The new season of The X-Files is best summed up by its title sequence. At first glance, it’s identical to what was used in the original series, with the same cheesy effects, season 1 footage, and iconic music that long-time fans (such as myself) can appreciate. And yet, it’s not quite the same. They’ve added Mitch Pilleggi (Walter Skinner) to the credits (which admittedly should have happened during the original run), and significantly shortened it. On its face, the changes don’t matter; it’s still most of the same footage with the same music. And yet, it’s still tweaked, with any padding or room for breathing removed to appeal to modern attention spans and sensibilities.

Like the title sequence, the episodes themselves attempt to stoke the fires of nostalgia by bringing back everything that The X-Files was about on the surface, while missing the tone and pacing which made the original series so great. The new season wastes no time in getting the story started, with Mulder and Scully re-uniting in the opening moments and immediately getting whisked away to learn about a new conspiracy. It turns out that the original series’ conspiracy was all a cover for the REAL conspiracy, in which the government was pulling the strings behind the “alien invasion,” planning to take over the world with a staged invasion using reverse-engineered alien technology.

It’s theoretically a monumental change, but in practice, it makes little difference. The government was always the primary antagonist in the original run of episodes, and whether Mulder and Scully were facing off against human-alien hybrids because of a malicious alien force or because of a shadowy government organization doesn’t alter the reality of what we’ve seen before. It also doesn’t completely track with the original mythology, but even the later seasons of The X-Files don’t track with the early ones, so longtime fans should have few problems with the retcon. It’s classic Chris Carter, full of holes and inconsistencies, so it comes as no surprise that he wrote and directed this first episode.

But while Carter managed to replicate his tendency for spinning his narrative wheels, as well as his sometimes daft ear for dialogue, he failed to capture the sense of longing and yearning for the truth for which his series initially excelled. The most damning problem with the new “pilot” is that the truth comes too easily for Mulder and Scully, with Joel McHale’s Glenn Beck stand-in approaching the agents about a conspiracy he’s already privy to. Remember the days when Mulder had to sneak onto highly-confidential crash sites and military bases, often in foreign countries, in hopes of getting even a glimpse at an alien spacecraft? Now he simply waltzes into hangers housing government-produced alien spacecraft replicas, with no energy footprint and perfect optical cloaking.

There’s no build-up whatsoever in this new episode, with the revelations coming fast and little care for what they actually mean to the characters. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson do their best to imbue their most famous roles with a new-found sense of weariness, but the script does none of their work for them. There’s a feeling that the creative team behind the reboot was more interested in wallpapering the premiere episode with the most recognizable elements of the show, rather than crafting a story that would be interesting or relevant within this world. In the first hour, we see Mulder, Scully, Skinner, the Cigarette Smoking Man, alien spaceships, and an actual alien, yet the show misses the cleverness and attention to character that elevated its best episodes in the past.

The second episode is an improvement, but not nearly strong enough to warrant the reboot a success. James Wong, a writer on the original series who went on to write and direct the first and third Final Destination movie, both writes AND directs in his return to the series. It’s a strange episode, focusing on alien-human hybrids and existing as something of a hybrid itself in the way that it straddles the line between a “mythology” episode and a “monster-of-the-week.” The episode has more of a center, with a focus on Mulder and Scully’s missing son, and it manages to carve out a semblance of its own identity with strong, dream-like direction in the flashback sequences. But the story doesn’t end so much as it stops, and the way that the alien-human hybrids are portrayed as, essentially, super-heroes, feels more in line with modern trends than a natural extension of the series’ past.

Also, like the pilot, it’s aesthetically out-of-place with the original story. As one would expect in the year 2016, the new episodes of The X-Files are shot digitally, and it shows. Both episodes have a bright, crisp, sharp look that fails to capture the mood and identity of the original, with its enveloping shadows and copious fog. Even on a digital platform, The X-Files could have recreated some of the magic of its classic design, but without the latter elements, it’s lacking in character.

Some may still dismiss such gripes as being driven by nostalgia, or not wanting to come to terms with the modern digital landscape. In this case, try experiencing them as I did. I’ve been slowly rewatching through the entire original series, and immediately prior to watching the new premiere, I watched an episode called “Never Again.” It’s not often considered a classic, and its premise, involving a man with a tattoo that drives him to commit horrible deeds, is ridiculous. Yet it overcomes any expected shortcomings with a character-centric story, beautifully lit cinematography, and superb direction. Go ahead, watch “Never Again” (on Netflix or Hulu Plus) back-to-back with the new pilot. The episode felt completely unique in the 90s, and still looks unlike anything else currently on the air. Both of the new episodes look exactly like every other show produced for Fox television in the last ten years.

It’s not all  bad.  Next week the X-Files revival is airing an episode written by the terrific Darin Morgan, whose scripts for Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose, Jose Chung’s From Outer Space, and Humbug are some of the best the medium’s ever seen. If getting a new classic in the series means packaging it with a handful of duds, I suppose its worth it. But what we’ve been shown so far is a hollow shell, a representation of classic imagery without the spark that gave it life in the first place.