gillian anderson The X-Files has always juggled arc-heavy episodes with easier-to-access one-off monster tales (like Flukeman!), and the revived series will stick with that winning formula. Ensuring that none of the lore of the earlier seasons is inadvertently contradicted, Chris Carter will be handling the stories that use substantial amounts of the series' continuity, writing and directing both the opening and concluding episodes as well as a third story that presumably fits into the middle of the season. It's not unreasonable to expect Cigarette Smoking Man to make his shock return appearance in one of Carter's episodes, most likely in the finale. Carter has said that he'll be using elements of the current political landscape, such as the paranoia and suspicion over the extent of the modern US government's power, to add a new layer to the show's mythology. People are just as wary of their governments now as they were in the 1990s, it seems, and shadowy conspiracies never seem to go out of style. As far as monster-of-the-week stories go, fans can expect this flavour of tale to begin with only the second episode, "Home Again", written by Glen Morgan. Contrary to internet rumour, this script is confirmed as not being a sequel to Home, the one with the inbred family that had a limbless mother. More likely, it's a reference to The Wizard of Oz's famous line. On top of that, James Wong is providing another scary standalone story, and Darin Morgan is providing a more humorous episode called "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster", which seems pleasingly reminiscent of his past award-winning scripts for the original series. With this roadmap to the series, X-Philes seem to be heading in the right direction.