The X-Files

To love this show means to never know what’s coming next, and that’s exactly why Season 11 is pure X-Files.

Just like in the show’s glory days, Season 11 is entertainingly all over the map. That’s evident from the cold open of January 10th’s “This,” which starts off with a scene that is exactly what a large chunk of fans watch this show for, the kind of thing that’s nowhere to be found in “My Struggle III.” “This,” the third episode (“Plus One”), and the fifth episode (“Ghouli”) are straight-up classic-style X-Files episodes, installments that would fit right in with the monster-of-the-week cases that dominate the show’s earliest seasons. “Plus One,” which was written by Carter, even proves that the show’s dad can knock out a chilling done-in-one that has all of the back-and-forth banter missing from his dense mythology escapades.

And then there’s “The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat,” an episode from X-Files MVP Darin Morgan (the mind behind my all-time favorite episode “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space”). To try to describe the episode is to do it a disservice, for it is so riveting in its peculiarity that it has to be seen to be believed that this kind of story could air on a major network. This one episode, which arrives on January 24, justifies The X-Files‘ resurgence in the modern era more so than any episode in Season 10 or any other I’ve seen in Season 11, and it makes a case for why we need this specific show (and Mulder and Scully) even though an anthology series like Black Mirror is doing sorta the same thing over on Netflix.

ust like the best seasons of this show, Season 11 will keep you off-balance about what kind of episode you’re going to get, but Anderson and Duchovny–still game for freaky fun after all these years–are there to guide you through the dark.