Feb-20-2001
New York Post
End of the line
Michael Starr
GREAT TV shows are never cancelled – they are retired.
And so the countdown has begun on the final few episodes of some of TV’s oldest shows which, come spring, will be given gold watches and sent off to rerun land, “Walker, Texas Ranger,” “Star Trek: Voyager” and “Xena: Warrior Princess” will end their long runs in May and over the summer, while “3rd Rock from the Sun” is expected to fall out of orbit.
And now comes the strongest indications yet that this will be “The X-Files” final eerie seasons.
The future of “The X-Files” is as murky as the show’s convoluted plotlines. Star David Duchovny will appear in only a handful of episodes this season and is ready to hang it up as Special Agent Fox Mulder.
Gillian Anderson (Scully) is under contract for another season and the show continues to generate solid Sunday-night ratings for Fox.
But “X-Files” creator Chris Carter is not optimistic about bringing the show back for another season. He is focusing instead on launching an “X-Files” spinoff, “The Lone Gunmen,” on March 4.
“It’s the same as it’s always been,” Carter says of the show’s future. ” If we can figure a reason or find a reason to keep doing the show, meaning creatively, we’ll keep going. That’s really what it’s all about.
“We’re very, very happy with the way the show has gone this year with the addition of Robert Patrick [as Agent Doggett],” he says. “Creatively, it gave us an interesting way to tell stories. So I think it’s the same thing next year: Is there an interesting way to tell stories?”
Tags: chris carter, x-files