Hey there. Hang on five minutes; we'll get to the recap as soon as I wrap up my Christmas gifts, here. I'm really swamped, preparing for the holidays…

To Robert Patrick: A lifetime supply of polish sausages.

To Mitch Pileggi: See above.

To Annabeth Gish: My foot in your ass.

To Gillian Anderson: A framed dollar bill and a copy of your Emmy clip from 1997, for inspiration.

To David Duchovny: Anything you want. Baby, please come home.

To Chris Carter: As agreed, a pound of flesh. Now, give me back my soul!

Fade up on home videotape of two Blink 182-looking teenage boys. Damn, it is never a good sign when Fox has to run the The X-Files logo across the bottom of the screen throughout the teaser, to keep people from thinking that the show's been preempted for, say, COPS or something. Anyway, the dudes are all hopping up and down in front of the camera and "woo"-ing, as persons of their ilk are wont to do. One of them welcomes us to "The Dumb-ass Show, dudes!" He introduces himself as "Sky Commander Winky," and his compadre as "the beautiful Captain Dare, the biggest dumb-ass I know." First of all, this Jackass take-off is about two years too late. Second, "Sky Commander Winky"? If I actually thought this was at all a realistic portrayal of today's youth, I would be weeping for the future. Anyway, Captain Dare and Winky are preparing for some kind of idiotic stunt. As Capt. Dare straps on a football helmet, Winky tells the camera that "only the stupidest dumb-ass would neglect to take every safety precaution." Capt. Dare strolls over to home plate (yeah, they're on a baseball field. Did I neglect to mention that? Sorry. I was too busy muttering about the kids today) and waits, as Winky explains that "the physics [for this stunt] alone took almost five minutes of calculation." Capt. Dare "woos" some more and tells Winky to "fire when ready." Winky rolls one of those pitching machines that they have at batting ranges -- you know, that fires baseballs at you -- over to the mound and lets 'er rip. The baseball hits Capt. Dare square in the nuts, and he drops to the dirt, squealing. "Mother[bleep]er! What the [bleep]?" he moans. What, did Capt. Dare not realize that it would really, really hurt to get whacked in the balls by a hard object traveling sixty miles an hour, especially sans cup? I know that, and I don't even have the equipment. The assembled crowd of teenagers -- who ought to be home reading about the War of 1812, or watching TRL at their friend Jennifer's house, or in rehearsal for the spring production of The Pajama Game, or shooting hoops at the park, or any number of other worthy activities -- cheers.