HD Heads-Up: January 25

TV2 is relaunching The X-Files as a two-hour special on Thursday whereas Fox is airing the premiere and episode two on consecutive nights. The revival has earned mixed reviews, with USA Today advising fans to skip the first hour. “If you love The X-Files  and have been waiting for its return, keep waiting. At a minimum, wait until Monday when the series airs a second episode that’s a marginal improvement on Sunday’s dispiriting premiere — though to be honest, its hard to imagine an X-Files episode that wouldn’t be” …

“Hopefully, whatever comes next will be more interesting than this disappointing hour of television,” concurs Variety, which argues the premiere has “virtually none of the wit, tension or style that made the original series so special” …

The New York Times urges fans to hold out for the third instalment: “The first episode is called My Struggle, which aptly describes the experience of sitting through it. It lumbers. It plods. The actors chew sawdusty mouthfuls of expository dialogue … Thankfully, the second episode shakes the dourness and gives Mulder and Scully more room to breathe. But it’s the third — a comic palate-cleanser in the ‘monster of the week’ vein — that finally recreates the show’s oddball delights” …

But Deadline Hollywood was on board from the get-go: “Strikingly serious and silly at the same time, the six episodes are actually a lot like the original X-Files — you either go with it or you don’t. And if you want to believe (to paraphrase the poster Duchovy’s Fox Mulder had up in the duo’s FBI HQ basement office in the original series), this X-Files is well worth opening up” …

Creator Chris Carter says he resurrected X-Files to put the show in a present-day context, technologically, geopolitically and scientifically. “I think you’re really going to see how [eps] one and six work together,” he told The Hollywood Reporter. “Six is cutting edge. No one has ever done this on television. I just wanted to bring the show into what I would call a brave new world. I would call that our mission statement, but our mission statement is always, ‘It’s only as scary as it is believable.’ It has to take place within the realm of extreme possibility” …

Those wanting a concise overview of what’s in store for the 2016/17 US TV season should read Variety’s take on the just concluded Television Critics Association winter tour …

If you missed one of the most talked about series of last year, and have been hooked on Netflix’s Making a Murderer, SoHo will re-run The Jinx next month, starting February 10 …

More good news for SoHo subscribers: season four of The Americans will premiere in March — it starts March 16 in the US and looks set to open here on the 23rd …

TV1’s new Sunday drama Blindspot won its slot in all the core commercial demographics except household shoppers with kids, averaging 4.9% – 6.2% of viewers aged 18-39, 18-49 and 25-54. Watch for more details in a ratings post …