VANCOUVER, B.C. – Deep in an industrial district here, the dank interior of a closed-down nightclub has been gutted and refitted with black plastic, chain link and neon lights for an episode of Fox’s sexy, surreal TV series, “The X-Files.” Detached mannequin limbs protrude from darkened walls to create disturbing images. The seedy, smoke-filled space is supposed to resemble a Hollywood Boulevard nightclub–the hangout for a contemporary coven of grunge vampires. These creatures of the night fall under the purview of the X-Files, which are the dumping ground for un ... [Continua a leggere]

This must be it. Monday morning. Los Angeles. The 20th Century Fox lot. A little bungalow in the corner. Unmarked, hard to find. One of the writers here is leaving for the day: A mysterious computer virus has invaded his machine, nobody can track it down. A casting director enters. Says one of his two dogs inexplicably disappeared from his locked house over the week-end, then reappeared at the back door 36 hours later. Yeah, it makes sense that this is where they put together “The X-Files”. The Friday night show is Fox TV’s underhyped successor to “The Outer Limits,&rd ... [Continua a leggere]

Let’s say you’re a serious actress, steeped in theater training. What do you do for a living? Well, Gillian Anderson spends some time seeing and not seeing UFO’s. She and her “X-Files” partner pretended to see them together for one episode in the wee hours of the morning. “It was, like, 2 o’clock in the morning and we were standing on this hill and it was kind of drizzling,” Anderson groans. “And we both had to synchronize our eyes with the way the UFO’s would eventually be moving . . . We stood there for God knows how long.” ... [Continua a leggere]

One show is hailed for its finely honed subtlety, the other is famed for its Grand Guignol gore. Back to back, the way they’ll air tomorrow night, “The X-Files” and “Tales from the Crypt” offer intriguingly different approaches to suspense and horror – under-the-edge and over-the-top. When you talk about series that could only be shown on cable TV – the sort of signature fare that pay-cable built its reputation and audience on – HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt” goes to the top of the list. Consistently (and deservedly) one of the h ... [Continua a leggere]

They are out there, watching, trying to make contact. Chris Carter suspected this even before he created “The X-Files,” his Friday-night Fox drama about a pair of special-assignment FBI agents exploring all manner of unexplained phenomena, everything from alien abductions to abominable snowmen. But now Carter knows for sure. He has spoken to them, received their messages. He has seen them with his very own eyes. “They are credible, sane, believable people,” Carter is saying, talking about the thousands of X-Filophiles who have latched onto the show in its first few mon ... [Continua a leggere]

Strange lights flashing in the night sky, mysterious, alien-like shapes hulking in an eerie forest, an inexplicable force disrupting mechanical devices, motorists disappearing for a few hours and waking up to find their bodies covered with odd punctures . . . These recurring themes from reported UFO abduction cases have become the stark, sometimes sinister images for the opening two-hour episode of a new Fox series that dramatizes paranormal phenomena, “The X Files,” premiering Friday at 9 p.m. on Channel 2. If there is any one word that Chris Carter, the show’s producer and ... [Continua a leggere]