The Carter Conundrum
The Man, The Files, and an attempt to find The Real Truth.
      by pisher

Peter Roth (left) with fellow big-wigs Warren Littlefield, Dorothy Swanson, and Leslie Moonves.

Peter Roth was one of a number of genuinely creative and insightful people who were gathered at the fledgling Fox Network in the early 90's (recently, he helped launch the ill fated Freaks and Geeks). Contrary to the image (cultivated often by Carter himself) of network suits as hidebound conservatives who strangle creativity, people like Roth and fellow Fox executive Sandy Grushow saw an opportunity to do something unique -- because Fox simply couldn't compete otherwise. "There was a mandate to be different," as Grushow put it. This atmosphere gave birth to schlock in abundance (including a Henry Winkler produced UFO show called Sightings that was airing while The X-Files was still in development), but also to shows like The Simpsons. But the network had no shows that really stood out, gave it credibility as a real player in network TV. It had no trademark show, like Cheers or Seinfeld or ER successively were for NBC. It needed more than ratings, it needed identity. It needed something really different.

And here's where the story gets complex. Carter's version is simple -- he was asked to come up with an idea. He loved The Nightstalker as a kid. He had a skeptic/believer dichotomy going on in his brain. He wanted to do something scary. He had wanted to do a show like this for a long long time, and finally somebody asked him what he wanted to do. He had to ram the idea down the throats of the stupid Fox executives, as well as sell them on the merits of two little known actors as his leads. His pilot was so good that people at the first screening actually stood up and applauded. The ratings were low, and the Fox people thought Brisco County Jr would be the breakout show, but he kept the faith -- and won the day. "I knew I could do it," he says in one interview. One of those articles in which other people don't get mentioned much. There are a lot of those.

This doesn't have much to do with anything, but doesn't he look good?

Now here's an unsubstantiated rumor, one which reportedly comes from an impeccable source -- and you know what Scully would say about that. But for the sake of being different:

The original germ of an idea for The X-Files may have been pitched to Chris Carter -- by a Fox Executive.

True? Don't know. If it is, it's certainly not something the executive in question would be likely to reveal. Like I said, they don't need the public's worship -- just ratings. Like I said, trademarks. The Carter Cult is good for business. But who could the rumored pitcher have been? Peter Roth, who suggested he create a show, and with whom he first discussed it -- how it could be a 90's version of The Nightstalker (which Roth happened to also love)? Actually, I've yet to hear somebody who knows Carter mention his love for that show, before it became an inevitable leitmotif in his X-Files interviews.

Or could it have been Sandy Grushow, Fox Entertainment President (and now the triumphantly returned boss of the whole darn outfit) who championed the show in its early days? Somebody else? Or is the rumor just a rumor? In any event, preliminary show pitches of this kind are usually rather vague. At most, Carter was sent off in a general direction. But according to him, that's not what happened at all.

So did Carter really want to do this kind of show for a long time, and not say a word about it to anybody in the course of his eight years in the biz? Because he didn't -- not to his wife and first scriptwriting mentor, not to his family, not even to his old surfing buddy Sam George, who told People that "We used to spend a lot of time in the water philosophizing" -- "You wouldn't have thought he'd start some show about a renegade FBI agent and space aliens. There's something going on in the back of his head." It's a variation of a comment made about him over and over again when his friends and erstwhile colleagues are asked about Chris Carter's purported flair for scare. He never mentioned anything remotely close to The X-Files to anybody he knew, until after he started to work on it. But we know he trusts no one. So this is hardly proof of anything.

Carter tries for "enigmatic", but ends up with "squirrely".

Now I know we who periodically mourn the demise of intelligent and exciting TV shows, murdered by network hacks with no vision, are always inclined to be on the side of the creative people -- and rightly so. But without the Roths and Grushows of the world, none of these people would ever accomplish a blessed thing in the profit-oriented world of American TV. Let's take The Sopranos. Did you know that an HBO suit pitched the idea of a gangster show to David Chase -- and Chase turned it down? Then he thought better of it, and that's the reason I pay for HBO now. Chase and his collaborators get the credit for making it great -- but that HBO suit should get our thanks as well, no? Some of them have really great instincts for what will work. Some of them are just terminally stupid. It's a Manichean Battle between Light and Darkness thingy in LaLaLand. And creative people can go over to the dark side just as easily as suits. Or haven't you heard of Joel Schumacher?

I'm not saying Carter doesn't deserve credit for the pilot. He made history with that pilot, and deserves to be remembered for it, even though it was reportedly revised heavily by the Fox development people. They gave Carter a lot of advice and assistance, and he listened. He had little choice but to listen, because he was nobody. He was the one being given the break, and he wasn't likely to get many more like it. Whether he always wanted to scare people or not, explore Faith vs. Doubt or not -- I wouldn't care to say. But those things were in him. Self-evidently, those things began to come out of him. He was, as I have said, a very quick study, and eager to win the approval of those whose approval mattered. He took a basic idea -- wherever it came from -- and began to look for things to make it larger, more defined.

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