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

He learned about UFO abductions and the amazingly widespread belief in them while developing the show -- he doesn't pretend he always wanted to do a show about that. He goes out of his way to say he never liked science fiction. But this was a scifi show. So he would have read a lot around this time. He would have screened scifi movies and TV shows -- in some cases material that average joes couldn't get their hands on in a million years, because he had the mighty Murdoch empire behind him. He found enough to make a start with.

So take the pitch rumor as you will. I can't prove it. I sure didn't start it. How the hell should I know? I don't really think Carter is lying. I do think he's spinning -- something at which he excels profoundly. In his version of the Truth, he is always the star and everybody else is a supporting player. One reason he's never created an ensemble show, I imagine. Two leads, both of whom are him. Everybody else revolves around them like distant satellites. It worked. For a time.

Casting director Randy Stone with Jodie Foster.

Let's look at the Legend of Carter's bold casting moves. Both Anderson and Duchovny were actually cast by Randy Stone, a Fox exec with a knack for finding the right person for a role. Carter was originally looking for a Lance Guest type to play Mulder (the guy from The Last Starfighter -- I know -- it scares me just to think about it). This Mulder guy would be an energetic jumpy person with a snappy frenetic delivery. Weird that TV Guide critic Matt Roush later said that Mulder should have been played by a Christopher Lloyd type. He changed his mind eventually. I think. I hope.

And so did Carter, eventually. But according to a site maintained by a rapt admirer of Carter (I didn't get any material from anti-Chris Carter sites -- they don't care enough about him to do the work), Randy Stone had to insist on bringing in Duchovny to read. The man we would come to abbreviate as "DD" thought it would make a nice brief intermission in his budding film career. Little did he know. But Carter knew a good thing when he saw it -- which is a major part of being a good producer. He revised the role to fit the style of this laconic deadpan actor with a nearly unbreakable sangfroid that masked a hidden vulnerability (which made a lot of you out there swoon in dreamy rapture, admit it).

Stone also brought in Gillian Anderson to read -- and here Carter did distinguish himself. He had taken direction well from his network supporters -- now he would give some back. His original Scully was described as "intelligent, self assured, with an unblushing femininity and sexiness -- Scully demands attention" -- not quite Pamela Anderson Lee, but closer to her than the sourpuss we came to know and love. A cross between some beach babe type and the smart professional woman he married? Just guessing. But original conceptions are made to be redone, and Carter redid. He axed a boyfriend for Scully in the original script. He understood the charm of latent attraction, intellectual attraction. He had seen The Avengers. Smart is sexy -- but romance is mush, stifling those who strive. His own dramatic instincts began to assert themselves, with a lot of outside stimulation.

Another gratuitous picture of Randy Stone, just because we can. Bow down before him!

Randy Stone is mentioned in some accounts of this story, but not very prominently. No Randy Stone, no Duchovny -- and no Anderson. Period. Lance Guest and -- I dunno -- maybe Tracey Scoggins? She has an unblushing sense of her femininity. The network guys would have loved her. Actually, Megan Gallagher would have been pretty good, I bet -- just not as good as Anderson. When the magic casting fairy waves her wand, producers better pay attention, because she doesn't do it very often.

Anyway, Carter told the network naysayers that he would do this show his way. Gillian Anderson would be Scully, regardless of her bra size. Scully and Mulder would not be romantically involved (actually I heard they were tested for romantic chemistry and flunked -- they could do UST beautifully, but not RST).

Carter staked his career and won. He stuck to his guns when Anderson got preggers later on. He proceeded to remind people of all this gallantry for the next several years, without mentioning Randy Stone more than absolutely necessary. Of course. Duchovny would say in Rolling Stone that the whole "network guys thought Anderson wasn't sexy" story was exaggerated in the press. Some Fox execs who were there say the same thing, but then they would, wouldn't they -- here it is important to draw a line between the studio people and the network people -- it was the network people who were really dubious. But plenty of them liked the show, and the "take a chance" climate, combined with great demographics (and the far more abject ratings failure of Brisco County Jr), made The X-Files an unlikely candidate for cancellation. Today, as many have said, it would have been toast after six months, at Fox or any of the other networks. Which is why I pay for HBO now. Oh wait, I said that already.

But nobody, absolutely nobody, thought The X-Files would be a big hit or that David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, playing people who never ever ever had sex, would become sex symbols. Anybody in that business, when pressed, will sadly admit that there is just no way to predict these things. They so devoutly wish there were. It would make the business so much more profitable, and reassure the stockholders immensely. No accounting for tastes -- not even with spreadsheets and graphs. We like what we like when we like it. And some of us liked it very very much. Not many at first, but enough.

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