. Yes, every so often you get something like Twin Peaks: The Return (and yes, maybe I will marry David Lynch, thank you for asking) that completely reshapes your existing knowledge of the show and brings the story to a close. Most of the time, you're aiming for something more along the lines of Fuller House, just more of the show that was already popular (and I don't get either Full House or Fuller House, so don't ask me).

Sometimes though. Sometimes you get something else.

Case 09, File 21: I Want To Believe

AKA: Jesus Is That The Plot We're Going With?

It's impossible to really gauge how much Twin Peaks DNA is in The X-Files (it's a lot, but how much exactly is up for debate) but there are some eerie similarities between the initial end of Twin Peaks and the initial end of the The X-Files. Both shows ended on cliffhangers, and both, when presented with the opportunity to resolve that cliffhanger in a movie, elected instead to make a side story refocused on the characters. Unfortunately, someone should have reminded Chris Carter that while Fire Walk With Me eventually got to be known as one of the best movies of David Lynch's career, it began life as a critically disdained box office dud.

Case 09, Files 19 and 20: The Truth

AKA: We Can Definitely Handle The Truth

In the end, I don't think there was ever going to be a good ending to The X-Files, at least not going into the finale off Sunshine Days. By that point, the deck was too stacked against it, the plot too out of control and the lore too much to cobble together at the last minute to actually have a finale that holds together or ties up the series properly. The best they can really do is try to do something that the fans will like. To use a somewhat overly dramatic metaphor, the landing gear is busted, so the plane is coming down hard, the best thing you can do is try to protect the passengers.

Case 09, File 18: Sunshine Days

AKA: The Navidson Bunch

As The X-Files faces down what was, at the time, its ultimate ending, it kind of went through its own stages of grief. Improbable feels like denials, Jump the Shark could be viewed as depression, Scary Monsters as bargaining, even Hellbound as anger although I'm really pushing the metaphor well past its breaking point at that point. But here, in the penultimate episode of Season 9, the last Monster of the Week of the original run, we have acceptance.

Case 09, File 17: Release

AKA: I Really Don't Like That Title, Can't Explain Why

I don't know to what degree Doggett's dead son was intended as a direct attempt to recreate the mystery of Samantha's abduction, but it's what it felt like, and so that's the metric it has to be judged by. The problem is, it never really committed to it the way the series committed to the Samantha mystery. Samantha was central to Mulder's motivation and a major element of the main story. Doggett's son was a detail of his backstory. But with the series wrapping in a little bit, it did manage to remember that this was an element of his backstory that needed resolution.