Patrick's Day
by Katherine Hassell

Move over Mulder, there's a new fed on the block. And the man behind Agent Doggett is no stranger to the weird and wonderful

Batman and Robin, Cagney and Lacey, Mulder and Scully... You can't have one without the other. But with FBI Agent Fox Mulder missing and his partner Dana Scully left to fight the future alone, it looks as if aliens have wrecked the alliance no man could tear asunder. Enter Agent John Doggett... heading a team to find the truth about Mulder's disappearance in the eighth series of The X Files beginning this week with a double-bill on Sky One.
 

"Robert's really excited to be here and I think it's good to have someone come in, smack everybody and say: 'Wake up! This is a great job!' I wasn't gonna be that guy"

David Duchovny

A former marine and decorated NYPD detective, Doggett is a steely-eyed sceptic who thinks good police technique can solve any case. He's therefore stunned by Scully's assertion that Mulder has been taken by little green men, and the pair get off to a shaky start. A situation mirrored in real-life when many X-Philes objected to Terminator 2 star Robert Patrick joining the cast to 'replace' David Duchovny as he scales down his X Files commitments. Some, in fact, took Mulder's motto 'Trust No One' a little too literally.

"X Files creator Chris Carter told me people might not like Doggett or that I'm joining the show," admits the 41-year-old, who beat over 100 actors including Sex and the City's Chris Noth and Bruce Campbell, of Hercules and Xena fame, to the role. "But as soon as I heard there was a possibility to get involved with The X Files, I jumped at it. I'm a fan, though sometimes I can't figure it out: What's this? Who's that? What's going on? I'm confused like the rest of the fans." 

There was no mystery however, about the X-Philes reaction to Patrick stepping into Duchovny's shoes - as Patrick's wife found when she visited internet chat rooms just after his appointment was announced.

"Next thing I know she comes in shaking her head saying: 'Wow, some of these people really hate you!' he laughs. "That's fine with me. I'm grateful to be on a show with such passionate fans. I don't care if fans love Doggett or hate him, just as long as they react to him somehow."   

Doggett's actual debut thankfully met with predominately favorable comments from critics and viewers alike. Even many of those bemoaning his arrival beforehand have done an about turn.

"No-one can replace Fox Mulder. No way would I presume I could."

Robert Patrick

"The thing is, I'm not trying to replace David," says Patrick, a long-time friend of Duchovny's wife Téa Leoni. "No one will. And no-one can replace Fox Mulder. No way would I presume I could."

What he can do is find him. And a look at the actor's CV reveals he's suitably qualified for such out-of-this-world happenings. Despite a recent guest spot in The Sopranos and appearances in more than 50 movies such as The Faculty, Die Hard 2 and Wayne's World, it's as Terminator 2's cybernetic villain T-1000 that he's best known. 

"A character like that is great because it gives you a career. But it's also this thing," laughs Patrick, who plays Matt Damon's father in the upcoming film All the Pretty Horses. "Everywhere I go it's: "Hey you're the liquid metal guy, right?" And I'm like: "Yeah, but what's my name?" on one level, that's beautiful. It meant I did my job. But I wish more people recognized the guy who played him also did Fire in the Sky, Striptease, Copland, The Sopranos and so forth..." 

Another thing in Patrick's favour as he tries to make his mark on the X-Files, is that he too is a believer like Mulder thanks to working on Fire in the Sky - a 1993 movie about alleged alien abductees. 

"After meeting the actual guys involved I was convinced something other-worldly happened to them." he confesses. "I think a lot of unexplained or secrets are kept from us by the government, UFO's specifically. It's a big universe and I'm sure there's other stuff out there besides us."

And hopefully, so is Mulder...

Note: this article says that Annabeth Gish (new Agent Monica Reyes) will appear in "three tales" in season 8.

Source: TV & Satellite Week, Typed by me , and all transcripts are my exclusive property