I promised RussianCabbie that I would read the new X-Files novel and review it. Well:
The X-Files: Perihelion is a novel by Claudia Gray set after the events of Season 11. Overall: it's an effective season premiere story doing what every season premiere should do: it re-establishes the characters, concept, formula and setting; it addresses the gap of time between the last installment and this one; it sets up the arcs for the stories to come; it identifies which previous story arcs are in play for this season; it lays the concerns of the previous season to rest.
Opening Act
However, it's the first installment of a larger story ending with Mulder and Scully preparing to take on the new threat for the rest of this run of books -- except Perihelion is the only X-Files novel that's been announced. There is no certainty that this novel is going to be anything more than an opening act for a larger storyline that may or may not be completed. It's like filming season opener of The X-Files and broadcasting it with no announced plans to film the rest of the season, or in this case, commission and write the rest of the books.
From TV to Print
All in all, Gray does a good job of picking up the pieces and handling the transition of The X-Files from live action television to prose. Her grasp of Mulder and Scully is more verbose than a TV performance... but less verbose than, say, one of Chris Carter's florid voiceover monologues. Gray establishes that while it has been three to four months since the 2018 Season 11 finale (as a pregnant Scully is starting to show slightly), the book is still set in 2023 - 2024 (as established by continuity and cultural references).
Picking up the Pieces
Gray follows up on Walter Skinner's situation after he was run over by a car in Season 11. Gray provides an amusing rationale for why the FBI urgently reinstates Mulder and Scully: since "My Struggle IV", the bureau has been overrun with terrifying and disturbing cases that absolutely no FBI agent wants to deal with.
Gray establishes that despite Mulder and Scully having been circling each other for 30 years and now having moved back in together, their relationship remains as challenging and difficult as ever, with Mulder having never settled into his new bedroom due to thinking he'd eventually share Scully's room with her and then realizing he's been overoptimistic.
Gray's humour is subtle, low-key and guarded with many jokes not being played as comedy, maintaining the aloof, low-key tone of the show. Gray also recontextualizes Scully declaring at the end of "My Struggle IV" that she no longer considers William to be her son on the grounds that he was an experiment and some form of artificial insemination and not Mulder's offspring, presenting it as a coping reaction of grief and loss rather than a genuine sentiment.
Breaking Tradition
Where Gray creates a massive break with the tone of the TV show, however, is the myth-arc. Perihelion features the most overt manifestation of science fiction superpowers that I have personally seen in this franchise. Perihelion establishes that the mythology going forward is about dark forces marshalling supersoldiers whose abilities are overtly those of what you would see onscreen in a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie, with some being threats to Mulder and Scully and some being allies.
The prominent display of superpowers is a far cry from how the TV show generally kept the paranormal and supernatural and science fiction at a guardedly distant distance (for budgetary reasons and to maintain the visual look of a police procedural).
Admittedly, Mulder and Scully have been at the periphery of sci-fi aliens and superhumans for 30 years; Gray may be well within reason to stop playing coy. Even so, this is a very distinct shift away from the usual content restrictions of The X-Files and makes Perihelion less like the original TV show and more like Fringe or a 2000s-era X-Men film from FOX.
Specificity Over Obscurity
Gray also breaks with the established narrative style of the mythology. Where the mythology on the TV show was presented as mysterious and obscure (and often frustratingly contradictory and vague), Gray is overt and specific. Gray lays out very clearly: what the new conspiracy group wants, what their plans are, the main players in this organization, and the overall motivations of most of the key figures.
This clarity may feel mismatched and completely at odds with what The X-Files was as a TV show. Alternatively, it may feel welcome and appreciated after the confusion of Colonization and the Spartan Virus and Project Crossroads and William, each item there retconning a previous story element. I am somewhere in the middle.
Turning the Page
In addition, Gray makes no attempt to reconcile Colonization with the Spartan Virus or the Spartan Virus with Project Crossroads or to address any of the continuity confusion from Season 10 retconning Seasons 1- 9 or Season 11 retconning Season 10. Gray instead declares unambiguously and several times: the Syndicate is defeated. Whatever their plans were (Colonization, Spartan Virus, something or other with William) -- those plans are over and done with.
I considered this to be a relief and a release from the shackles of the past. Not every reader will feel the same way.
Gray also definitively and firmly establishes that the Cigarette Smoking Man is no longer on this mortal coil, and that the page has turned on whatever it was he was or wasn't doing. The old myth-arc is over. The new and specific and unambiguous myth-arc will be the mythology going forward.
However, it's very clear that Gray's interest in The X-Files mythology is more an obligation to be addressed diligently rather than anything resembling a lifelong passion. Instead, Gray's ardent devotion and loyalty is to Mulder and Scully.
Professional MSR
Gray explores every layer of their relationship with loving warmth and a subtly comedic criticism, observing their perpetual patterns: friendship and avoidance, passion and denial, cohabitation and distance, trust and secrecy. Gray's portrayal of Mulder and Scully's relationship is far more in-depth and nuanced than simply seeing them as the believer and the skeptic.
Gray delves into how every aspect of how their relationship affects their professional lives, their personal diets, their approaches to health care, their attitudes to home decor. Gray explores layer upon layer of the joyful nightmare that is Mulder and Scully's association. The Mulder/Scully dynamic is so central to Gray's vision of The X-Files that the mythology, well-handled or not, is merely one of many beachheads in the Mulder and Scully relationship.
Unpromised and Uncertain
The conclusion of Perihelion is, frustratingly but somewhat understandably, not a conclusion to overall arc. Instead, it is a lead-in to an ongoing series of X-Files novels, none of which have at this writing been announced, none of which are guaranteed to ever exist.
At $28 USD, Perihelion is a steep investment when a Disney+ subscription or a movie ticket costs less; it's hard to say how well the book needs to sell in order to justify a sequel. Disney's recent attempt at a Buffy the Vampire Slayer Audible series, Slayers, didn't generate sufficient return for a follow-up.
The X-Files comic books from IDW actually sold worse when the show was airing its revival seasons to the point where the show's brief return ended up ending the comic book tie-in line. And after Season 10 of The X-Files rendered the supposedly canon IDW publishing line out of continuity, there is no way to seriously claim that Perihelion is canon. A revival with showrunner Ryan Coogler is in development and has not, despite speculation, established whether it's a sequel to the TV series or a reboot.
There is the risk that Perihelion will be a beginning with no middle or end... which makes it hard for me to say that any X-Files fan should pay $28 for what's effectively Chapter 1 with no promise of Chapters 2 - 6 to come.
Professional and Enjoyable
But, setting that aside, Claudia Gray was assigned to write an X-Files novel that picked up the pieces after Season 11 and set a stage for subsequent stories, and she has produced a professional, enjoyable product that achieves her assignment. If there is no sequel, I will, of course, expect that Disney issue every reader a full refund and a letter of apology from Mickey Mouse.
It's really nice to see more stories with the original characters. Something sliders never got.