X-FILES Closes Its Doors
January 17th, 2002
X-FILES creator Chris Carter has decided this will be the last season of his long-running TV series. Carter has been quoted frequently as saying that there were still stories to tell on THE X-FILES, and the genius of the show was that it was set up for endless tall tales, but weak recent ratings may have made Carter reassess that. He says he wants to go out with a bang, producing strong episodes, and tying up the tangled threads of the mythology plot.
In my personal opinion, as a first-show watcher of the series, I think the show has failed recently in the ratings for simple reasons: the show grew sour when David Duchovny sued Chris Carter and Fox over syndication money and didnt even attempt to hide his contempt for the show and what he had to do on it. This led to the worst of the series -- the worst writing and the laziest plots -- and the audience never recovered. The writers were clearly exhausted; they couldnt come up with one good Mulder-and-Scully story. Carter even seemed to hang up his pen, which was a blow, because he was always one of the best when it came to monster-of-the-week shows. When David finally left, the show pepped up with the appearance of Agent John Dogget (Robert Patrick). He brought a breath of fresh air to the series. You could almost feel the writers relief. But the viewers never came back. And now this season, despite the lively and fitting grand entrance of the great Annabeth Gish, Gillian Anderson zombie-walks around like shed rather be changing a diaper.
Its probably for the best that Carter is hanging it up. With two terrific shows in the Sunday-at-nine timeslot -- the getting-better-and-better ALIAS and LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT -- the idea of bringing THE X-FILES back to what it once was is just a pipe dream.
It was a good run; the show, I think, will be remembered -- not the way, say, STAR TREK is...but the way TWIN PEAKS always comes back to memory.
The scary part of this for Carter is the thought: Can I ever do it again? Will he ever be able to produce another hit show? From his post-X offerings...maybe not. MILLENNIUM never connected. HARSH REALM wasnt given a chance. THE LONE GUNMEN got cut off just as it was cooking up. So who knows. If I was Carter Id stay away from Fox for once.
So, to Glen Morgan and James Wong, to David Amann, to Vince Gilligan, to Carter, to Daniel Sackheim, to John Shiban...
...thanks for the run, boys.
-- Darwin Mayflower (darwinmayflower@yahoo.com)
In my personal opinion, as a first-show watcher of the series, I think the show has failed recently in the ratings for simple reasons: the show grew sour when David Duchovny sued Chris Carter and Fox over syndication money and didnt even attempt to hide his contempt for the show and what he had to do on it. This led to the worst of the series -- the worst writing and the laziest plots -- and the audience never recovered. The writers were clearly exhausted; they couldnt come up with one good Mulder-and-Scully story. Carter even seemed to hang up his pen, which was a blow, because he was always one of the best when it came to monster-of-the-week shows. When David finally left, the show pepped up with the appearance of Agent John Dogget (Robert Patrick). He brought a breath of fresh air to the series. You could almost feel the writers relief. But the viewers never came back. And now this season, despite the lively and fitting grand entrance of the great Annabeth Gish, Gillian Anderson zombie-walks around like shed rather be changing a diaper.
Its probably for the best that Carter is hanging it up. With two terrific shows in the Sunday-at-nine timeslot -- the getting-better-and-better ALIAS and LAW & ORDER: CRIMINAL INTENT -- the idea of bringing THE X-FILES back to what it once was is just a pipe dream.
It was a good run; the show, I think, will be remembered -- not the way, say, STAR TREK is...but the way TWIN PEAKS always comes back to memory.
The scary part of this for Carter is the thought: Can I ever do it again? Will he ever be able to produce another hit show? From his post-X offerings...maybe not. MILLENNIUM never connected. HARSH REALM wasnt given a chance. THE LONE GUNMEN got cut off just as it was cooking up. So who knows. If I was Carter Id stay away from Fox for once.
So, to Glen Morgan and James Wong, to David Amann, to Vince Gilligan, to Carter, to Daniel Sackheim, to John Shiban...
...thanks for the run, boys.
-- Darwin Mayflower (darwinmayflower@yahoo.com)
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