Following a six episode revival, The X-Files creator says that there are already talks for more but nobody is sure when it will happen…
If you watched the six-episode revival of The X-Files that just ended this past Monday there were a few things you took away.
First and foremost it felt great to have Mulder and Scully back on our TV’s after being gone for so long. And second, creator Chris Carter really knows how to get you sucked into the show again only to leave us hanging with a massive, torturous cliffhanger at the end of the final episode.
Spoiler alert for those who haven’t watched the final episode yet.
Scully attempts to save Mulder from a deadly virus that’s meant to wipe out the majority of mankind on Earth but she realizes that the only way to treat him is through a stem cell injection and the only match would be their son William. At that moment, a ship — possibly alien, possibly man made — shows up and casts a bright light down on the two of them as the show comes to an end.
Now Carter says the entire move was absolutely calculated but also real fans of The X-Files wouldn’t have expected anything less because the series was known for those gut wrenching cliffhangers throughout the history of the show.
“It’s the way we always did it. You have to let us show how we are going to get them down from the cliff,” Carter said recently.
“We’ve always ended with a cliffhanger. This isn’t a movie; it’s a TV series. Any resolution would have to lead to more stories to tell. If they feel cheated, they’re not familiar with how we’ve done the show. I think they’d feel more cheated if we resolved it and didn’t come back at all.”
The good news for fans of The X-Files is that the six-episode revival did blockbuster ratings for FOX and there’s already interest in renewing the show a second time but that’s where things get complicated.
Many of the actors — most notably David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson — have other gigs that were already scheduled before and after The X-Files wrapped so it’s unknown at this time when they would be available to come back and shoot more episodes. Carter says chances are The X-Files will almost certainly return, but there’s no timeline when it might happen.
“I just had an informal conversation with Dana Walden [a co-chief executive of Fox Television Group], who said they would like more. The question is when. There’s an appetite for it and I think everyone is excited about doing more. It’s just how to get it done,” Carter said.
“It’s really a matter of when the actors would be able to do it, when they’re available at the same time. We’d also need a schedule that would give us enough lead time to make it interesting. Nothing’s been written yet. I’ve written down a lot of ideas but there’s nothing even close to a script.”
Given the reaction and the critical acclaim of the new X-Files series, there’s little doubt the show will return in some form or fashion in the future but nobody seems to know when that might be.
Hopefully it takes less than the 14 years between the last scenes of season 9 aired and season 10/the revival season picked up in early 2016!
H/T: New York Times
