chris carter | the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The X-Cast Season 11 #38 – Mulder and Scully X (“My Struggle IV”)

Posted on March 24, 2018 by Darren

Guesting on The X-Cast to cover the season (and possibly series) finale of The X-Files with Tony Black.

With Gillian Anderson adamant that this is the end of the line for her involvement in the show, there is every possibility that My Struggle IV might be the last ever episode of The X-Files. And what an episode it is, with a lot to unpack. We broke our wide-ranging discussion of this episode written and directed by Chris Carter down into three parts covering various aspects of the episode, so they’ll be released over the next few days.

The first of the three episodes covers the episode in general and its focus on the Mulder and Scully dynamic (or perhaps even lack-thereof), along with some general thoughts on the tone and content of the episode. Click here, or check it out below. The next part will be landing tomorrow.

Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, mulder and scully, my struggle iv, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Episode 80 (Chris Carter’s “The After)

Posted on March 10, 2017 by Darren

Just a quick link to a recent guest appearance on a lovely bonus episode of The X-Cast, a great X-Files podcast run by the prolific Tony Black.

Taking a quick break from the show’s coverage of the second season, I chatted with Tony about Chris Carter’s pilot for Amazon, The After. The After is an interesting addition to Carter’s filmography, and in many ways prefigures the direction in which he would take his six-episode revival of The X-Files. We got to talk about all sorts of fun things, from Irish stereotypes to dead bees to capitalising most effectively on the lack of broadcast standards and practices. Check it out the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, podcast, the after, the x-cast | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – Season 10 (Review)

Posted on July 14, 2016 by Darren

This June, we’re going to be taking a look at the current run of The X-Files, beginning with the IDW comic book revival and perhaps taking some detours along the way. Check back daily for the latest review.

The six episode revival miniseries is a strange beast.

It is hard to think of it as the tenth season of the show. In fact, the marketing of the DVD and blu ray sets describes it as “the event series”, perhaps a tact acknowledgement of that fact. There are a number reasons why it is difficult to think of these six episodes comprising a tenth season. Most obviously, the season is only six episodes. Even in the current context of truncated episode orders and split season, that is a short season. By modern standards, it would be a short half-season. Referring to it as the tenth season of The X-Files feels like false advertising.

xfiles-homeagain56a

However, there are other reasons that it is difficult to think of these six episodes as constituting a season. Quite frankly, the six episodes are wildly variable in tone and quality, to the point that it is difficult to distill a singular unifying theme or meaning from. They are six random episodes of television, some good and some less good, with one masterpiece and one boldly ambitious mess. It is almost easier to talk about the episodes individually than it is to discuss them as a single season television.

Then again, that’s what makes them feel so much like The X-Files.

xfiles-mulderandscullymeettheweremonster49

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, Darin Morgan, Glen Morgan, James Wong, the x-files, x-files | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – My Struggle II (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Darren

“This is the end,” the opening credits tease.

This is not the end.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, my struggle ii, the x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Babylon (Review)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Darren

There are two schools of thought on Babylon.

The first school of thought is that the episode is quintessentially X-Files. It is Chris Carter taking advantage of the flexibility of the show’s form to produce an episode of television that looks utterly unlike anything else on television. This is the series at its most creative and its most gonzo, the free-spirited free association that powered early Carter episodes like Syzygy, The Post-Modern Prometheus, Triangle, Fight Club, First Person Shooter and Improbable. It is crazy and “out there”, but… well, so is the truth.

Party on, Mulder.

The second school of thought is that the episode is spectacularly and recklessly ill-judged. Although undoubtedly well-intentioned, Chris Carter produces a script that is deeply problematic and even potentially inflammatory. Given that so much of the script hinges on the idea that thoughts have “mass” and that ideas can be dangerous, the resulting episode is definitely clumsy and borderline reckless in its exploration of a sensitive issue. This is just as problematic as “classic” episodes like Teso Dos Bichos, Teliko or Badlaa.

Both of these things can be true.

“… I just don’t think it’ll understand…”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: babylon, chris carter, the x-files, x-files | 11 Comments »

The X-Files – My Struggle I (Review)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Darren

This is journey that began for me – I’m sorry if I get emotional – twenty-three years ago. Things just don’t last in culture, these days. They… culture gobbles them up and they go away. It’s… it’s rare when something sticks around. Thanks for being part of the journey. The idea is that this is not the end. This is maybe a new beginning. And maybe we’ll do more of these if we do a really good job.

– Chris Carter’s opening remarks at the first production meeting on My Struggle I

The truth is still out there…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, conspiracy, my struggle, my struggle i, mythology, the x-files | 12 Comments »

Millennium (IDW) #1-5 (Review)

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Darren

One of the more interesting aspects of IDW holding the X-Files license has been watching the company try to franchise the brand.

During the production of the show, Chris Carter was notably wary of stretching the show’s brand. He turned down lucrative branding opportunities because he didn’t want to see his show attached to “doo-dads” and “gee-haws.” It was an understandable impulse. When Fox approached Carter to launch a new show during the third season of The X-Files, he did not build a spin-off in the conventional sense. He did not launch The X-Files: Miami or The X-Files: New Orleans, although Fox might have wanted something like that.

Time goes by so slowly…
And time can do so much…

When Carter launched Millennium, he was adamant that it should stand on its own two feet. Carter wanted the show “to succeed on its own terms, rather than on some kind of gimmick.” There were a few sly nods in episodes like Lamentation, but it mostly stood on its own two feet. Glen Morgan and James Wong got a little bit more adventurous in the second season, with Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” and The Time is Now offering clear crossover of supporting cast. However, Frank Black would not meet Mulder and Scully until Millennium, after his show was cancelled.

To be fair to Carter, there is a sense that the later mellowed when it came to the concept of a broader shared universe. During the third season of Millennium, Carter acknowledged that he had been throwing around ideas for a crossover between The X-Files and Millennium. Although his short-lived Harsh Realm never directly crossed over with any of his other work, it is possible that the series was cancelled before Carter had the opportunity; he has talked about having plans to bring Mulder and Scully into Harsh Realm.

Father of the year…

Carter’s fourth television series, The Lone Gunmen, was by all accounts a fairly conventional spin-off of The X-Files. It focused on three characters who originated (and continued to guest star) on The X-Files. It featured a major guest appearance from Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner in The Lying Game. It featured a cameo from David Duchovny in All About Yves. It was perhaps the most conventional piece of franchise-building in the history of Ten Thirteen, with characters and concepts moving freely between shows.

However, it should also be noted that Carter was a lot less involved in the day-to-day running of The Lone Gunmen as compared to Millennium or Harsh Realm. Carter created the show, but the management of the series was left to the trio of Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and John Shiban. Carter was only credited as writer on two of the show’s thirteen episodes, The Pilot and Three Men and a Smoking Diaper. It seems fair to say that Carter was an executive producer not particularly interested in building a shared universe as modern audiences understand it.

By Jordan!

This is part of what is so intriguing about watching IDW trying to build a brand around their X-Files license. The company is very interested in turning the show into a much more tightly interwoven shared universe. Millennium is proof of that, a five-issue miniseries focusing on Frank Black that consciously builds off The X-Files to relaunch the cult nineties television series. In many ways, it represents a truer crossover between The X-Files and Millennium than that infamous seventh season episode.

Millennium is very much integrated into a shared Ten Thirteen universe.

We all have our demons.

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Filed under: Comics, Millennium | Tagged: chris carter, frank black, idw, joe harris, millennium, mythology, shared universe | 2 Comments »

The After – Pilot (Review)

Posted on June 6, 2016 by Darren

And I to him: “Poet, I thee entreat,

By that same God whom thou didst never know,

So that I may escape this woe and worse,

Thou wouldst conduct me there where thou hast said,

That I may see the portal of Saint Peter,

And those thou makest so disconsolate.”

Then he moved on, and I behind him followed.

Devil’s in the details…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Amazon, chris carter, the after, the x-files | 4 Comments »

The X-Files: Season 10 (IDW) #1-5 – Believers (Review)

Posted on June 1, 2016 by Darren

Five years can be a long time.

To be fair, there was a six-year gap between the broadcast of The Truth and the release of The X-Files: I Want to Believe, so the gap was not unprecedented. Nevertheless, the fact is that Mulder and Scully had been retired for five years since their last film and eleven years since their last television episodes. Even the most hardcore fans of The X-Files had begun to doubt that the show would ever return in any tangible form. However, the show was entering its twentieth anniversary year, and forces were stirring in the background.

X-appeal.

Occasionally interviews would surface with David Duchovny or Gillian Anderson mooting the possibility of doing a third feature film. After all, despite the promise made in the opening of The Truth, 2012 had come and gone without an alien invasion or a global apocalypse. The franchise had set its own alarm clock and slept through it. There were still fitful stirrings, suggestions of possible future developments. As the franchise passed what many regarded as its “best before” date, Frank Spotnitz even speculated that fans might be treated to a reboot.

In many ways, the revival of The X-Files began somewhat innocuously. In January 2013, comics publisher IDW announced that they would be publishing a monthly series focusing on the continuing adventures of Mulder and Scully. This was not necessarily news of itself. IDW had a long history of managing licensed properties, such as the JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot and the Russell T. Davies Doctor Who relaunch. That was very much their market niche in the comic book industry, especially with nostalgic titles like Ghostbusters or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

How the years ‘shroom by…

While the launch of the title did suggest that there was an audience for stories featuring Mulder and Scully, it did not necessarily lead to the promise of greater things. Indeed, the announcement that IDW would be publishing The X-Files: Season 10 consciously and clearly evoked the approach that the publisher Dark Horse had adopted towards Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel, running entire seasons of comic book stories that served as the new “canon” for the characters. But nobody was expecting Sarah Michelle Gellar to reprise the role of Buffy Summers.

However, the IDW comic book launch served to bring Chris Carter out of semi-retirement and back into the media spotlight. Joss Whedon had consulted with Dark Horse on Buffy: Season Eight, the prolific television writer and producer was also working on his own concurrent projects that included directing episodes of The Office and preparing Doctor Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. In contrast, Chris Carter had been largely silent since the release of I Want to Believe. The launch of the comic book brought him back.

Where there’s smoke…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: believers, canon, chris carter, conspiracy, continuity, history, IDW Publishing, joe harris, mythology, revival, the x-files | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The X-Files – I Want to Believe

Posted on January 27, 2016 by Darren

This January, to prepare for the release of the new six-part season of The X-Files, we’re wrapping up our coverage of the show, particularly handling the various odds and ends between the show’s last episode and the launch of the revival.

The plan was always to transition The X-Files from television to film, but fans change.

Following the success of The X-Files: Fight the Future, there had been some mumblings about the possibility of releasing a film in the summer of 2000. Given that The X-Files was a cultural property rooted in the nineties, it seemed like a big screen adventure would have been the perfect way to bring Mulder and Scully into the twenty-first century. After all, the original plan was that the show would retire in its seventh season. (The network even had a bespoke successor selected in Chris Carter’s Harsh Realm.)

Gotta have faith…

However, this was not to be. It turned out that Fight the Future represented the cultural peak of The X-Files, the moment of maximum pop culture saturation. Almost immediately upon the production team’s move to California at the start of the sixth season, the show’s rating began their slow (and then not so slow) decline. The seventh season was itself hampered by behind-the-scenes drama, with David Duchovny suing Chris Carter and Fox over syndication. At the same time, Fox’s “worst season ever” meant that the broadcast could not afford to cancel The X-Files.

So, understandably, the sequel to Fight the Future was postponed and put on the long-finger. As the show came to an end in its ninth season, the subject of a second X-Files feature film arose again. Still, there was a debate to be had about whether the world really wanted a second X-Files film. While the sixth and seventh seasons had slowly eroded the show’s popularity and appeal, the ninth completely collapsed it; through the combination of bad storytelling decisions and the broader shift in the political mood, The X-Files felt like a spent cultural force.

“Platonic”, eh?

Ultimately, that was not to be either. The production history of The X-Files: I Want to Believe often recalls the mythology at the heart of The X-Files, with the project constantly shifting and changing as outside forces intervene. I Want to Believe arrived in cinemas in July 2008, a full decade after Fight the Future and more than six years after the broadcast of The Truth. The finished product is radically different from what anybody might have imagined in the immediate aftermath of Fight the Future, its design often surreal and awkward.

If I Want to Believe would have been a strange choice for an X-Files film release in July 2000, it seemed downright perverse in July 2008.