Gillian Anderson has extended her contract to play FBI Agent Dana Scully in The X-Files one year beyond the 2000-'01 season, EW.com reported. Anderson's contract was set to expire at the end of next season, the series' eighth.

X-Files creator Chris Carter told EW.com that Anderson's contract extension leaves him confident about the show's long-term prospects. David Duchovny, who plays FBI Agent Fox Mulder, had cut by half the number of episodes in which he will appear next season, but Robert Patrick signed on last week to play a new character, FBI Agent John Doggett.

Whether Fox will keep the show alive past next season depends on how well audiences take to the new character. "It's a little anxiety-producing," Carter told EW.com. "It's like Tiger Woods rebuilding his golf swing--throwing away something that's very good and turning it into something better."

Carter added that he still wants to turn The X-Files into a series of movies. "I have high hopes still that the TV series will become a movie series. In order for that to be so, you can't just let The X-Files fade away."


08/02/00

The X-Files creator Chris Carter unveiled clips from his upcoming mid-season spinoff series The Lone Gunmen at the International Comic-Con in San Diego over the weekend and said to expect it to premiere on Fox next year. "We're starting to work on it now," Carter said. "We'll be filming it in October, and I think you guys will see it in March."

Carter said the series will be more light-hearted than The X-Files, but will have a mythology all its own. In the brief clips, convention-goers saw the Gunmen characters (played by Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood and Dean Haglund) in various humorous situations, including a takeoff on Tom Cruise's high-wire act in Mission: Impossible.

But Carter, apparently still stinging from the rapid cancellation of his last Fox series, Harsh Realm, said he would wait to introduce the mythology. "You've got to be careful," he said. "As I saw with Harsh Realm, if you introduce it too early, you lose your opportunity to get people to come to the show ... as readily. So you've actually got to build through straight storytelling before you start building mythology, and that's probably the way Lone Gunmen will work."

Carter added, "Right now there are three or four stories in the pipeline ... but there are no scripts actually written past that. One is being worked on. So we're really right at the beginning of that. We want to be careful with it. And especially after Harsh Realm, we want to be careful to do it just right."


08/02/00

The X-Files creator Chris Carter said the eighth season of the popular Fox series will add one new face, feature the return of several old ones and answer a lot of questions left over from this year. And expect the return of Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in some form in the first two episodes of the season, Carter said during an appearance at the International Comic-Con in San Diego.

"He's coming back," Carter said. "Actually, he's in the season opener, believe it or not. He's going to be in a lesser number of episodes this year, but we're going to make it really interesting. It was actually something ... a happy accident. I had to write the season finale, which was called 'Requiem,' ... not knowing whether or not we'd be back. So it actually set up an interesting problem for me in coming back now, in doing an eighth year. And that has actually worked with David's availability this year."

Carter provided more details of the new character, to be played by Robert Patrick. "The character that Robert Patrick plays, who is Special Agent John Doggett, is a member of the FBI fraternity, so he's like one of guys," Carter said. "He's like one of the hard core there. He's on his way up the ladder. He's a do-gooder, in a sense. But he's his own man. So what he represents to them is a threat to the ... X-Files, because it's a basement operation. So in coming to look for Mulder, to find Mulder, he is ... a part of the system and now he's attacking the X-Files. So he isn't working as Agent Scully's partner. But at some point, he will come to ... a place where they can agree to disagree."

Carter said he'd also beef up the roles of Assistant FBI director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), villainous Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) and duplicitous Marita Covarrubias (Lauri Holden). He added he'd love to bring back the character of Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) from his canceled series Millennium, depending on Henriksen's availability. Among the issues the season will explore: What happened to Mulder's sister, which was partly answered in the past season; whether the Cancer Man is really dead; what the deal is with the various alien races; and whatever happened to Gibson Praise, the mind-reading little boy. Carter also promised to tone down the slapstick humor and return to telling "good, scary stories."

As for Agent Scully's (Gillian Anderson) pregnancy? "We hinted at a relationship with Mulder. We're going to go back and explore that. ... And ... she's a very lonely character, and now she's even lonelier without Mulder. ... We're going to explore what happened this season. So while it may seem as if you missed something, and you did, you will not miss it in the end."


08/01/00

LOS ANGELES (AP) - A member of a television production crew working on an episode of the hit television series ``The X-Files'' was electrocuted and six others were injured Monday when an electrical line sent a 4,800-volt charge through the scaffold they were using.

``It charged the entire scaffolding,'' Fire Department spokesman Jim Wells said. Six people were standing on the scaffolding, and a seventh person was on the ground, he said.

It was not clear how the power line came into contact with the scaffolding, which was set up 15 feet above the ground at the back of a three-story apartment building, Wells said.

The crew was working on the season premiere of ``The X-Files,'' the spooky series about the paranormal produced by 20th Century Fox, said Steven Melnick, the studio's vice president of media relations.

Melnick identified the man killed as Jim Engh. Melnick said he did not know his age or how long he had worked for the show. Engh had been on the scaffolding.

A second person was hospitalized in serious condition after earlier being listed in critical condition, Melnick said. The other five victims were treated and released, he said.

``All of us are deeply saddened by the tragic loss of our friend and colleague Jim Engh,'' Chris Carter, creator and executive producer of ``The X-Files,'' said in a statement.

``Our hearts go out to his family and friends. He will be deeply missed by all who have known him and worked with him,'' Carter said. ``Our thoughts and prayers are with the other crew members who were injured. We wish them a speedy recovery.''

According to a production notice at the scene, the crew was preparing for a scene involving dialogue, a foot chase down an interior rear stairwell and rain effects on rear stair windows.

Filming at the location was to begin Tuesday, Melnick said. He said he was not sure if the filming would go forward as planned. None of the actors in the series, which stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny, was present when the accident occurred.


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