Television Revivals

Agreed, it's a shame that Chris Carter's episodes of the revived X-Files have been the consistent low-points thus far. I think he's still writing like it's the mid-90s, not realising that both television and conspiracy thrillers have moved on a lot since then.

Actually, I wouldn't have minded it if the plot of the revived series had been about Earth having been successfully taken over in 2012, but most of humanity are still unaware that they've been taken over and currently living in a Vichy state. What if Mulder and Scully had been forced into continuing to work on the X-Files as unwilling collaborators, after the Syndicate managed to abduct William?

It would have followed-through on the established series mythology about the date of the invasion, leading to a new status quo for the main characters. They no longer are trying to prevent the alien conspiracy from taking over, because they already failed to stop it. Now they're trying to expose the conspiracy and live in this new world.

While the S10 finale had problems, it was more disappointing that the S11 opener retconned it away as being "all a dream". When honestly, dealing with an Earth ravaged by a virus that lead to the aliens quietly seizing power could have been a great change in direction for the series.

I know that the idea that the X-Files could easily be "our" world is one of the fun things about the show, but honestly, I think that's holding the show back in some ways. There is only so many times they can yank our chain with the alien conspiracy, only to hit the reset button immediately because things can't diverge too much from "our" world.