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Date Posted: 16:18:41 10/11/01 Thu
Author: Islandgirl
Subject: An XF tradeoff

Well, the Fox network is about to begin yet another "final season" of "The X-Files". I firmly believe season nine won't be the final season of XF as a TV show, any more than season five, season seven or season eight was.
It seems really important to Chris Carter and the Fox execs to prove that whole point of XF was to tell "scary stories"; that it was never "about" Mulder and Scully and that its success was in no way due to the tremendous acting talents of, and chemistry between, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. So, af ter last year's Mulderlite season and this year's Mulderless/Scullylite season, I think they'll do at least one more season of XF without either Mulder or Scully.
Part of the reason XF keeps on going and going and going is the fall of the Fox network from a legitimate contender to join the ranks of the major networks (ABC, NBC and CBS) back down to a minor network in the same league with WB and UPN. During its heyday, "The X-Files" was a consistent top 20 show in the Nielsen ratings - a hit by anybody's standards. Even the most "Dogged" supporters of the new regime pretty much admit it's never going to reach those lofty heights again. However, it will probably remain in the top 60 or so. The major networks will almost always cancel a show that's been around for more than four seasons and has fallen out of the top 40 in the Nielsen ratings, but by the standards of the minor networks anything in the top 80 is a hit. Also, the show is actually getting cheaper to produce as time goes by; this season they don't have to pay an exorbitant salary to DD and next year they won't have to pay for GA's services, either.
The flip side of this is: every year that goes by without production of a second XF movie beginning, the less likely it becomes that the movie franchise will ever be revived. CC has actually said that he won't do a second movie until XF is over as a TV show, and movie sequels usually follow a predictable pattern of three or four years between each installment. I just can't see the studio giving the go ahead in 2003, or whenever, to begin production of a movie that would be a sequel to one that came out in 1998.
I'm just wondering how all the other X-Philes feel about this development. Is an additional two or three years of XF as a TV series an acceptable tradeoff for never seeing Mulder and Scully on the big screen again?
For those of you who aren't already aware of my feelings on this subject: I think it stinks!!! My preference would have been for them to stick to the plan of ending it after season seven, immediately beginning production of a second movie, and incorporating the mytharc elements of season eight into the second movie. Then to just keep on producing XF movies every three or four years until Mulder and Scully reached mandatory F.B.I. retirement age! Quite frankly, I think we probably would have gotten more Mulder/Scully interaction in a two-and-a-half-hour movie than we got in all of season eight!
I could have even lived with them ending the TV series after season eight, then just going into immediate production of the second XF movie, although it wouldn't have been my first choice.
The person I really feel sorry for in all of this is DD. He took a lot of flak for not signing on full-time for season eight since it was going to be the "final season". However, he had worked with CC and company for seven years at that point, and undoubtedly knew the way their minds worked better than the fans did. His original contract had been to do five years of XF as a TV series, then a movie and possibly to continue the character in a series of movies. He'd already given into the demands of fans and producers once, by signing on for seasons six and seven, and been assured that season seven would be the "final season" and that after that point XF would become a movie franchise. He must have known that, with or without his participation, season eight wasn't really going to be the final season; and, lo and behold, he was right.

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