The X-Files franchise to expand with a new animated comedy series in development at Fox

The X-Files universe is set to expand with a series currently in development at Fox.

The new animated show, The X-Files: Albuquerque, would take the franchise in a fresh direction with its comedic tone.

The biggest departure would be in the cast, as David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s FBI agents Mulder and Scully won’t be featured, according to TVLine.

Instead of the iconic paranormal investigators, the series will be focused on ‘an office full of misfit agents who investigate X-Files cases too wacky, ridiculous or downright dopey for Mulder and Scully to bother with. They’re basically the X-Files’ B-team,’ according to a press release.

Chris Carter, who created and led the original series, will return to executive produce the cartoon, though he won’t be involved with writing or directing this time around.

Rocky Russo and Jeremy Sosenko, who have previously written for Comedy Central’s Brickleberry and Netflix’s Paradise PD, will write the pilot work with Carter and Gabe Rotter, who wrote for the original X-Files, as executive producers.

The series seems to be following the path of the spin-off Star Trek: Lower Depths, an animated series which ramped up the comedy and focused on lower ranking characters not featured on other Star Trek shows.

The X-Files originally ran for nine season from 1993 to 2002, where it was a ratings hit for Fox.

Duchovny starred as Fox Mulder, a brash FBI agent whose career was shoved aside due to his interest in unexplained cases and paranormal and extraterrestrial phenomena.

Anderson played his partner Dana Scully, an FBI agent and a doctor whose analytical mind was constantly in conflict with Mulder’s more intuitive decision making.

The two starred in a film of the same name in 1998, and another feature subtitled I Want To Believe arrived in 2008, six years after the show ended.

During its run, Carter also created the horror–thriller series Millennium, which crossed over with The X-Files for its finale, and the comic spin-off The Lone Gunmen.

The X-files was revived for a short six-episode tenth season in 2016, and Mulder and Scully were back for one last time in 2018 with the eleventh and final season.

During a panel at the Television Critics Association’s winter press tour in 2018, Anderson said she was ‘finished’ with playing Scully after the eleventh season.

‘I thought that the previous six was going to be it,’ she admitted, as quoted by Variety. 

The actress said she signed on for the final season after misgivings about the direction of the shorter tenth season.

‘It didn’t feel like I would necessarily have been happy if those six were how we said good‑bye, and [I] thought the way that the writers were talking about doing another season sounded more like a good ending to me,’ she said, before adding that she felt the final season provided a stronger ending for the series.