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The "Insane" Position of Late-Stage X-Files

April 14, 2000: Nevertheless, at press time, Twentieth Century Fox and the actor’s lawyers were still negotiating, and getting a straight answer regarding the particulars - well, even Cancer Man couldn’t crack this. “There is a scenario which would bring me back and it’s up to Fox whether they want to meet it,” says Duchovny. That scenario, he adds, has less to do with money than other issues, but he’d happily “bleed the studio for as much as I could get.”

Duchovny, who currently takes home a relatively low $200,000 per episode (ER’s Noah Wyle gets twice that) as well as a cut of the profits is hardly crying poverty. “I’ve been compensated more than an actor should,” he says. “But in the grand scheme of things, if you look at what the show’s made for Fox [which Duchovny’s lawyer estimates at more than $1 billion in profits so far], and you look at people like myself, Gillian, [directors] Rob Bowman and Kim Manners, and [former producers] Glen Morgan and James Wong - people who were instrumental in the success of the show have not been compensated sufficiently.” Duchovny laughs. “It brings up all those 6-year-old issues - you know, It’s not fair! Like I’m yelling at my mom, ‘It’s just not fair!” [...]

“There will have to be some arrangements made to make the show survivable,” says Anderson, referring to the 70-hour weeks demanded of her and her costar. Duchovny suggests that had X-Files creator Chris Carter developed other regulars into main characters, the pressure on them would be less. “It would have been great if Mitch Pileggi [Assistant Director Skinner] had been made into a third lead.” It might have given the series more longevity, he adds, “but no one’s used well on the show, aside form Gillian and I, and sometimes I don’t think *I’m* used well.” [...]

Carter and his executive producer, Frank Spotnitz, are currently in the impossible position of writing the last episode of the season without knowing if it’s also the final chapter of the series. “It’s very frustrating working this way,” says Carter, who adds that although he’s always known how the series will end, he’s unclear as to how he would handle the show if it continued without Duchovny, especially since he and his lead actor are still eager to do a second movie: “I’ve never imagined The X-Files without him.”

Ditto Anderson, who can’t conceive of the “scenario Carter would have to come up with to make it okay and watchable” without Duchovny. “It’s insane the position we’re in right now,” she says. “We’re about to shoot episode 20 out of 22, which means if this is the last season, we have one or two episodes to wrap up *everything*, which is absurd.” Equally absurd, she says, is the notion that Fox would let the last season of their top drama pass without promoting it: “Which leads me to think they have no intention of ending it.” More personally, she’d miss what she calls healthy closure. “I don’t want to let go of seven years and have one episode to mourn it or be mourning in retrospect.”

BONUS

-Interesting Admissions-

July 20-21, 2000: Q10: Hi Mr. Carter. I was curious whether you feel that as a body of work, and assuming that the X-Files is on its last season, do you feel completed, or satisfied with what you’ve done with the show, or is there anything you would have liked to have done that you’re not going to get an opportunity to do?

CC: Well, you know, I’m going on, so I have the opportunity right now to explore the things that I wasn’t going to be able to do. There was a point last season, it was actually distressing, where it was right around Christmas time and I came into Frank Spotnitz’s office and I was kind of excited and I said, ‘I’ve got this idea, and it’s be really great if we could do this and this and this.’ And he said, ‘You know, we only have ten more episodes left to go.’ And that was when we thought the show wasn’t coming back, and it was like, wait a second. I never actually imagined that the show actually ending, so there’s still a lot of things I want to explore, but I’ve got a new character now so I’ve got to integrate them in an interesting way so that I can explore those things.

Also the one to pull the plug--

January 18, 2002: The truth about Fox’s “The X-Files” is finally out there: Come May, the series will end, after nine seasons.

Executive producer Chris Carter told Fox programmers on Wednesday that he wants to end the show this season.

The pending departure of original star Gillian Anderson – David Duchovny left after last season – and a decline in audience this season nudged Carter toward the decision.

“All of the things that I come to work for every day are in place, minus David Duchovny,” Carter said. “And those things might not be here next year. So I decided to take these people to wrap this up in style. […] It’s better to go out strong.”

-To Be Fair-

November 4, 2000: Bean: Chris now, be honest, were you angry when David Duchovny decided he didn’t want to come back or were you completely like understanding– hey, this guy’s got to have a life of his own, too?

Chris Carter: No. I understood. I mean. .. It was… We are all working hard and it’s.. it’s… you know the work is actually too hard. And so, these guys [DD & GA] are still young, they have careers. They want to go out and do other things. So, it made sense and he didn’t have a contract. So, it was a good time for him to leave. But fortunately, we found a way to have him back.

May 17, 2002: Q: Why didn’t the show shift completely to Doggett and Reyes?

CC: That was the plan, but when the ratings dipped this year, my feeling was I didn’t want to sit and wait for the journalists (whom) I felt would see it as an angle and a chance to flog the show. I thought that was a new show that could have built a new audience, but I wasn’t interested in seeing “The X-Files” damaged at all or criticized unfairly, so I decided to call it a day and focus on the upcoming movies.

Further clarification--

FOX Used "Another Movie" to String along the People of Ten Thirteen

GA Liked Early Season 8 (and Envisioned a Darker Character Arc)

GA and Mitch Pileggi on the Positives of (Early) Season 8

-Disclaimer-

Things were, of course, more complicated than that. (...Or were they?)