The X-Files returned on Sunday night and even with a time delay thanks to championship football, the ratings were REALLY good. Even allowing for spillover football fans who tuned out within the first few minutes of the show, The X-Files pulled around 13.5 million viewers, which is great for the current state of network TV, especially if you’re not a procedural on CBS. The first episode itself wasn’t great, but the TV critics swear up and down that the third episode is when it really gets good, so I guess I’ll keep watching. There was a period when it first came on when I loved The X-Files, but it’s an early case study of a show that went on too long and overstayed its welcome. This new episode reminded me of every reason why I eventually stopped watching.

In other X-Files news, Gillian Anderson recently revealed that after having to fight for equal pay during the show’s original run, when Fox came to her about the revival they once again offered her half as much money as David Duchovny. What the F*CK! The X-Files is not the One Man Mulder Show. It’s Mulder AND Scully. Bad enough they did that back in the Nineties, but to do it again? NOW? How incredibly f*cking un-self-aware and tone-deaf. Good on Anderson for making sure this story got into the media—Fox rightfully deserves to be dragged for this sh*t. The more women who make noise about this issue, the more likely it is that the networks and studios will realize they can no longer offer these unequal deals. This conversation may be boring, but it is NECESSARY.

Here’s Duchovny getting his star on the Walk of Fame yesterday. Gillian Anderson was not present.

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