Many of the shows mentioned in the X-Files article have multiple strong interconnections, from Twin Peaks all the way up to Lost. The X-Files thus serves as a prominent link in a postmodern web of supernatural television that began in the early 1990s, capping off strange TV in the 20th century, and allowing the form to successfully carry over into the 21st century.
The shows in this web all display traits of postmodernism – stylistically and referentially, they are extremely self-conscious and formally experimental. They deal with conspiracy theories and monsters. They have their own mythological arcs that take us in unexpected new directions. They suggest that there are supernatural forces at work in the world and explore them using both reason and spirituality. But they don't take themselves too seriously - they parody themselves. The paranoia they place on us is ultimately comforting when we realize that everything really is connected, just like that Kevin Bacon game. Let's try it with The X-Files.
Twin Peaks, as we all know, was super awesome and changed the face of television forever. Nine members of the cast of Twin Peaks – including David Duchovny in his unforgettable turn as a transvestite DEA agent – later appeared on The X-Files. Richard Beymer (Tony from West Side Story and Ben Horne from TP) appeared on the show. Don S. Davis (Bobby Briggs’ father on TP) played Scully’s dad. Michael J. Anderson, aka The Man From Another Place (the dancing, reverse-speaking dwarf), appeared in the episode “Humbug” that was mentioned in the article. Anderson was also later on the short-lived but critically acclaimed supernatural HBO show Carnivale.
The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., which aired the hour
before The X-Files, was co-created by executive producer Carlton Cuse, one of the showrunners for Lost. Like many other shows we have discussed, Brisco County is highly multi-genred, combining buddy comedy, sci-fi, Western, and drama. Brisco was initially seen as more promising than The X-Files, but it was cancelled after 27 episodes. Starring Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead, the show developed a cult following, featuring odd guest stars such as Timothy Leary parodying himself. How postmodern! Brisco’s other co-creator, Jeffrey Boam, worked on HBO’s Tales From the Crypt, a horror anthology series in the vein of The Twilight Zone that ran from 1989-1996 and also featured appearances by cast members from other supernatural shows, like Miguel Ferrer and Kyle McLachlan (who also directed an episode of Crypt) from Twin Peaks.
After the success of X-Files, Chris Carter created a new show, Millennium, which aired from 1996-1999 on Fox. The show was critically acclaimed but did not last long, yet it propelled further the career of Terry O’Quinn, best known for his role as John Locke in ABC’s Lost. Conceived as a more mature companion series to X-Files, Millennium was set in the years approaching the new millennium and was compared to the film Seven. A crossover episode with The X-Files (which was mentioned in the article) occurred after the show ended.
All of these shows connect, influence, and allude to one another, much like the characters on Twin Peaks and Lost all interconnect. In interviews, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, the executive producers of Lost, compare themselves to Scully and Mulder, Lindelof being the empirically-minded one and Cuse willing to leap beyond logic. This is reflected in the Scully-and-Mulder-like tension (without the sexual part) between Jack Shepard and Locke.
This interconnectivity and allusiveness of this "web" is highly postmodern, on a much larger scale than we see within the individual shows. When you look at it this way, it’s easy to understand the “geek culture” that becomes associated with a lot of these shows. A loyal fan base can be recruited by facilitating a search for clues, connections, and answers. As postmodern subjects, we strive to make sense of the complexities of the world as well as the media we consume. Thus, it's people like us who can provide the cult status shows like these need in order to stay on the air. (Or in my case, if it's too late, to catch them on DVD.)
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