‘X-Files’ Season 11 Will Double the Series’ Female Directors … to Four

A second revival of The X-Files had enough to answer for, so it wasn’t a good #look when the full list of writers once again excluded female perspective. Star Gillian Anderson wasn’t thrilled with the prospect either, adding to it a grand total of two women directors over the years. Well, congrats everyone! We’re doubling it!

TVLine reports that two of the next ten episodes will have female directors behind the camera, including franchise veteran, script supervisor and Lone Gunmen director Carol Banker. Holly Dale will also direct an episode, having previously worked on everything from Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles to NBC’s Timeless.

UPDATE: FOX boss Dana Walden claimed at the TCA press tour that two of the ten episodes will be written by women as well. The reason for the imbalance is … not great.

As it stands, only six women are credited as X-Files writers over 202 episodes, two movies and a revival. One of said writers was none other than Anderson herself, who also served as one of two female directors alongside Breaking Bad favorite Michelle MacLaren.

Set for a midseason premiere, the next X-Files run will see Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny aboard for a full ten episodes (compared with six for the first revival), joined by returning veterans Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner and Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes. The additional episodes are expected to follow a more rounded narrative than the re-shuffled mix of mythology and stand-alone episodes from last year.

Series creator Chris Carter will lead a writing team of former producers Glen Morgan, Darin Morgan and James Wong; now joined by Season 9 writers assistant Gabe Rotter, Season 10 assistant Benjamin Van Allen and Carter’s own assistant Brad Follmer.

We’ll likely hear more as production continues over the next few months, so stay tuned for the latest on The X-Files Season 11.