The X-Files: How Chris Carter’s Other TV Shows Connect

While The X-Files is his greatest achievement, Chris Carter has also created several other shows, and here’s how they connect to The X-Files. In the grand scheme of things, it’s a very select group of people that ever gets to create and/or run their own TV show. It’s an even smaller subset that sees said show explode in popularity, becoming one of the biggest pop culture phenomenons of its era, and it’s even less common for that to happen on the first try.

Yet, that’s exactly what happened with The X-Files, Carter’s first attempt at creating a TV show. The X-Files defined sci-fi and horror TV in the 1990s, and has since spawned dozens of imitators hoping to cash in on a similar formula. One of these, Supernatural – which has never been shy about acknowledging its influences – itself went on to become a decade-defining drama, and is finally set to sign off soon after a whopping 15 seasons.

Sadly, Carter has never been lucky enough to create another show that approaches X-Files in popularity. Still, he’s created four other TV projects, all of which bear some kind of notable connection to his original hit, whether that be a direct crossover, shared actors, or common creative personnel.

Millennium (1996-1999)

Next to The X-Files, Millennium is easily Chris Carter’s biggest success to date. While not a ratings smash, it did well enough to earn three seasons before being canceled, and has developed a very loyal cult of followers over the years, with many still holding out hope for some kind of continuation. The series starred Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a criminal profiler with a borderline-psychic ability to get inside the minds of killers, and focused on his work for and eventual battle against a mysterious organization called the Millennium Group.

When Millennium was canceled on a cliffhanger, Carter saw fit to bring in Frank Black for a crossover episode of The X-Files. Bizarrely, it didn’t resolve many of the unanswered questions surrounding Millennium‘s finale, but it did give Frank a happy ending. Millennium and The X-Files would also later crossover in comic-book form. Oddly, Millennium and The X-Files existing in the same universe introduces a celebrity paradox around actor Terry O’Quinn, who played Peter Watts on Millennium and also guest starred on The X-Files as other characters. As for a potential movie or revival season, there’s still no activity, and Henriksen turned 80 in 2020, so things really need to get moving.

Harsh Realm (1999-2000)

Harsh Realm was Chris Carter’s next attempt at creating a new show after Millennium ended, and to say it didn’t work out as well would be an understatement. The ratings were terrible, despite an interesting concept in which U.S. army lieutenant Tom Hobbes is sent into the titular virtual world in order to take out a mad ruler named Omar Santiago. Harsh Realm was canceled after only three of its nine produced episodes had aired, although the remaining episodes did eventually surface on TV, and in a DVD set. While Harsh Realm wasn’t narratively connected to The X-Files, it did share some mutual referencing.

For starters, the pilot episode of Harsh Realm featured an uncredited vocal cameo by X-Files star Gillian Anderson, and a quick cameo by Millennium‘s Lance Henriksen as a military general who recruits Hobbes. Following Harsh Realm‘s cancellation, a character on The X-Files was seen watching the show, and later remarked on its quality to Mulder. Additionally, actress Sarah-Jane Redmond – who also had a recurring role on Millennium as the demonic Lucy Butler – appears in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, with her character sharing the same last name as her character on Harsh Realm, arguably making it a brief reprisal.

The Lone Gunmen (2001)

After multiple seasons as fan-favorite supporting characters on The X-Files, Melvin Frohike, John Fitzgerald Byers, and Richard Langly, the titular group, received their own spinoff called The Lone Gunmen. While reviews were pretty good, ratings weren’t, and The Lone Gunmen was canceled after a single 13-episode season. The show’s pilot is a bit infamous for arguably “predicting” the events of 9/11, which certainly feeds into the Gunmen’s obsession with government conspiracy theories.

Being a spinoff, The Lone Gunmen naturally featured other characters from The X-Files in small roles, including Mulder himself, his FBI boss Walter Skinner, and the slimy Morris Fletcher. As with Millennium, The Lone Gunmen got a belated wrap-up episode on The X-Files, which – contrary to Frank’s happy ending – actually saw them get killed off, a decision that annoys many fans to this day. The Gunmen did at least make a hallucinatory cameo during the 2016 X-Files revival season. Similarly to Harsh Realm, The Lone Gunmen has its own cult following, showing that while Carter might not be great at crafting hits outside of The X-Files, that doesn’t mean the final product is bad.

The After (2014)

After a lengthy absence from the TV show game following The X-Files‘ original final season, Chris Carter created a pilot for Amazon Prime called The After. The series focuses on a group of eight strangers that are forced to work together to survive in a strange post-apocalyptic world. The pilot was posted online for Amazon subscribers to watch and vote on whether it should be continued, and the response wasn’t great, leading Amazon to cancel the project. Carter has stated he planned the show to run for 99 episodes, so he obviously couldn’t have been pleased to not get to episode two.

As usual for Carter, he brought along multiple crew members from The X-Files to work on The After pilot. Beyond that, there’s no direct connection, as Carter might’ve been looking to distance the two ideas, although they certainly could’ve connected had the full series moved ahead. Thankfully for Carter, he would rebound in 2016 when FOX revived The X-Files to high ratings, and picked up another season that aired in 2018. For now, it looks like The X-Files as fans know it is done, with Gillian Anderson saying she has no plans to return as Scully.

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