X-Files - from trailer to new series [Spoilers!]

[Earthnut]

I'm one of those people that is against a 6 episode season.  To me they should at least be 10-12, considering how much they charge nowadays for a TV season at the stores.  And just when the show really starts to get good, it's over for that season, and we are left hanging for a year.  Thankful Game of Thrones will be 10 episodes this year, and The Walking Dead went to 16.

[Gotham Gal]

Alas, the 22 episode seasons seem a relic of the past and I have to agree a minimum 12 episodes is what I am willing to get involved in.  That's still only 3 months.  Less than that, it's hard to even habituate to watching, although TV is on demand these days.  I also don't dig the year+ hiatuses.  Remember AMC had to delay Breaking Bad due to the writers' strike the first year, and then broke the final season in two, as they did with Mad Men. There were only 8 episodes for Silicon Valley in Season 1; 10 in Season 2--and a year apart.   I have liked all these shows, but my enthusiasm wanes. It's tough on an audience.  I'll watch the six X-Files, but it's only because I knew and liked the show once upon a time.  If it were a new thing, I wouldn't even bother.

[Earthnut]

Actually, there's still a big handful of shows that have over 20 episodes this season ~ Arrow (23), The Blacklist (22), Blindspot (23), Criminal Minds (24), Grimm (22), Hawaii Five-0 (25), (Marvel's) Agents of SHIELD (22), NCIS (24), and Supernatural (23).

Sleepy Hollow is at 18, Supergirl is at 20, Vikings will be 20 this year, Walking Dead will be 16, and Whose Line Is It Anyway is at 20.

The only part I don't like it breaking them up like they did with Hell On Wheels, the first half in Summer of 2015, and concluding in Summer of 2016.  That's no different then it being two seasons, not one.  The Walking Dead divided their 16, but with only 2-3 months in-between.  They never air during the holidays.

I like long seasons because when you buy them you feel like you're getting your money's worth.  6-10 episodes feels like you're being jipped.

[Gotham Gal]

Wow, that's quite a list!  Do you actually watch them all, Earthnut?  I can't honestly say I've ever seen Arrow, Blindspot, Agents of SHIELD, Sleepy Hollow, Vikings, or Hell on Wheels. Supergirl I don't even think I've heard of. The others you mention I've enjoyed when I've seen them.  Am trying to catch up on Blacklist.

 

The shows I usually watch have short seasons.  I guess I'm lucky they haven't been cancelled like Luck, Betas, and the b******* Executioner were.  Downton Abbey is finishing up.  Better Call Saul, Silicon Valley, Halt & Catch Fire, and Mr. Robot are all short, as were recent shows, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Dexter, and Sons of Anarchy, though they ultimately had good runs.  Fargo is in its own class, I guess.  A good amount of FX, AMC etc. represented there, I guess.

 

I unapologetically love TV, but I don't actually have a lot of time to watch it. I usually only follow maybe two at any given time.  Can't begrudge the cost of DVDs or Blu-Rays as they're so convenient.  What I do object to is the length of time getting them to market. It's like the reluctance to read that last page in an engaging book--you don't want something good to end!

[seesthru]

I haven't watched  "regular"  tv in  about a year  now, maybe longer.  I  watch stuff online, on youtube, netflix, mostly .   I do miss Elementary, don't even know if it's still on!  I miss big bang theory.  I just got tired of  regular TV.   "reality"  shows  just make me ill.  I don't have cable, haven't had it in decades.  If I watch TV these days it's to catch something special,  like the charlie brown great pumpkin thing, LOL!

 

I never thought I'd  get to the point where TV was off-putting.  I used to have a show for every night I liked to watch.  But that was the 90's.  Now?  Nope.  I got tired of most of them, and don't like much of what is out there.   The shows on cable seem interesting, bu not  worth the price of cable, not on my income. If I made lots more, I'd probably have cable .  But I really don't miss it.  The internet is amazing. I  have come to adore documentaries, and  youtube has plenty, and there are documentary websites  etc.

 

Also with broadcast TV if I really want to see a recent episode I can stream it online.  I can watch it, and then go on about my business.  No waiting  through bad shows until it comes on.  

[Gotham Gal]

Cable just keeps going up. It went up here again this month.  With their dual revenue stream, from both commercials and subscriber's fees, it's enough to anger anyone. Plus, they probably sell subscriber's data, too.   Some of the cost, I gather, is attributable to the high cost sports packages which not everyone might want.  There are a lot of cord-cutters these days I think.  It is considered the golden age of TV by viewers, but I guess it is for the cable companies, too!  

[Earthnut]

Gotham Gal, it's weird, most of the shows you mentioned I don't watch, except I started watching Mr. Robot season 1 after it won the Golden Globe for best drama, over Game of Thrones this year.

Just like Seethru, I watch a lot online, and stream, that way I can have a marathon without commercials, at my choosing, not when it's being aired.

I totally agree, cable is way out of line with their prices and streaming on the Internet does have its pluses.  All I pay Cox for is local and extended channels, no movie, music, etc. channels, and then Internet (20.), and it all just went up from 95. to 100. per month.  I get very little bang for my buck, but where I am living, it's all I have available.  

 

[Gotham Gal]

You're just on the cutting edge, Darlene.

You wouldn't be the first to think my taste is a bit weird!  

An article you might like about TV and Mr. Robot:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/12/business/media/golden-globes-reflect-a-new-trajectory-for-tv.html

[Earthnut]

I will come back to the article Gotham Gal once I've finished season 1 of Mr. Robot, just in case there's spoilers in it.  Thanks for the link, I will remember it.

[Earthnut]

Chris Carter on Reviving 'The X-Files': 'I Knew We Had Stories to Tell'

 

 

Chris Carter

January 21, 2016

 

 

Over a year ago, in the Fall of 2014, I got a call out of the blue from 20th Century Fox asking me if I would consider bringing The X-Files back to television. There had been the suggestion of this at a 20th anniversary event at ComicCon a year earlier, but it seemed like wishful thinking by a vocal contingent of diehard fans. Whether Fox was listening or simply wanted to capitalize on a trend of rebooting old shows wasn’t clear. Again, this could have been simply talk but Fox was quick to add that the actors, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, were both very interested in the idea. That was really all it took to convince me there was good work to be done. A must if we were going to do this right. Whatever anyone else’s intentions, I knew we had new stories to tell.

 

 

When we went off the air in 2002 the mood of the country had changed dramatically. Post 9/11 no one in America wanted to believe in a government hiding secrets. Rather, people wanted to believe their government was doing everything it could to make them safe and secure. We were willing to give up rights and liberties in the name of such, and in the wake of all this we felt it was a good time to exit the stage. The show’s oftentimes subversive spirit seemed beside the point.

But now in 2016 much has changed again. Those rights and liberties that were rolled back in the name of Homeland Security are being selectively abused. Edward Snowden and others inform us that the government we’d elected to protect us is spying on us. Spying. And even more alarming is that they’ve admitted to as much. Equally alarming to me is very few people inside the political center and heart of the country seem to care. The internet, for all its beauty, has created a social environment where self-expression trumps all our concerns about privacy.

In this context, it seemed like a perfect time to rattle some cages and shine a light on the dark and distrustful mood toward government that polls tell us pervades our country. But this wasn’t the only reason. After all, The X-Files first sets out to scare you, but it also sets out to entertain you, and there were writers from the original run of the show who told me they were anxious to do just that. Glen Morgan, James Wong and Darin Morgan all helped to put The X-Files on the map and had fresh new ideas themselves. Suddenly, we were putting the band back together.

Over the past ten months about 500 people came together to make six episodes of the best TV we know how. We returned to Vancouver, Canada, where we’d made five seasons of the series beginning in 1993. Now, twenty two years later we were committed to fulfilling a promise to the same hardcore fans who’d suggested the idea in the first place. But we were also mindful that there was a whole new generation of viewers out there who weren’t even born when the show was first on. How to catch them up without belaboring the concept to fans was a big concern.

For the uninitiated, that concept is two FBI agents who explore cases involving the paranormal. Agent Dana Scully is a scientist and medical doctor, and a skeptic. Her opposite is Agent Fox Mulder, a believer. So it largely remained over 202 hours of TV. But it would also become so much more than this. The stories could veer sharply into satire and screwball comedy. They could frighten you with science fiction speculative and supernatural. Monsters both human andimaginary. But at the show’s heart was Agent Mulder’s belief that the government was hiding a well-kept secret about the existence of aliens and UFOs. A belief rooted in a well-known case involving a government coverup in Roswell, New Mexico in 1947. Not only this, but Mulder had good reason to accuse the very government he worked for of this knowledge. When he was ten and his sister eight, she was abducted from their childhood home. His quest was very personal.

Anyone who has watched the show knows all this, so forgive me the old news. The point is, in coming back we wanted to recreate that very same mix of our signature take on the genre. I can assure fans and new viewers alike that we will scare and entertain you in all new ways, in an all new context, with a return to the running saga, the mythology, where we answer questions that were unanswered 13 years ago when we went off the air. Mulder and Scully, colleagues who developed a tempestuous affection and intimacy, have a child together, William. He was put up for adoption when they feared for his life, due to the same conspirators Mulder so believes in. This becomes a very personal story that is explored through the course of these six episodes.

 

 

Coming back to work on the show so many years later was surreal. All of us have experienced about every problem television producers can imagine. But the challenge to revisit the past and bring it into the future is something few producers have chanced. Was it the proverbial riding-a-bike? Not exactly. But it was a sweet and satisfying reunion. Our work onThe X-Files actually spans three decades of our lives. We’ve watched careers and families blossom, lost many of those who worked closely with us, like director Kim Manners, assistant director Jack Hardy, stunt coordinators Tony Morelli and Danny Weselis, actors John Neville andFloyd Red Crow Westerman, and casting director Randy Stone. But life goes on — and now so does the show.

The X-Files premieres Jan. 24 at 10 p.m. on Fox

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