After fierce backlash — including criticism from star Gillian Anderson herself — Fox has taken criticism of The X-Files revival to heart.
Dana Walden, CEO of Fox TV, announced at a Television Critics Association panel on Tuesday that next season of The X-Files revival will include female writers, as well as two female directors.
A reporter from BuzzFeed asked the panelists about Fox's lack of off-camera diversity on the series, and Walden responded that showrunner Chris Carter has two female-written episodes on deck for the show's next season.
"Two of the 10 episodes will be written by women, and we do have two female directors... so I think Chris is making moves in the right direction," Walden said at the event.
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The CEO clarified, though, that the female writers were hired "before news broke of this particular situation." So it's not directly because of the backlash, the network explains.
The three female writers include Karen Nielson, who will write one episode, and Kristen Cloke and Shannon Hamblin, who will write a different one, Vanity Fair explains. The two female directors for the new season are Holly Dale and Carol Banker.
Back in June, various news outlets reported that the X-Files revival's writer's room would include only men. Gillian Anderson, who plays the beloved Dana Scully, tweeted a link to The Washington Post's writeup of the news — and she added another way there wasn't gender diversity behind the scenes, too.
"And 2 out of 207 eps directed by women. I too look forward to the day when the numbers are different. #TheFutureisFemale," Anderson tweeted at the time.
And 2 out of 207 eps directed by women. I too look forward to the day when the numbers are different. #TheFutureisFemale https://t.co/38SVdTfCR1
— Gillian Anderson (@GillianA) June 29, 2017
Plus, as Vanity Fair points out, Anderson also had to fight for equal pay in the revival. In January 2016, Anderson revealed to The Daily Beast that she was originally offered half of what costar David Duchovny was for the revival.
"It was shocking to me, given all the work that I had done in the past to get us to be paid fairly," Anderson said at the time. "I worked really hard toward that and finally got somewhere with it."
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