It’s no mystery: A lot of fans didn’t particularly care for this year’s long-awaited Season 10 of “The X-Files.” But Fox’s programming boss says things are looking up for the franchise.
“The fans want more episodes,” Fox Television Group co-Chairman and co-CEO Dana Walden told reporters Monday at the Television Critics Association’s summer press tour in Beverly Hills.
Many fans had complained that the new episodes of the show about Mulder and Scully (David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson), two paranormal-investigating FBI agents, were not up to the standards of the original series, which aired from 1995 to 2002.
But Walden said things will get better for the show if and when it returns for Season 11 — a return that seems to depend on meshing the schedules of the two stars and creator Chris Carter.
The show’s long layoff led to some creative problems that had to be overcome, Walden added.
“The show was off the air for a very long time,” she said. “There was a lot of time to cover in these six episodes. They had the challenge of explaining the characters” and what they had been doing during the interval when the show was off the air.
Fox Entertainment President David Madden gave the revival a thumbs-up.
“Everybody reads what they read,” he said of the show’s critics. “I think the season, these six episodes, were strong.”