Although the likelihood of The X-Files returning for another season is damn near non-existent, the franchise could be returning to television in a very different form. TV Line has reported that Fox is developing The X-Files: Albuquerque, an animated comedy spin-off of the main series.
Fox has given The X-Files: Albuquerque a script and presentation commitment, which means that it's still early days and far from a series order. The potential series won't revolve around Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) or Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), but will instead focus on an office of "misfit agents who investigate X-Files cases too wacky, ridiculous or downright dopey for Mulder and Scully to bother with. They’re essentially the X-Files’ B-team." Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko (Paradise PD) are slated to pen the pilot as well as serve as executive producers alongside X-Files creator Chris Carter and X-Files writer Gabe Rotter. Bento Box Entertainment, the folks behind Bob's Burgers, Central Park, and Hoops, will serve as the animation studio. The original X-Files series ran for nine seasons and spawned two feature films as well as The Lone Gunman spin-off series (you could also consider Millennium a spin-off since it does take place in the same universe), before returning for two revival seasons which wrapped up in 2018. It's still too early to say whether Gillian Anderson and/or David Duchovny might lend their voices to the series, but it's hard to imagine Mulder and Scully not making some sort of appearance.
Although an animated comedy isn't exactly the return that I imagined for The X-Files, I could definitely see it working. The live-action series dipped its toes into comedy on more than a few occasions, to great effect I might add, so it's not exactly a complete departure. The recent success of Star Trek: Lower Decks might just give us an idea of what The X-Files: Albuquerque could be; something that respects the franchise even when it's poking fun at it.
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