Did True Detective Help Revive the X-Files?
The success of True Detective continues to be felt, over a year after its first season ended and months before the second season is even scheduled to begin. First the spoofs came, and those have continued on. But True Detective also brought with it a renewed interest in the dark detective show genre that hasn’t been seen much on television in the past few years.
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When it was announced that Twin Peaks would be returning, one of the obvious places to look for thanks was True Detective. Twin Peaks was an obvious influence on True Detective, even though True Detective does not contain any true supernatural elements. And now the X-Files is returning to us, thirteen years after ending.
The X-files is ostensibly a dark detective drama about the supernatural and can comfortably occupy the same space as True Detective. After the success of True Detective and the revival of Twin Peaks, X-Files was the next logical place to go. There is a palpable sense of renewed interest in these types of stories, and there’s no better time than now for their renaissance.
True Detective isn’t the only factor in these revivals, and it may not even be that large of a factor at all. But it would be difficult to believe that it has had nothing to do with it. Before the airing of its second season, True Detective has been able to resuscitate an entire genre and directly or in-directly bring back two shows.
When the new X-Files miniseries does premiere, it’s worth remembering that True Detective is at least partly responsible for making it happen.