Most The X-Files fans prefer the earlier seasons of the series to the stories featured later in the show’s legacy, up to and including recent revival seasons, with creator Chris Carter recently admitting he was “sorry” for the various plot threads that were left unresolved in Season 11, knowing that Gillian Anderson wasn’t interested in returning for a Season 12. His recent comments will surely be met with confused reactions, as Anderson herself made it known publicly that Season 11 would be her last time playing Dana Scully and Carter opted not to compensate for that certainty by modifying the season finale, only for him to now express regret that he had been planning on featuring Scully in new episodes.
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“Skinner, Mulder, Scully, and William’s stories are still unresolved. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do that,” Carter shared with The Conspiracy Podcast, per Den of Geek. “Being that Gillian has decided to move on with her career, we certainly couldn’t do Mulder and Scully again. But that’s not to say there isn’t another way to do the X-Files. And so right now I think the future is unwritten.”
In Season 11, audiences discovered that William, who we believed to be Scully and Mulder’s son, was the result of the Cigarette-Smoking Man drugging Scully and impregnating her. Fans weren’t the only ones disappointed with these reveals, as even Anderson herself cryptically expressed that she empathized with those disappointed fans. Carter, however, claimed that the people disappointed with those reveals were at least slightly out of touch with the overall intentions of the series.
“There were some objections to the [Cigarette-Smoking Man] and his connections to William,” Carter admitted. “I can tell you that people who objected never asked me the right questions in the end.”
The original The X-Files series ran for nine seasons, which also included a theatrically released film in 1998. With some of the criticisms lobbied at that film being that it relied too heavily on the series’ complex mythology, a second film debuted in 2008, which was then criticized for not tying heavily enough into the mythology that came before it. The six-episode Season 10 debuted in 2016 while the 10-episode Season 11 debuted in 2018, both of which were met with mixed reactions from fans and critics.
Following the airing of the Season 11 finale, Anderson shared on Twitter, “Oh boy oh boy do I ever hear you,” alongside a GIF of her character, seemingly amplifying the criticisms from fans of the treatment of the beloved character.
Despite Anderson seemingly being done playing the character in live-action, Carter has been working on an animated project with the concept, potentially allowing her to return to voice Scully, though we wouldn’t be surprised if she walks away from the franchise entirely.
Stay tuned for details on the future of The X-Files.
What do you think of Carter’s remarks? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!
