Early reviews of the X-Files revival miniseries haven’t been the most flattering, with Variety critic Brian Lawry claiming it’s “joyless” because it’s “simply hard to escape the prevailing malaise of this being a deal-driven exercise, a chance to cash in on the name recognition of the title in a format that mitigated the time commitment for all concerned.” If it is indeed the case that the new iteration of the series lacks spark, the parody that ran on Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night attempted to reignite the flame — one flame, in particular — of the original series: the at-first-subtextual attraction that later becomes a relationship between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
In the new revival the couple are — at least at the beginning — no longer together, but in Jimmy Kimmel’s version all it takes is a little goading from a late night TV show host to get them to have sex in front of a live audience and a plastic alien specimen. In the occasionally-funny parody, Jimmy Kimmel exists in an alternate universe where he was asked to be a part of the X-Files revival. In an “abandoned government lab” in New Mexico, he meets Mulder and Scully (played here by the real David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson) — and they happen to be stuck in the 90s: taking dialup seriously, revering Hootie and the Blowfish, Beanie Babies and pogs. After they ineptly try to solve a case (because, again, 90s), Kimmel suggests they “have sex.” And then they kiss and fall onto a table and, presumably, sex happens.
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