EatTheCorn.com is officially 19 years old as of today! It is, with a difference, the world’s oldest X-Files website that is still actively maintained. (English-speaking website I should specify, as there are still some non-English old-timers too.)
This website is now also federated via the ActivityPub protocol, so you can follow and interact with me in the Fediverse (e.g., Mastodon) at: @orodromeus@www.eatthecorn.com. This appears to be the best option going forward, considering the all-encompassing enshittification. I will also be testing bridges to other things (like BlueSky bridge). This will take some experimenting. Over the past few years I had taken the habit of posting updates in Facebook and updating the website itself only occasionally; this will change from now on, expect more frequent website updates and links to those updates in other social media.
Finally, some fun! With this “Muldle” app, you can test your X-Files knowledge! Only the “High Score” tab works for me: try to identify which episode screenshots come from, identify ten in a row to get one point, and compete with fans worldwide. I am currently at number 75, which is no small feat.
Last week the star-struck fandom discussed to death Gillian Anderson appearing in David Duchovny’s podcast. Although we hardly learned anything new on #TheXFiles themselves, it was a perhaps unprecedented insight into the actors’ personalities, a bit like listening in on an old couple’s therapy session.
As I was listening to their conversation, the following exchange came to me, from “Small Potatoes”:
Mulder: “We never really, uh, *talk* much, do we?”
Scully: “What do you mean like, really talk? No. No, we don’t.”
This could really be the actors talking. For all their on-screen chemistry and their off-screen banter in public appearances, they don’t seem to really know each other much, or be much on the same wavelength. They have the sort of familiarity you have with a childhood friend but with whom you have grown apart over the years and you now only see once every few years, and your being comfortable with each other just comes from the fact of having spent so much time in the presence of the other in the past.
Their conversation plays exactly how they describe themselves to be: DD deals with his issues by talking about them and holds remorse about things in the past, while GA deals with her issues by not talking about them and filling her life with new work and experiences, living in the moment. As such, DD mentions, very candidly, several experiences of shame and regret in his life, including how he acted like a presumptuous movie star on the set of the show — while GA doesn’t remember much in terms of specifics or is more reserved and would rather talk about issues that are close to her heart today.
That’s what I got from it. I enjoyed it, but I’m not much of a person who follows actors closely.
I got zero hint of them trying to spur up excitement for a continuation of the series, and that’s fine by me.
Other than that, some TXF-related stuff:
As is well established, DD & GA were not particularly getting well along on set, and sometimes spent weeks without talking to each other.
This got to the point where Carter advised them to go to couple therapy but as their characters (in season 1!).
Being in their 20s-30s and have the show become such a success while at the same time dealing with their personal lives (pregnancy, divorce) was huge, huge stress.
DD wanted Mulder to be more action-hero-like, as Mulder was not traditionally masculine (losing his gun or fist fights).
DD remembers strong shame in being rejected by Vancouverites when he forced the move to Los Angeles.
As DD left the show in season 7, GA left the show in season 11 — and DD now felt that he should have apologized for leaving originally, because her leaving now hurt him.
GA approached the revival as a one-time special event, not a return for an on-going series.
GA specifically mentions the ending of season 11 as problematic for her, “particularly for Scully”: “it felt like Scully’s trajectory was no longer one of strength and agency it felt like it was beholden to an old idea of of what a woman is, and that’s [William/pregnancy] all she could talk about”; DD didn’t react to that ending in the same way.
RIP Tony Todd, an excellent actor that made memorable anything he was in, known in #TheXFiles as Augustus “Preacher” Cole in “Sleepless”. But surely you have seen him in loads of other things: Candyman, Platoon, Final Destination, Babylon 5, Star Trek TNG (Worf’s brother), Star Trek DS9 (The Visitor!)…
Interview with Brad Follmer — we can finally put a face to the name! — Chris Carter’s assistant on #TheXFiles over seasons 7-9 and staff writer in the revival. Several points similar to last year’s interview with him. Some new bits:
He got the job despite not knowing almost anything about the show — over another candidate that had an “I heart TXF” button on her! [For the record I don’t think this is sexism — I think Carter and the producers were not looking to hire a fan]
He asked Carter which episodes he should watch to catch up on his work, “Triangle” was among them.
Various stories reading fanmail, merchandising, about invasive fans trying hard to get into contact with Carter, about increased security at the studios after 9/11
He was in the same office as Carter, daily — Carter always arrived early, he used to sit down and start typing, immediately
Interacting with Carter when Brad first read the script with the character named after him
Every year, director of photography Bill Roe was throwing big Superbowl parties at his place with much of the crew
After TXF, he helped Carter develop “The After” for Amazon, but only the pilot was produced; they had broken the stories for all of the 8 episodes of the first season when Amazon cancelled it [I want to see those stories!]
After that, Carter helped him develop his own pilot for a show, but it was not picked up [Carter seems like a mentor, really helping people he has worked with before]
It’s #Tenthirteen! Chris Carter is 68 years old (and Fox Mulder 63). Time to celebrate: here is the script for the unproduced #TheXFiles seventh episode of season 10! Kindly uploaded for everyone to see by the fans who acquired it from an auction for charity. The cover page is missing, so the episode remains untitled. Apparently the episode was ready to be shot, and it was not budget but only a scheduling issue (main cast availability?) that prevented it from being made. It was written by Gabe Rotter (Carter’s assistant during season 9 and IWTB, who would eventually write “Kitten” in season 11) and Brad Follmer (Carter’s assistant over s7-9).
Some impressions (very mildly spoilery) when reading this: This is a monster-of-the-week episode focusing on killer ants. Impossible not to think of several previous episodes: War of the Coprophages (for the panic settling in among the local population), Zero Sum (for “foreign” bugs introduced in the USA being the killers, and for a scene with bugs attacking children) or Schizogeny and the episode Millennium (for weird things taking place in basements in the climax). Perhaps unexpectedly, the overall tone is lighthearted and with many references to popular culture (especially The Walking Dead and fears of the zombie apocalypse) and some Mulder-Scully flirting. At other times it’s like a very straightforward action movie. It is weirdly structured, with short acts in the beginning and the final act lasting for half the script; and the whole episode takes place over one day or two; this gives it the feeling that there’s less story here than would warrant an entire hour-long episode. And it ends, in classic TXF fashion, with a promise that not everything is over.
I found the script not particularly strong — could this be the reason why it was not picked up again when season 11 was greenlit? It’s an entertaining, if not memorable, read.
(Image from the “Season X” behind the scenes documentary)
