By JENNIFER BISHOP
Blast Oklahoma City Bureau

It started with Chris Carter's confession, escalated with the not-so-subtle detachment between the two lead characters over the last season, and finally sucked a final breath with a movie more about exploitation than exploration or even explanation. The X-Files are better off buried now as far as I'm concerned. "The X-Files: Fight the Future" is more an omen of the future credibility and believability of this show than it is a fictional planetary warning.

"Chris Carter doesn't believe in aliens. ... It's like saying Gene Roddenberry didn't believe in intergalactic travel, or that Shakespeare didn't believe in the tragedy of life."

Chris Carter doesn't believe in aliens. This hit me hard. It's like saying Gene Roddenberry didn't believe in intergalactic travel, or that Shakespeare didn't believe in the tragedy of life. Mr. Carter would have done better to keep his mouth shut. He is a writer, a progenitor, the creator of a fantasy we've all been invited to experience. As such, this type of confession does nothing but make me notice that reality lurks around every corner, and the possibilities explored in the X-Files remain fiction, even in the mind of its originator. It's ironic at the least and exploitative in the extreme. Carter could at least feign belief in an idea that has brought him success and fortune.

I've been an "X-Files" fan from the beginning, before the show was an institution, before the characters were running in circles and the plots running thin. In the beginning, there was one simple idea, a genuine idea of making a television show that was not only entertaining, but equally intelligent and provocative.

"We want to be surprised, scared, amazed, and flabbergasted; we want to live through Mulder and Scully, to see the strange and unpredictable world they inhabit."

Five years later the corporate broadcasting counterfeiters are still scratching their heads over the cumulative popularity of "The X-Files." They still don't get what comes naturally to its fans -- that we want a potent mixture of character and eclectic situations. We want to be surprised, scared, amazed, and flabbergasted; we want to live through Mulder and Scaly, to see the strange and unpredictable world they inhabit.

What is all this talk of aliens and government conspiracies? Is this what "The X-Files" are about? "The X-Files" concept used to be about the unusual, which included aliens, vampires, mutated animals and insects of every sort, tree spirits, children born of genetic experiments, exponents of telekinesis, ESP, and demons, the progeny of incest, and a being of pure energy, just to name a few. Our guides through the fog and chaos are two FBI agents who are opposites attracting at the edge where reason meets necessity. I loved each episode of the first four seasons. I changed my plans, delayed family reunions, made excuses to friends, turned all the lights off and fired up candles, and spent an hour each week with my kids watching Mulder and Scully battle for justice. It was a ritual we never missed, a special time for us to expand our minds and root for the truth to be exposed.

I didn't like the movie because the intimacy of the small screen was traded for the full public consumption of my local multiplex. I didn't like the movie because all the answers were tossed out in one large dose that was woven into a movie that seemed prouder of its panoramic than in its roots as intelligent entertainment. I didn't like the movie because the chemistry between Mulder and Scully has slowly eroded over the last season to the point that you can count on one hand, and often half of one hand, the scenes they do together. They are obviously aware, bored, and tired of storylines that have been previously done. I mean, wasn't Scully abducted once before? Didn't Mulder trade his chance to "know the whole truth" for a vaccine to save her life once before? Maybe this movie should have been called "X-Files Deja vu" or "Been There Done That X 2." I won't even go into my opinion of the sellout of Scully's character for this movie. That could be an entire diatribe in itself.

The most astonishing thing about the decline of a television show is the reaction of its loyal followers. The small but dedicated section of the American viewing public, who want intriguing and intelligent fare and are so starved for forty-seven minutes that doesn't insult them, that they are willing to defend Chris Carter to the sour and bitter end. I don't blame them. I empathize but must stand up and point out that when something exceptional slides into the ordinary category, it's not worthy of our defense.

Expectations rarely equal experience, as proven again by the much-anticipated "X-Files" movie. I hoped it would avoid being an over-hyped shadow of the show at its best, but I was wrong. If the truth is out there, it remains as elusive as the series plot lines of the first three seasons, the ones that kept us wondering, kept us scared, kept us tuning in week after week. "The X- Files" movie came to expose a conspiracy, answer long overdue questions, and make an introduction to a new segment of viewers. What it did was come across as poorly written, convoluted, and pretentious.