While news of spinoffs, reboots, and revivals has been everywhere over the past few months, the biggest franchise to be returning to the small screen is undoubtedly Fox’s The X-Files. The upcoming return to the world of Mulder and Scully will star original actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and the six one-hour installments will air in early 2016. Naturally, this would not be The X-Files if there weren’t rumors of conspiracies abounding, and whispers of a possible spinoff featuring characters played by Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose have been spreading like an alien virus. Well, the truth is out there, and the truth is…maybe.
Robbie Amell and Lauren Ambrose will be playing FBI Agents Mills and Einstein in one of the six episodes of the new series. TVLine reports that creator Chris Carter has been quick to deny that the actors are being deliberately written for a spinoff, but he would not entirely rule out the possibility.
Now, any fan of The X-Files will likely know that Chris Carter is the frequent culprit of three things: doublespeak, vagueness, and a refusal to give proper scene lighting when Mulder and Scully kiss. Carter not giving a definite answer about a potential spinoff is certainly not proof that a spinoff is off the books.
An X-Files 2.0 series would not be the first attempt to expand upon the original. The short-lived Lone Gunmen spinoff ran for just a single season, and the efforts of the eighth and ninth seasons of the show in its original run to replace the Mulder/Scully dynamic fell flat. Neither attempt was successful, but televsion and – more importantly – audiences have changed, and the time is right to rejuvenate the franchise.
The X-Files certainly could do with some rejuvenation. Although fans of the show have been ecstatic since the official announcement of a mini-series revival, the memories of a painful and mostly Mulder-less ninth season followed by a disappointing feature film linger. With David Duchovny co-starring with Gillian Anderson in all six episodes and the series revisiting the classic alien mythology that made The X-Files famous during its heyday in the 1990s, the upcoming event may in fact set the stage perfectly for a possible Robbie Amell/Lauren Ambrose spinoff.
Of course, no amount of doublespeak or vagueness will change the terms of Amell’s and Ambrose’s contracts that were initially negotiated for nothing further than the mini-series, nor will any amount of theorizing take away from the fact that Duchovny and Anderson are the real draws back to the show. Still, who can say that handsome Robbie Amell and gorgeous redhead Lauren Ambrose can’t capture the X-Files magic and carry a spinoff of their own? Throw in a dash of chemistry, and this new duo may just be dynamic enough for fans to want to believe in the possibility of a spinoff.
The X-Files returns to Fox on January 24, 2016.
