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

2. The Show Is Still Best When Scary

During seasons six, and especially season seven of The X-Files, it became a lighter, quirkier show. And while there's a place for that in The X-Files, it is always at its best when it's being scary. Founder's Mutation brought that in droves. From the cold open to shots involving a murder of crows, to the final, disgusting end of Augustus Goldman at the hands of his telekinetic children, Founder's Mutation was a very creepy, unsettling episode. This is the sort of X-Files we need in 2016. While cable channels like HBO have done some excellent, envelope-pushing drama in the years since the show went off the air, network television has generally become stale, and the genre shows that have come and gone on the big networks in recent years (with the exception of Fringe) have tended to be a little too self-referential, and a little too light. This episode didn't make that mistake, despite the whole gay bar scene with Mulder and Dr. Sanjay's lover. In fact, that scene, combined with the rest of the episode's relative darkness in theme and content, showed exactly how you should balance an X-Files episode.