Chris Carter has offered an explanation as to why FOX is broadcasting its six episode event series revival of "The X-Files" in a completely different order to what was originally planned. During production six episodes were produced with two mythology-heavy episodes serving as the premiere and finale, and four standalones episodes in between. The mythology episodes are remaining as is, but the others changed order - what was supposed to be 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ultimately became 1, 5, 3, 2, 4, 6. Carter tells TV Insider that the shifting of the show's episode order was because of the flow of one episode into the next - which is better for the overall storyline: "Because we have a story arc that runs through the middle of the series...we were concerned that, coming right off a mythology episode [and] going right into a standalone episode, people would say, What's happened?' So, it actually worked out. It served Episode 2 better to replace it with 5. It created a better continuity. We've come and done what we've always done: we give you an amazing mix of episodes-we've given you thriller episodes, we've given you scary episodes, emotional episodes, comedy episodes." Due to the shift, some dialogue was trimmed from what is now the fourth episode "Home Again". The show's third episode, the best reviewed of the first three which were released early to the press, airs on Monday. Live+3 figures for the premiere on Sunday have come in with the show's ratings rising to a 7.8 and 20.3 million viewers - the third highest premiere of the season behind only "The Walking Dead" and "Empire". The premiere also drew a further audience of 1.1 million in three days of streaming on Hulu and FOXNOW. |