Author: Marisa Roffman

January 25, 2016 11:00am PT by Marisa Roffman

 Ed Araquel/FOX

Creator Chris Carter and stars David Duchovny and Mitch Pileggi dissect the premiere’s biggest moments.

[Warning: This post contains spoilers for The X-Files premiere episode, “My Struggle.”]

The X-Files has returned, and with it came a familiar face: William B. Davis’ Cigarette-Smoking Man.

Though it was known that Davis would be a part of the revival, how he factored into the story was a big question mark — Cigarette-Smoking Man was killed on-screen in the show’s 2002 series finale. (CSM had been presumed dead multiple times during the show’s run. But in the finale, viewers witnessed him being burned alive via a missile.)

That same series finale also had the writers figuring out a creative way to bring back dead characters for the final hours: Mulder (David Duchovny) had visions of dead people as he was facing a trial. (The X-Files creator Chris Carter wouldn’t confirm or deny whether that will play a part in the revival, but notes, “I think we play with it honestly.”)

But it appears CSM is very much alive. In the final moments of the premiere hour, “My Struggle,” Cigarette-Smoking Man was shown to be sitting in front of a fire, as he received the news (from an unknown person) that the X-Files had been reopened.

When it came to how CSM might be alive (or even if it was the same man viewers saw, seemingly, die on-screen), Carter was mum, telling The Hollywood Reporter only, “All will be explained once you see the show.”

Regardless of how CSM plays into the show, “I think people love a villain,” Duchovny says. “He’s a part of the show that’s fun.”

But it seems not everyone will be reunited with CSM. “I don’t know if Skinner knows in the six episodes that he is alive,” Mitch Pileggi (Skinner) shares. “I don’t think he’d be terribly happy about it if he did know. I think he’d want to rectify that situation, through unofficial channels.”

And that wasn’t the hour’s only shocking reveal. Carter, Duchovny and Pileggi weighed in on some of the episode’s biggest moments.

Mulder and Scully are still trying to navigate their relationship, post-split.

The first hour of the revival did little to shed light on why exactly the longtime partners romantically split up in the time between 2008’s The X-Files: I Want to Believe and the revival’s premiere.

Sure, there was a pointed comment from Mulder to Scully about her saying, in the past, that she was done with UFOs, and “the stranglehold they put on [her] very existence.” Sveta (Annet Mahendru), who came to the duo for help, read Scully’s mind and surmised that Mulder has been depressed — but Duchovny admits he’s not sold on that.

“[Scully]’s not a psychologist,” Duchovny points out. “Just because you’re a doctor doesn’t mean you can diagnose everything.”

And though it seems the prophesized 2012 alien invasion didn’t go down, either, Duchovny dismisses that as playing into Mulder’s funk. “He’s a guy, at the age that he is, without a job,” Duchovny says. “He’s gone through [what’s akin to] a divorce, or at least a separation. It doesn’t have to do with the nonfulfillment of the [2012 alien] prophecy. I think he’s got more human things that are depressing him. And I’m not agreeing that he may be depressed. I think that’s a false diagnosis.”

Complicating matters for a potential Mulder and Scully reunion is the fact, that Tad (Joel McHale) is being pretty overt in his interest in Scully when the two were alone…a move she hasn’t totally shot down. But since Tad and Mulder were also bonding — and now that Tad has been falsely discredited, publicly —  Carter would only tease, “It’s short-lived.”

Scully has alien DNA.

Though Scully was skeptical about Sveta’s claim that she had alien DNA in her system, she ran a blood test on the young woman…and tested herself as well. (Scully was abducted in the second season of the original series.) The results were originally negative, but with expanding testing, Scully discovered they both had alien DNA in their system.

“I think it’s a watershed moment in the series, when she finds that out,” Carter says. “It will change the way [Scully] looks at life.”

It might also serve to build a bridge in her relationship with Mulder. “Now they’re bonded together in a way they might not have been otherwise,” Carter teases.

Will the new mythology be wrapped up?

The revival series is seemingly opting to explore the human aspect of the mythology — and the notion it might have been humans inflicting all of this damage, using alien technology, but without alien consent. But since, so far, they’ve only glossed over what was supposed to happen in 2012 — and with talk already heating up about the series continuing beyond these six — will this mythology actually be wrapped up by the finale?
 
“I can tell you we answer a lot of those questions, but we pose new questions, too,” Carter teases. “I think we keep it open-ended.”

What did you think of The X-Files‘ premiere?

The X-Files (Revival)

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com

January 02, 2016 10:00am PT by Marisa Roffman

 Courtesy of FOX

Carter talks with THR about filming the upcoming revival in an age when spoilers can’t be contained.

When it comes to The X-Files, the truth is out there … and so are the spoilers.

For much of The X-Files‘ run — on both the small and big screen — the team behind the franchise has been concerned about unauthorized leaks.

When the first film, The X-Files: Fight the Future was in production (during the show’s heyday), series creator Chris Carter famously had the script printed on red paper to prevent photocopies.

The creative team was able to keep the plot of the second film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, from leaking before its 2008 debut. However, they used some trickery: during production, they left out fake props to throw fans off the scent of the case that Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) were investigating.

And though things have changed since The X-Files television series went off the air in 2002 — “There’s actually a new position called set security,” Carter tells The Hollywood Reporter. “That’s the person to make sure everyone has a badge and watches out for us.” — when it came time to shoot the revival, the fan and media interest in production caused quite the shock.

“When we shot on a street [the second day of production], there was paparazzi everywhere,” Carter recalls. “You can’t stop them. It’s what every production deals with when they’re dealing with high-profile stars or high-profile projects.”

With those photographs of early production hitting social media sites almost instantly (from fans and paparazzi alike), the show’s official account shared its own “first” photo of Mulder and Scully the next day.

Social media has added an extra layer of complication for the famously spoiler-phobic people involved with The X-Files. And since fans were able to observe any time the show filmed on public property in Vancouver, Carter opted to forgo spreading false information about what was in store for the revival series. “I realized that a lot of that stuff is a waste of time,” he says. “I called it propaganda. We put out no propaganda, no deflection.”

That newfound peace towards spoilers came at the right time: though Carter previously admitted he “wasn’t crazy about” the first episode of revival screening at New York Comic Con, he also acknowledged, “As far as I’m concerned, this episode, everyone’s seen it now because everyone will be online talking about it.”

The X-Files returns Jan. 24, 2016 on Fox. Did you seek out spoilers for the upcoming revival?

The X-Files (Revival)

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com

December 28, 2015 10:00am PT by Marisa Roffman

 Courtesy of FOX

“We’re not bickering while we’re running with our guns out,” Duchovny tells THR of the Mulder/Scully split.

When The X-Files concluded in 2002, the plan was always to continue the show’s stories via theatrical movies.

But after the 2008 film, The X-Files: I Want to Believe, “it didn’t seem that Fox was interested in doing another movie,” The X-Files star David Duchovny (Mulder) allows. “I had figured, unless they turned around on that — which I really think they should have — that we were pretty much dead. And that was OK, because life goes on.”

Duchovny has kept busy, completing his run on the Showtime hit, Californication, and starring in NBC’s Aquarius (which will return for a second season in 2016). But with television changing — and reboots/revivals all the rage — the shift allowed X-Files to live again.

“Cable came around and changed everything; it reconfigured television seasons to eight, 10, 12 episodes,” Duchovny says. “And the networks, to vie with cable, started reconfiguring their schedules. And you had shows that were 12, 14 limited runs. And then it became obvious to both [The X-Files creator] Chris [Carter] and I that, well, we fit right in there. If we can’t do a movie, let’s think about doing a six-hour movie, an eight-hour movie, a ten-hour movie, a 12-hour movie. Which is a great way to tell stories, actually, which is why I think there’s so much good work on cable; why you have such great 12-hour runs. A two-hour movie — even though  they feel really long, most of the time, because they suck — it’s a short frame for a long story. If you have the ability to tell a long story. I think The X-Files lends itself to long storytelling.”

Fox made its desire for more The X-Files known, publicly, during its January Television Critics Association session. The six-part even series was officially ordered by March (with Carter, Duchovny and Gillian Anderson signed on), and in production by June.

With the prolonged negotiations — and quick production turnaround — Duchovny went into the revival with little information on where Mulder would be going over the course of the episodes. “It was the kind of thing where the negotiation was so long to get us in the same place at the same time that [Carter] might have had thoughts in his mind, but he didn’t have anything written down,” Duchovny says. “When it became clear we were only going to do six…I had wanted to write and direct one, and [with the shorter order] I thought, ‘There’s no way. I can’t direct one, because then it means I won’t be in one. And if there’s just six, that’s not fair, that’s stupid, that’s shooting ourselves in the foot.’ When it became clear I wasn’t going to write one, I didn’t need to know the stories. I didn’t need to know where I might try to fit one in. And like in the old days, I just let Chris and the writers do what they do, and they let me do what I do.”

As Mulder finds himself brought back into the FBI world (yet again), some things haven’t changed. “I’ve always said, he’s the worst FBI agent of all time,” Duchovny laughs. “He’s never solved a case. He’s a bad FBI agent, because he tries to solve cases, but he doesn’t try to solve cases where they’re prosecutable. Or he’s not interested in cases which are going to end up with someone going to jail, or the bad guy being apprehended. He’s interested in wonder.”

And yet as Mulder’s case interest has stayed consistent, his romantic relationship has hit a major roadblock: Mulder and Scully split up at some point between the second film and the revival’s first hour. “We’re not bickering while we’re running with our guns out,” Duchovny says. “The relationship was never played [before this]. It was never…the predominant aspect of the show as written. It was something that was unspoken. I think it remains that way. I personally don’t want to Mulder and Scully sitting in couples’ therapy; that’s not what the show is. You can find that on other shows.”

And though the revival has yet to air, chatter has already started about the story continuing on at some point. Carter previously told THR that another event series would be “indicated by the actors and their schedules.”

For his part, Duchovny confirms he’d be willing to return, but acknowledges he wants to first see the six episodes they’ve produced this go-round. “My sense is they’re really good, but I haven’t seen [them all],” he says. “[And] Chris says it depends on David and Gillian. David says it depends on Chris and Gillian. Gillian says it depends on Chris and David. That’s where we’re at. We’ll all try to figure out our schedules and our needs. We’re not young actors without any responsibilities anymore. We have lives. We’re far-flung. We’re as far apart from each other as we can [be] — not for that reason. So it’s tough. It was tough to just get these six down. I hope we can.”

Which means if the band does manage to get back together, the episode count might be on the lower end again.

“Thirteen [episodes] is a little much,” Duchovny admits. “It would have to be the kind of thing where Chris would come to me and say, ‘I have this great vision for 12 or ten or eight or six.’ It’s not the number, it’s whether or not the number services the story.”

The X-Files event series premieres Jan. 24 on Fox. Are you excited to see Mulder back on your television screen?

The X-Files (Revival)

Marisa Roffman

THRnews@thr.com