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'X-Files' premiere may make you a Scully skeptic

"The X-Files" returns to TV this weekend for a six-episode revival and, like alien-hunting FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), I want to believe.

Unfortunately, the premiere episode airing at 9 p.m. Sunday on Fox has me feeling like his skeptical partner, Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson).

When "X-Files" began its original nine-year stint in 1993, I was a Mulder fan from Day 1 - I cheered his quest to find proof of extraterrestrial life that began with his sister's abduction and continued down a spooky path lined with serial killers, monsters, ghosts and the scariest villains of all, corrupt government officials!

In 2016, Mulder is still searching, and he's been doing it for a while without FBI agent-turned-physician Scully. The two old partners (and old flames) reunite when a wannabe media pundit (Joel McHale of "Community") promises new evidence that will change everything they thought they knew about aliens.

Series creator Chris Carter, who wrote and directed Sunday's premiere and two subsequent episodes, opens the show with a brisk, one-minute summary of the nine seasons and two movies that preceded it, and then gives himself the unenviable task of cramming what feels like another season's worth of discovery into the next 40 minutes. I was hoping to spend a little bit of time getting to know the people Mulder and Scully have become since we last saw them, but Carter's too busy showing us flashbacks to "what really happened" at the purported Roswell UFO crash site in 1947.

Scully spends many of her scenes waiting in a hospital prep room; the same actress enters at least three times to deliver her information in what begins to feel like parody. Meanwhile, Mulder is convinced after meeting with a purported alien abductee (Annet Mahendru of "The Americans") that the conspiracy he devoted his life to uncovering was a ruse. Scully fulfills her usual role as skeptic until the episode's closing act when, suddenly, she has a change of heart that seemingly comes out of nowhere.

The premiere's two brightest spots come courtesy of the supporting players. Mitch Pileggi reprises his role as FBI director Walter Skinner, and it's always a pleasure to see the striking, formidable actor on TV. Since "The X-Files" went off the air, he's had recurring guest roles on "Supernatural" and "Grey's Anatomy," but it seems like fame has always eluded him.

The other returning cast member is not revealed in Sunday's opening credits, but fans will be thrilled to see his face in the final shot. I sure was.

Perhaps remounting the show's alien "mythology" was an impossible task for Carter and Co.; only Sunday's premiere ("My Struggle") and the Feb. 22 finale ("My Struggle II") will address the conspiracy, which means the four episodes in the middle will ape the "monster-of-the-week" episodes that have endured as fan favorites.

Writers responsible for some of the series' best-loved shows are back, including Darin Morgan for Feb. 1's cheekily titled "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster." Morgan wrote two darkly funny episodes from Season 3, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (with an Emmy-winning performance by Peter Boyle) and "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'" (in which Alex Trebek and Jesse Ventura play shadowy government agents).

"The X-Files" drew us in with its fascinating, fantastic quest, but we stayed aboard because of the relationship between the leads and the inventive, sometimes subversive stand-alone episodes. And that's why I'm willing to ride out the next five episodes after Sunday's shaky start.

After Sunday's premiere, "The X-Files" shifts to 7 p.m. Monday - yes, we get two straight nights of Mulder and Scully! The original series is now streaming in HD on Netflix and Hulu, and is newly available in a $300 Blu-ray set.

• Sean Stangland is a Daily Herald multiplatform editor. His favorite "X-Files" episodes are "Bad Blood," "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" and "Triangle." You can follow him on Twitter at @SeanStanglandDH.

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