fox mulder, played by david duchovny, is having his faith tested in middle-age.  his sense of wild wonder and discovery has left him.  he says so, in last weeks episode of the newly rebooted the x-files: mulder & scully meet the were-monster.  half a lifetime chasing ufos and things that go bump in the night and not getting closer to THE TRUTH can wear a person down.

so dana scully, played by gillian anderson, is wondering where the old mulder went.  because now she gets a sad, self-lacerating, self-pitying man who thinks he has wasted his life.  scully, the ever reasonable side of the duo, wants the old mulder back.

but does he return to scully, and to us, the viewers, who like our mulder as a slightly paranoid conspiracy-theory laden freakonicus?

i don't want to spoil the episode for you if you haven't seen it.  this episode was played light and for laughs as much as scares.  mulder's mid-life plight is similar to many 50-somethings: how to retain mystery and wonder and the love of life in middle-age.

well, it can be done.  mulder might be discovering how.  life is a freaking wild adventure even in its most domestic form.  scully and mulder reminds us to lift up the curtain of disbelief and look with our crazy eyes upon our fathomless world.  for it shall astonish us.