The X-Files Revival: 10 Things We Learned From 'Founder's Mutation'

Episode 2 is a considerable improvement on the premiere!

By Jay Anderson /

The X-Files returned to television screens with big ratings Sunday night for Fox, with the premiere episode, My Struggle, seeing 13.5 million viewers tune in - though that number will go up once DVR viewings and overnights are included. To put it in perspective, that's more viewers than turned in for the season nine premiere (10.6m viewers), and more even than the number of folks in North America who tuned in for the show's finale (13.25m). Of course, at its peak the show was able to pull down over 29m viewers, but it's a different TV landscape these days, and those numbers for a property that hasn't been on TV screens for over a decade, and out of theatres since 2008, are very, very good. Add in the fact that the show has worldwide appeal, and it would appear that, at least initially, Fox's gamble on bringing the show back has paid off. My Struggle suffered due to pacing issues and an odd approach to the mythology of the show (in short, if you've seen Redux I and II from season five, you've seen a superior version of My Struggle), but the good news is that episode two of the revival is superior to the first, and a true return to form. The better news? There was basically no wait for it, with Founder's Mutation airing just a day later on Monday night. So let's take a look at ten things we learned from the second X-Files outing of 2016.