X-Files Creator on all the ’90s Reboots: ‘The Cynical Part of Me Says this is Programming by Feather Duster’

TV Tattle

The X-Files creator on the ’90s reboot trend: “The cynical part of me says this is programming by feather duster”
“This is the stuff that’s worked before,” says Chris Carter, “and because its worked before there’s a possibility it can work again. The other part of me says that if something is good, that doesn’t necessarily mean its over. It’s not just sitting on the shelf gathering dust, its actually accruing value.” PLUS: The 9 essential X-Files episodes, and The X-Files has survived in pop-culture references all these years.

Former American Idol star Chris Daughtry to appear on Studio City
Daughtry will write original music and recur as a drug-addicted rock star in the dramedy pilot about a father played by Eric McCormack who sells drugs to celebrities. PLUS: Las Vegas alum James Lesure joins “Uncle Buck.”

Blame the fans and Looking‘s creator for the show’s cancelation
“Why did Looking suddenly seem to have so many ‘loyal fans’ only when it was about to be canceled?” asks Dan Callahan. “Where were these people and their support when the show really needed it, as the second season unfolded? It wasn’t just the audience who failed this show. The confused response to Looking started to color what the creators were trying to do with it, and they seemed to lose confidence in their own material. They didn’t keep to their own naturalistic impulses, and that sunk the show creatively when it drifted into an unappealing, unconvincing, plot-driven love triangle.” PLUS: Season 2 was troublesome.

Mad Men has had 59 elevator scenes in 89 episodes
The Wall Street Journal counted every elevator scene and asked Matthew Weiner to talk about the “cinematic jewel box.” “It’s a public place where private things can happen, and there’s a lot of potential there,” says Weiner. PLUS: Meet Mad Men‘s historian, January Jones transforms into 6 different women, and where to stream the 7 films that inspired Mad Men.

Jon Hamm can’t escape Mad Men‘s Don Draper
The revelation that Hamm sought treatment for alcohol addiction just goes to show how scrutinized he’s become — and how uncomfortable he’s been with fame. As Time magazine notes, “In part because he’s so closely identified with a character whose opaque inner life and sexual allure are intertwined, Hamm has come in for among the closest scrutiny of any male actor working today. He is, in other words, treated like any actress.” PLUS: Hamm looked trim and fit at a press session on Sunday,

Robert Durst’s brother: I think he was stalking me during the run of The Jinx
“We had information that Bob was five or 10 minutes away from my house in Florida,” says Douglas Durst.

Introducing Snapstream, the technology The Daily Show uses to easily search cable news clips
Snapstream records 10 shows at a time, each of which can be easily searched through with a web browser.

Glee‘s Mark Sallilng agrees to pay a woman $2.7 million for knocking her to the ground
Roxanne Gorzela had claimed that the actor knocked her to the ground in a fight over a sexual encounter.

George R.R. Martin doesn’t get complaints over spoilers
“This whole concept of spoilers is one that I’ve never gotten,” says the Game of Thrones honcho. “Yes, there’s a pleasure when you’re reading a book, or watching a television show — What will happen next? Who will win? Who will lose? But that is by no means the only reason to watch a movie or a television show. It’s not the only reason to read a book.” PLUS: A book fan will begin boycotting GoT because she doesn’t want the show to establish the characters before the books.

The Goldbergs creator: Our Halloween Thriller episode isn’t happening
“Not only is the song impossible to get, but you have to also pay $100,000 for the choreography,” says Adam F. Goldberg. “…Yes, for the choreography! We broke out a whole ‘Thriller’ episode — which would be amazing — but it’s so heartbreaking. Then you get into the nuts and bolts and you can’t do it unless the Michael Jackson Estate says yes, which I don’t think is possible.”

Grey’s Anatomy‘s “Dr. Grey” comments on Taylor Swift cat scratch
Swift’s cat is named Meredith, so Ellen Pompeo felt she had to respond as her Grey’s character.

James Corden gets Will Ferrell to sing the Star Trek theme
Singing the Trek theme was Ferrell’s first standup comedy bit.

The Mindy Project‘s pregnancy storyline was a wasted opportunity
The pregnancy plot, says Miriam Krule, was “a device designed merely as an easily-conquered hurdle for the Danny-Mindy relationship, a wild narrative stunt rather than a real, interesting plot to wrestle with. It could have been a genuinely trailblazing sitcom storyline, and Kaling seemed like just the writer to take it on. If the show comes back for Season 4, maybe she still can.”

Chelsea Handler: Bill Cosby “tried to Cosby me”
It happened, she recalls, 10 years ago in Atlantic City.

New comedy trend: Plot over jokes?
Serialized storytelling with a “mountain of plot,” as seen on the new Comedy Central series Big Time in Hollywood, FL, may be comedy’s next big trend as viewers binging on Netflix shows crave stories with complex plotting.

OWN gives a show to a man who claims to have fathered 34 children with 17 different women
The Iyanla: Fix My Life spinoff will try to challenge the man to live up to his responsibilities. PLUS: Tyler Perry shows deliver OWN’s most-watched night ever.

Janel Parrish talks Pretty Little Liars twist
“It was intense! Definitely intense,” says Parrish, who was on Dancing at the time.

Al Franken to visit Letterman for 1st time since becoming a U.S. senator — he 1st visited Dave in 1982
Franken is saying goodbye to Dave on April 1. The longtime guest first appeared on Letterman one month into his Late Night run.

How Kroll Show elevated the sketch comedy genre
The Comedy Central series was “a unique experiment in blending sketch comedy and serialized narratives.” PLUS: Kroll did Bravo better Bravo did itself, and Nick Kroll walks us through Kroll Show.

Leighton Meester still keeps in touch with her Gossip Girl maid
In fact, she and “Dorota” are friends in real life.

Big Time in Hollywood, FL is a work of near-genius
Comedy Central’s new series is unexpectedly good, says Hank Stuever. “Disguised as precisely the sort of sketchy Comedy Central fare that viewers might be tempted to skip, Big Time in Hollywood, FL instead turns into a wonderfully absurd, 10-episode serialized mini-epic about two self-absorbed brothers in suburban Florida whose filmmaking ambitions take a sudden turn into a dark, hilariously violent misadventure.” PLUS: A good idea sours quickly, and it’s infectiously energetic and wonderfully silly.