‘X-Files’ creator talks about six-episode reboot, premiering Jan. 24

A couple of weeks ago, Jimmy Kimmel teamed with David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson of The X-Files in a comedy short that brilliantly demonstrated how time had passed them by.

Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully were hopelessly stuck in the 1990s.

That became evident when Scully whipped out her trusty mobile phone, one the size of a shoebox, and unfurled yards and yards of antenna to make a call. Just like old times.

Then she tried to check something out on “the Internets” using a dusty computer and its dial-up modem.

Point taken: It feels like an eternity since The X-Files, the spooky conspiracy thriller that helped define the 1990s, was thought of as appointment television.

Now there’s a new version that premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on Fox. Mulder and Scully are back in action, investigating more of the strangest cases the FBI has ever taken on.

It remains to be seen whether the six-episode revival will captivate viewers like the original. But this much is clear: The show feels like it never went away.

Paranoia and the paranormal don’t go out of style.

Chris Carter, creator and executive producer of The X-Files, is in charge again. He has reassembled much of the original team, onscreen and behind the scenes.

We chatted with Carter about the show.

Why is now the right time to bring back The X-Files as a series? And what had to happen to make it a reality?

It kind of came out of the blue for me. I got a call from Dana Walden, who runs everything at Fox television with Gary Newman, asking if I would be interested. She also happened to mention that the actors wanted to do it. They obviously had conversations with the actors prior to my knowing about this.

When I heard the actors wanted in, I immediately got excited. But also what I was excited about was that we would be bringing back The X-Files in an interesting time to be telling X-Files stories. Things have changed so much in the world since 2002, when we went off the air.

Right. There are new developments in the worlds of science, technology, medicine, climate and more. You must have been like a kid in a candy story creating crazy new adventures.

You’ll see some of that cutting-edge science in these six episodes, certainly in the last episode. I tell people that every time I pick up the newspaper, I see the makings of a new X-Files episode. That has been the case even since we went off the air. There are plenty of X-Files stories to be told.

But it’s more than just the science. It’s also the paranoid times in which we live. We were living in the post-9-11 universe in 2002. Now we are living in a post-post-9-11 universe where a lot of the things we had faith in and trusted in, including our government, have failed us.

To your way of thinking, how essential is it that it’s Mulder and Scully, as played by Duchovny and Anderson, as opposed to other actors playing similar but different characters?

I wouldn’t have been interested in doing it with anyone but David and Gillian. I think The X-Files will always be Mulder and Scully. That said, it’s ultimately out of my hands. Fox owns the show. They are free to do what they want with it.

But one would hope they would be mindful of the people who helped put the show on the map.

The return episode re-teams Mulder and Scully after they’ve gone their separate ways. The FBI re-opens the X-Files. The first episode is a case that has Mulder second-guessing everything he thought he knew about UFOs and aliens. What will subsequent episodes be like?

We’re bookending the new series of six episodes with mythology episodes. The first one is called “My Struggle.” The last one is also called “My Struggle.” The first one being Mulder’s struggle, the second one being Scully’s struggle.

The four in between are stand-alone episodes. Some people call them monster-of-the-week episodes, but I think that’s an oversimplification. But they also represent a story arc for the characters and their journey that will take them to the final episode.

You’ve also brought back key supporting players: Mitch Pileggi (as FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner), William B. Davis (The Smoking Man) and others. How vital was it to get them?

It was all-important that the characters surrounding Mulder and Scully could come back, because they are important to the telling of the continuing saga.

While we couldn’t get everyone — we were unable to get Robert Patrick because he’s on another show [Scorpion on CBS] — we got most of the all-star cast that surrounded Mulder and Scully.

What are the chances of even more X-Files beyond this season?

I was asked by the powers that be about doing more. But I think everyone is playing wait-and-see. We’re dealing with a whole new television and media landscape. There are so many things competing for eyeballs.

We hope to get that old audience. We hope to get a new audience. We hope to get as many people as possible. But before we make any moves, we want to see how this new series is received.

The X-Files has had more staying power than most 1990s shows. Everyone knows who Mulder and Scully are. Everyone knows the “Trust No One” and “The Truth Is Out There” catch phrases.

It’s something that never fails to amaze me: when someone says to me, ‘I’m a fan of The X-Files,’ and it turns out that that person wasn’t even born when the show was originally on. But they found it — whether on Netflix or some other platform — and that just blows my mind.

How do you think the new episodes stack up against the originals?

I think viewers are going to be very happy. We’ve kept our finger to the wind and found the best stories possible for these interesting and frightening times.

I want people to come back to the show and say, ‘Wow, these guys could have been satisfied just doing a victory lap. But no, they’re still giving it everything they’ve got.’

This story was originally published January 20, 2016 at 10:48 AM with the headline "‘X-Files’ creator talks about six-episode reboot, premiering Jan. 24."