The dire creative straits proved to be one of the single biggest boons to the series. Season eight ended up becoming not only one of the strongest years in the show’s production, but it also provided a masterful denouement to its overall story, more than making up for what would have been the previous year’s rather abrupt – and rather halfhearted – finale.
Agent Dana Scully, after seven years (well, technically, eight, given that the first season actually spans two years instead of the typical one) of being exposed to the paranormal, finally comes to terms with reconciling it into her ontological worldview, becoming a believer; Mulder is removed first from the X-Files office and then from the FBI as a whole, allowing him to finally pursue his heart’s desire in the form of a romantic partnership with Scully; and Doggett ascends to the position of supervisory agent of the X-Files, ultimately receiving Mulder’s blessing in the role – and his fervent hope that having such a successful, “mainstream” agent would bring the office a legitimacy that it had never obtained under his leadership.
Though the ninth season was just as tragically hamstrung as was the seventh – which occurred for several reasons, headlined by the producers’ decision to remove all the newer and arguably more controversial elements of the narrative and of the characters themselves in the wake of Duchovny’s complete backing off from the series – it only served to solidify Doggett’s new role as the show’s protagonist. Starting from the eighth season premiere onwards, The X-Files became John Doggett’s story, with both Mulder and Scully being pushed more and more into the background.
It was literally a new era, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard taking over stewardship of the USS Enterprise or Lord Eddard Stark having his head chopped off and passing on the responsibility of leadership to his son. Narratively speaking, there was no possibility of going back.
