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Date Posted: 07:29:13 08/13/04 Fri
Author: Islandgirl
Subject: Article on Chris Carter

I got this off the AP Entertainment Wire. Comments from me at the end.
****
RETURNING TO THE REALM OF CHRIS CARTER|
|
By IAN SPELLING|
c.2004 Ian Spelling|
(Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate.)|

‘‘Harsh Realm’’ came and went, and now it’s come again.
Chris Carter’s virtual-reality series — in which Lt. Thomas Hobbes (Scott Bairstow) and rogue Mike Pinocchio (D.B. Sweeney) hunted down renegade Gen. Omar Santiago (Terry O’Quinn) inside a computer-generated universe ruled by Santiago — debuted on Oct. 8, 1999, and lasted only nine episodes. Actually Fox unceremoniously dumped it after three airings. The other six produced episodes eventually ran on FX.
Fortunately and finally for the modest but ardent ‘‘Harsh Realm’’ fan base, Fox Home Entertainment will release a three-disc ‘‘Harsh Realm: The Complete Series DVD’’ package on Aug. 24. The set includes all nine episodes, commentary by ‘‘X-Files’’ and ‘‘Millennium’’ creator Carter and pilot director Daniel Sackheim, as well as a making-of featurette.
‘‘I was aiming for something unlike anything else that was on television,’’ Carter says. ‘‘Working on the broadest possible canvas, I wanted it to be something like ’The Iliad’ and ’The Odyssey’ all wrapped in one.
‘‘I loved ’Lord of the Rings’ and as I was watching ’Lord of the Rings’ I thought, ’Wow, the mythology of ‘‘Harsh Realm’’ was as rich as this.’ Of course, the production values weren’t as rich, but I was really shooting for something along those lines.’’
So, was ‘‘Harsh Realm’’ a little too far ahead of its time for its own good?
‘‘I think so,’’ replies Carter, speaking by phone from his office in Los Angeles. ‘‘I think somebody is going to do that show or a variation on it one day and it’s going to be a big hit, because it’s such a great storytelling device, doing parallel worlds, and (it can be done) with this new technology that we’re all now familiar with.’’
The ‘‘Harsh Realm’’ DVD arrives on the heels of Fox’s recently released ‘‘Millennium’’ Season 1 set. That show, which debuted in Oct. 1996 and ran for three seasons, starred Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a former FBI profiler who joined the mysterious Millennium Group in order to limit the activities of terrorists, criminals and Y2K extremists as the Millennium approached.
‘‘I have very, very vivid memories of making the pilot and of realizing I’d created for myself double the workload, which was already impossible to keep up with,’’ Carter says. ‘‘So, for me, it was an opportunity to see what I was made of and also something completely different, in my opinion, than ’The X-Files,’ which was to do stories about real monsters as opposed to supernatural monsters.’’
The ‘‘Harsh Realm’’ and ‘‘Millennium’’ sets are hitting stores not long after the DVD release of the ninth and final season of ‘‘The X-Files.’’ Carter acknowledges that with all nine ‘‘X-Files’’ seasons now out on DVD it feels as if his groundbreaking show has ended all over again.
‘‘It’s funny you say that,’’ he says. ‘‘I didn’t actually think of it that way. I was riding behind a bus the other day and there was an ’X-Files’ ad on it because the show is in syndication.
‘‘In a way it seems like it’ll never end, but I guess you could also say it’s ending twice.’’
Carter says that he misses the cast and crews of his shows. He also misses being able to take an outlandish idea — something that just popped into his head or a stranger-than-fiction story he’s read in a newspaper — and transform it into an episode of television in a matter of weeks. But that, he adds, is all he’s missed since ‘‘The X-Files’’ faded to black in spring 2002.
‘‘I don’t miss the pressure cooker of television,’’ Carter says. ‘‘So I have to say that while it was a wonderful thing to be able to write exactly what I wanted to — because I did have the luxury to do that — it’s OK now for me to be able to take some time to really think about what I want to do next rather than be forced to think about what I want to do next.’’
Next for Carter is ‘‘A Philosophical Investigation,’’ a sci-fi thriller he’ll direct based on a script he wrote with former ‘‘X-Files’’ co-executive producer Frank Spotnitz. And somewhere along the line he’ll get cracking on the long-awaited second ‘‘X-Files’’ feature film, which will reunite David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as truth-seeking FBI Special Agents Mulder and Scully.
‘‘I guess there was some movement deal-wise in recent weeks, so I think everybody is getting more excited about it,’’ Carter says.
Finally, addressing those who think Carter went Loch Ness Monster and vanished into thin air following the end of ‘‘The X-Files,’’ the writer-producer-director insists that wasn’t the case. He’s been developing film scripts and, as he puts it, dedicating himself to living a normal life again.
‘‘I’ve been having regular hours, getting reacquainted with my wife and living a good physical life,’’ Carter says. ‘‘I just ran a marathon.
‘‘So I’m doing things that I’d put off for about 10 years.’’

(Ian Spelling is a New York-based freelance writer.)

-----
I"m glad to hear that he and his wife have reconciled; seems like they were separated for a while. However, I have to say this doesn't seem to bode well for a second XF movie; it says he's going to get cracking on it "somewhere along the line", which doesn't sound like they've even set a date to start filming. And it will be at LEAST a year after they start filming before the movie is released. I think it's going to be one of those concepts that just gets talked about for years, but never actually begins production.

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