It’s one of those things that make you feel old, but we were just reminded that The X-Files is now twenty years old. It’s often very hard to make genre work on TV, but sci-fi usually does better than horror, and The X-Files crossed over to all kinds of viewers, becoming a pop culture phenomenon.
Funny enough, it was inspired by Kolchak: The Night Stalker, a genre show from the 70’s that didn’t do well, but has a big cult following today.
While it’s not clear if X-Files itself has a following today or not, it certainly was a big success in its time, and as the L.A. Times reports, show creator Chris Carter recently said, looking back on it all, “It’s surreal. It’s like an X-File…Twenty years missing time.”
Carter made an appearance in L.A. at the Hero Complex Film Festival in L.A., a major genre fest that comes to Southern California once a year, and he also addressed whether The X-Files could be done today. David Duchovny has publically made it be known he’d love to come back for a reunion, but indeed X-Files was a show of its time.
“You probably could make the show today,” Carter said. “But, I don’t know why, it just feels like it was made exactly when it should have been made.” Funny enough, Carter mentioned that Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were cast separately for the pilot, and he didn’t know if they would have the chemistry to carry the show before they first performed together.
“That’s the first time they really acted together,” Carter said. “What you were watching was really a kind of test, and it ended up working.”
The X-Files lasted nearly ten years, and in addition to the series, there were two movies as well. At the Hero Complex, three X-Files episodes where shown onscreen like movies, and a similar thing was done some time back with another legendary genre show, The Twilight Zone.
As to whether there will be another X-Files movies, Carter replied, “That’s a good question. The truth is out there.” Carter himself put it well when he said that the X-Files was a show of its time, and it would be interesting to see if it would have an audience today. Duchovny and Anderson still look the same, it would be nice to have them back for one more go round, but maybe a new, younger Mulder and Scully can bring the X-Files back for today’s generation.
