Prior to 1987, the Fox Network was nothing more than an 'also ran' station that provided a venue for out of date television series and movies of the week. Who could forget Sunday's that seemlessly blended the outdated escapades of Abbott and Costello with liberal helpings of Olympic swimming sensation Johnny Weissmuller swinging from vine to vine as the lord of the jungle, Tarzan. Saturdays were also a day to reflect as we were treated to hours of Kung Fu Theatre, with the occasional seasoning of an episode of Laurel and Hardy. Then in late April of 1987, the Fox Network embarked on a campaign that would forever change the way we looked at the network and television in general.

Launching an all new line of programs designed to compete with the big 3 (CBS, NBC, and UPN...just kidding, ABC), Fox presented it's flagship shows, Married with Children, The Tracy Ullman Show, which later spawned the Simpsons, 21 Jump Street, It's Gary Shandling's Show, America's Most Wanted and of course COPS. Plowing into the 90's like Tony Montana into a desk covered in cocaine, Fox came out swinging with Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, Party of Five, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. and finally The X-Files.

Having never really watched the show except on the very rare occassion that I wasn't out tossing my liver onto the bar alongside Fletch's, The X-Files was immediately embraced by losers who had nothing better to do on Friday evenings. The X-Files ran well into the new millenium and was apparently popular enough to grant the franchise it's big screen debut. Which brings us here.

In 1998, much to the joy of virgins everywhere, The X-Files - Fight the Future appeared in theatres across the nation. The movie itself is nothing more than a 121 minute commercial free episode. Again, never having suckled the teet of The X-Files, this movie left me with little desire to begin watching the program afterwards. The attempt was made however, and I found the program as confusing and uninteresting as every David Lynch movie ever made.

The X-Files - Fight the Future begins with a couple of Neanderthals fighting an alien in a cave during the Ice Age. Oooh. This conspiracy obviously has legs that date back to the prehistoric era! Cool. I guess. One caveman is felled by the alien while the other apparently subdues him.....only to realize that this Invasion of the Body Snatchers rip-off actually transferred it's essence into the caveman. Cut to present day and we find a group of kids playing until one of them falls into a sinkhole (who could forget our love affair with children of 1990's that enjoyed plunging to their deaths week after week in wells?). The kid, who is actually the quaterback from Friday Night Lights finds the Neanderthals skull and he is infected with the alien body snatcher. A couple of fireman show up to the rescue and they too join the young boy in his doom.

We finally meet Special Agent Fox Mulder (played by David Duchovny) and Special Agent Dana Scully on the roof of a skyscraper investigating a bomb threat. The bomb threat is the first in long series of events designed to hide the truth from Mulder....that he is an amazingly boring and dry individual. Frankly, roadkill has more personality than these two dipshits. Back and forth with 'Scully there's a global conspiracy here!' and 'Mulder there must be a scientific explanation for all of this!'....we get it already!

The short of the plot is that there is a virus dating back to the time of the dinosaurs, that represents the first inhabitants of the planet earth. A group of Illuminati like assholes are trying to cover up the fact that this virus will inevitably kill all human life so that these aliens may reclaim the Earth. Once infected, the virus transforms humans into cocoons where the aliens may gestate within while feeding off the innards of said host. Very similiar to the Atkins Diet.

The X-Files - Fight the Future eventually pits Mulder against the evil group of conspirators, the U.S. Government, and to a certain extent, Scully. Thankfully she get's infected halfway through the film, and carted off so we don't have to listen to her devil's advocate bullshit retorts to Mulder. Mulder, on his own, through the assistance of a few creepy old men winds up at the North Pole, or Antartica....it's some place cold and covered with snow....I was losing interest at this point. Falling through the ice (this well / hole theme comes full circle) he discovers the Alien ship. Within are hundreds of human cocoons in various state of transformation. I assume this is where all you mid west guys go after a good anal probing. Surveying the cocoons he manages to find Scully and free her, which sets off some alien alarms and forces Mulder to carry her fat naked ass out into the snow before they are killed by falling ice, debris and Taun-Tauns . On the surface they witness the launch of the standard alien mother ship that looks like a cross between the crafts from V and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

The X-Files - Fight the Future ends predictably with the bad guys setting up a new base of operations in the desert of some foreign nation. This I can only assume would lead into another vapid 4 years of television, before Duchovny got too cool for school and helped bring about the show's end so he could go onto a career of general obscurity.....unless you count his starring role in Playing God (which no one saw) and his cameo in Zoolander (where I had a bigger part). Pulling a page from the David Caruso school of entertainment, Duchovny is undoubtedly waiting to star in his next hit TV series CSI: Newark.

Hamlin Grade: 2.5

Timothy Dalton is the one true James Bond,
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