The first half of this two-parter takes place the morning after last season's cliffhanger episode, with a special task force being formed to find Agent Mulder. Scully still keenly feels her loss; she's suffering visions of Mulder being tortured by aliens, which meld into dreams of the fetus within her womb. Still dazed from what he's witnessed, Skinner finds himself powerless in the face of this investigation. Calling both agents in to be interrogated, Doggett poses as just another witness, hoping to lure Scully into admitting some dark secret about Mulder. He gives himself away by intimating that Mulder has slept with a few ladies around the office, when, really, we all know that Mulder was strictly a porno man. Scully now has a reputation as a believer, and what Doggett desperately wants is an answer to Mulder's disappearance that has nothing to do with aliens or X-files. Right out of the gate, Scully can't stand the man, but over the course of these two episodes, Doggett will develop a grudging respect for her.

For whatever reason, someone or some thing wants Mulder to be suspected of faking his own disappearance. Since the Consortium is a thing of the past, and the Cigarette Smoking Man seems to have died for the final time, there aren't a lot of suspects. To find Mulder, they have to find Gibson Praise, the boy with alien DNA. For the longtime cast members, it's because The Lone Gunmen have evidence that there's a pattern to UFO activity; the aliens are the new conspiracy, cleaning up after themselves. And so the two groups, Doggett's Task Force versus Scully and Skinner, race to get Praise before someone else does. Doggett assumes Mulder wants him; Scully assumes something much darker.

If you have friends or family who have not been into The X-Files because of how complex it seems, this is the time to have them watch. Carter (who wrote these episodes) clearly intends this new casting to breathe life into the show, and much of its murky logic has been swept away. Those story elements that used to require phenomenal memory to understand are now actually explained within the episode. For the first time, Carter tells you what you need to know to get into what's going on. Suddenly, The X-Files is accessible to newcomers in a way the movie should have been but wasn't. As fun as previous seasons have been, the show needed a change in order to survive the absence of Duchovny.

If you're a purist, consider this season to be a sequel to the original series. Even the opening titles reflect this, as they've added an image of Mulder falling into a giant eye. It's a somewhat cheesy touch, but forgivable. No longer can we worry about the old government conspiracies; there's a clear focus to the season, though hopefully with side trips that involve meeting monsters.

The show dynamic hasn't shifted as much as rumors may have led you to believe either. Obviously, Scully can no longer deny that she's "...seen things she can't explain." But even though she acknowledges alien life and the existence of major nemesis The Bounty Hunter (Brian Thompson), she also clings to her rationality. And somehow, when Gillian Anderson delivers the paranormal explanation, it doesn't sound quite as crazy as when Duchovny does so. Doggett isn't going to be the cynic either. He has no choice but to accept that the X-Files aren't easily explained. Though that doesn't please him, the character is obviously too good an agent to let it throw him. Patrick plays the man's steel perfectly.

But what about Mulder? Last season Duchovny set Mulder up as a Christlike figure; this year, he's Prometheus, chained to a rock as aliens rip out his liver over and over. After seeing some of the things being done to him, anal probes don't sound so bad. Mostly though, Duchovny gets to show up, scream "Scully!" a few times, collect his million, and go home. And should his film career pull a Caruso, there's plenty of room for him to come back on a full-time basis.

Duchovny claimed to be bored, and we've been rewarded as a result. The X-Files has been given a shot in the arm. And maybe a probe in the naso-pharynx cavity.