The Walking Dead: On Set for ‘The Biggest Episode We’ve Ever Done’

The Walking Dead’s Norman Reedus and Andrew Lincoln grace the cover of this week’s issue of TV Guide Magazine. The AMC zombie blockbuster is about to resume its intense sixth season with “the biggest episode we’ve ever done in terms of the amount that happens,” Lincoln (aka Rick Grimes) told us during our visit to the Georgia set last summer.

Also in this issue:

• How to Get Away With Murder: Our report from the set as the twisty TGIT hit returns.

• Fresh Off the Boat: An exclusive look at the sitcom’s upcoming Chinese New Year episode.

• Vinyl: Bobby Canavale previews his gritty new 1970s drama (from Martin Scorsese and Mick Jagger) set in the world of sex and drugs and rock ’n’ roll.

• The People v. O.J. Simpson: Cuba Gooding Jr. opens up about his career and taking on “the hardest role I’ve ever had, psychologically,” in the dramatic retelling of a case that riveted the nation.

• Madoff: Richard Dreyfuss becomes the felonious financier in a bold new miniseries.

• Plus: Super Bowl 50, a Community reunion on Dr. Ken, Sleepy Hollow, Scorpion, Scandal, The Flash, General Hospital, The Good Wife’s Jeffrey Dean Morgan and more.

The X-Files Returns! Mulder and Scully Are Back on the Case

David Duchovny is clad in the classic FBI G-man outfit: government-issue blue shirt with a short red tie. Sitting behind a large metal desk, he leans forward, picks up a pile of pencils and, one by one, starts throwing them at a familiar poster. You know the one.

Bankers’ boxes stuffed with folders marked “X-Files” line the wall. Slapped on a small door is a nameplate designating this the office of Fox Mulder. After a few throws, one of Duchovny’s pencils sticks, right above the words I WANT TO BELIEVE. He points to it proudly. Soon, he’s making the shot consistently: “I can go pro,” he jokes.

Anything is possible, including the return of The X-Files, shooting six new episodes to premiere on Fox following the NFL’s NFC championship game on Sunday, January 24. (The show moves to its regular timeslot—Mondays at 8/7c—the next day.)

On a breezy July day, in an abandoned mental hospital just outside of Vancouver, Duchovny (Mulder) and Gillian Anderson (Dana Scully) have been transported back to the basement of the FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C.

A lot has happened in the 22 years since Mulder the truther and Scully the skeptic first paired up to investigate unexplainable paranormal phenomena. For one thing, an older and wiser Mulder is wrestling with the kind of doubt that comes with having seen everything yet still having no answers.

“I’m a middle-aged man,” he tells Scully while tossing out X-Files cases that have since been revealed as publicity stunts, frat pranks and practical jokes. “And I’m finding it hard to maintain the enthusiasm of my youth. Is this really how I want to spend my life, chasing monsters?”

Cue the chorus of several million X-Files fans, all screaming in unison, “Yes!”

The X-Files, which aired from 1993 to 2002, had been dormant ever since the second film, released in 2008, was met with lukewarm response. Creator Chris Carter, who spent much of the last decade exploring other pursuits (including a fellowship at the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics at the University of California at Santa Barbara), wrote a third movie—which has yet to see the light of day.

“It wasn’t as if I let those characters go for eight years,” he says. “I was noodling. Every time I open up the newspaper, I see a new X-Files story. I’ve been doing it for so long, it’s a part of my thought process.”

But after the last movie disappointed, 20th Century Fox’s film studio wasn’t interested in another X-Files installment. “We thought it was probably over,” says Duchovny. “That was disappointing. However dark The X-Files got, there was always a tone of wonder and hopefulness, in a way that I think the last movie lost hold of. It was merely dark. If you wanted to end The X-Files, that was not the way to end it.”

Anderson agrees: “It wasn’t the right way to go out. It would be nice if there were some kind of closure.”

The idea of bringing The X-Files back wasn’t on their minds when Duchovny, Anderson, Carter and many of the producers gathered on stage in 2013 at a standing-room-only Comic-Con panel organized by TV Guide Magazine. Yet it was there that the seeds were planted.

“We had lunch with Chris, maybe in September or October after that panel,” says Fox Television Group chairman Dana Walden. “I think after Comic-Con he realized that the appetite is as great as ever. We broached the idea of doing an event series.”

The stars were game once they realized Fox wasn’t asking for many episodes. “Both of us were like, ‘There’s no way we’re going to do [13],’” Duchovny says.

Still, Carter was busy with his Amazon Prime Video show The After (which was later scrapped), while Anderson and Duchovny were starring on other TV shows.

“We were probably in the planning stage for about a year before everyone got on the same page,” Walden says. “Gillian lives in the U.K., David lives in New York and Los Angeles and Chris is here in L.A. It was hard finding a window that they could all be together in the same city. Putting all the pieces together was just so challenging. Not until we had a signed deal did I feel 100 percent certain that this was a reality.”

Carter decided to write and direct three of the six episodes and brought on X-Files vets Glen Morgan, Jim Wong and Darin Morgan to write and direct one each. “There’s a little bit of excitement, some trepidation and some nervousness,” Darin Morgan says. “It’s hard to know what the reaction is going to be.”

Ultimately, Carter decided to put a new twist on the show’s alien-invasion mythology. What if it was the government, and not an alien life-form, that was behind some of the world’s biggest unexplained events? “My feeling was this had to follow perfectly from where the original series left off, but it didn’t necessarily have to take everything as gospel that had come before,” he says.

Community’s Joel McHale stars in the first episode as Tad O’Malley, a Glenn Beck–like TV host who traffics in conspiracy—and is a fan of Mulder’s work. “He believes everything Mulder has said, and all those theories, but has made millions of dollars off of it,” says McHale, a longtime fan of the franchise. “It’s one of the most original science-fiction ideas that I have ever read. There’s no rehash here.”

It’s O’Malley who helps trigger a reopening of the X-Files—and a reunion between Mulder and Scully. Indeed, the couple, last seen at the end of the 2008 movie heading into the sunset, have split up in the interim.

But take a deep breath: Duchovny believes Mulder and Scully will eventually get back together. “I think Chris likes to give the fans what they want,” he says. “Personally, I’m way more miserly. I’d be like, ‘Eff you guys, they’re staying apart.’ That’s why I don’t have any friends.”

Plenty of other surprises are in store, including the resurrection of the sinister Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), who was supposedly killed in the series finale. Hints Carter: “In Episode 6, you’re going to see exactly what the product of that failure to die was.”

Also back from the “dead” is conspiracy trio the Lone Gunmen (Tom Braidwood, Bruce Har-wood and Dean Haglund). “You see them in an interesting way in Episode 5,” Carter teases.

FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) will once again be keeping an eye on Mulder and Scully. Other returning players are FBI Special Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish, who joined the series in Season 8) and Margaret Scully, Dana’s mother (Sheila Larkin). “I felt that there were certain command performances that you had to meet,” Carter says.

Besides McHale, guest stars this time include Rhys Darby (Flight of the Conchords), Robbie Amell (The Flash), Lauren Ambrose (Six Feet Under) and Kumail Nanjiani (Silicon Valley), who’s such a fan he even hosts a regular podcast about The X-Files. Annet Mahendru (The Americans) shows up in the first episode as Sveta, an abductee who may be the key to uncovering the truth—it’s men, not aliens, she says, who have taken her.

Carter split the six-episode order into two conspiracy episodes (the premiere and finale) book-ending four so-called “monster of the week” episodes. Darin Morgan, known for some of The X-Files’ most irreverent episodes (including the Emmy-winning “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose”), brushed off an old classic monster-movie concept of his to pen the third installment, “Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster.” “There are quite a lot of nods that longtime fans will get,” he says. It’s this episode where Mulder faces a bit of a midlife crisis. “Mulder’s at that stage where he’s back, but he’s not sure if it’s really all worthwhile,” he adds. “Hopefully by the end of the episode that fire has been reignited in him.”

Back on set, Darin Morgan is directing a classic Mulder-Scully back-and-forth as the characters dissect a corpse. Suddenly a cell phone rings, ruining the shot. It’s coming from the pants pocket of the actor playing the stiff. As if he were answering the phone, Duchovny quips, “Dead man’s ass!”

The stars are clearly enjoying this revisit. “The most fun part,” Duchovny says later, “is just doing this thing again that we do. There weren’t really any missed beats. It’s just a weird thing we can fall into.”

Carter hopes the hard-core fans are satisfied, and since much is left unresolved at the end of Episode 6, another miniseries is possible. “I initially had an expectation that six would be it,” Anderson says. “I had no interest in doing any more. I’m a bit more open to the idea.”

Adds Duchovny: “We acknowledge the place the show has in our lives and our careers. It’s a cornerstone. But it can’t ever be the centerpiece of our lives again. If we can figure out a way to do it [as an occasional event], then I think I’d like that.”

Jennifer Lopez is Back on the Block With NBC’s Shades of Blue

“I moved the body,” Jennifer Lopez whispers to Drea de Matteo on a soundstage in Queens, New York.

When J.Lo talks about a body, you’d assume she’d be referring to her own world-famous physique. But instead she’s talking about a dead one. Such is her new life now that the 46-year-old pop star has taken on the starring role of Det. Harlee Santos in the NBC drama Shades of Blue.

Moving the body sums up Harlee’s dilemma as a member of a Brooklyn unit that is both protective of the community and deeply corrupt. Life gets more complicated for her when the FBI forces Harlee to spy on her squad (while continuing to be a part of the corruption).

During a break in the shooting, Lopez heads to a red director’s chair and grabs a box of Kleenex. It’s mid-July and she’s battling a summer cold. She’s been working since 7am, and she’s only halfway through a 14-hour day. It’s clear she wants some downtime; her body language says, “Do not disturb.” But then someone forces her to change her mind.

Her producing partner, Elaine Goldsmith-Thomas, in an effort to praise Lopez, goes overboard. “She juggles everything; she pushes boundaries; she is a great artist, a great actor, a great friend and a great mom,” Goldsmith-Thomas, an exec producer on Shades, says. She then turns her admiration to Lopez’s 7-year-old son, Max, whom she calls a “genius” for knowing everything about the cosmos. A regular Carl Sagan of the first-grade set.

That’s when Lopez gets off the chair.

“You are talking about the same kid who comes up to me and pats my butt and breast and says “Booty? Booby? Mommy?” she says with a laugh.

Turns out Goldsmith-Thomas is not alone in her praise. “J.Lo is not at all what you might think. She’s smart, focused and really good at what she does,” says Jack Orman, a veteran writer-director-producer (ER) and another executive producer on Shades of Blue, who is sitting a few feet away. And clearly she has a sense of humor about herself.

***

For her first scripted-series gig in more than 20 years, Lopez is starring alongside Ray Liotta, who plays Lt. Matt Wozniak, the corrupt head of the squad (whose deepest secret will be revealed in the third episode), and Sopranos vet De Matteo as Det. Tess Nazario, the only other woman on the squad. They shoot on a Queens soundstage and on the streets of New York City, and they raise the same serious issues being played out in headlines—violence by (and against) cops, police corruption and racial profiling.

When Lopez brought the series to NBC Entertainment chairman Robert Greenblatt, she was there solely as a producer. “I was never going to act in it,” she says, “until Greenblatt said to me, ‘How are you not starring in this? This is such a great character—you won’t even find this in film.’ And he was right.”

The megastar has become a megaproducer, sitting in on all production meetings and casting and costume sessions. “You needed a strong, tough guy like Liotta,” she says of hiring the Goodfellas star. “He delivers on all levels. He is perfect.”

Liotta almost didn’t take the part because of Lopez’s tabloid reputation as a diva. “My biggest fear was that this was going to be The J.Lo Show,” he says a few weeks later. “They are her producers. Everybody across the board is hers, and I was a little nervous about that. I still rolled the dice. I thought, What is the worst that can happen? It doesn’t work! Then I met Jen and she was open. Not like ‘This is my show,’ none of that from her. If anything, Jen was a cool chick on the set and I was the diva!”

Indeed, behind the scenes, Lopez is surrounded by family: her dad, her sister, her nieces and nephews are all on set, along with boyfriend, Casper Smart, rolling around the perimeter of the soundstage on a hoverboard.

It turns out that Jenny from the Block could just as easily have been Jenny the cop. “I really do know the world that Harlee lives in,” Lopez says. “I lived in the Bronx, and if I didn’t dream of becoming a performer and a singer and I had decided to be a cop, she is who I would be right now. I have those kinds of street smarts. I know what it’s like to walk these streets and neighborhoods.”

***

On the subway or around the streets of the Castle Hill neighborhood of the Bronx where Lopez grew up, people can tell you about every boyfriend J.Lo has had—especially Ben Affleck. They also tell you she is their hope.

“That someone like J.Lo from the Bronx could make it to where she is now, from all her hard work, it means we could do it too; we could become like her,” says 16-year-old Chantel Lizardo, a dance major at nearby Talent Unlimited High School.

“She’s good for Puerto Ricans,” Mabel Villanueva says, outside a doughnut shop. (Lopez’s parents, David and Guadalupe, are Puerto Rican.)

“I love her because she is beautiful and happy,” Maria Tellez, who does not speak English, wrote on a pad in Spanish.

“I am lucky enough to have a global base. That’s icing on the cake,” Lopez says. “But to walk through my neighborhood and have people on the streets be so loving and embracing is, to me, the biggest success I have ever had.”

All the adoration springs, in part, from her almost fairy-tale journey. As a teenager, Lopez and her mother butted heads. Mom wanted college for her daughter; Lopez wanted to dance. So they had a falling out. “I was sleeping on a cot at a dance studio before I hit it big,” Lopez says. “My life was about pounding the pavement, breaking away from under my mom and dad’s wings and going off and flying on my own. I needed that moment.”

She moved to Los Angeles and got her first big break in 1991 as a Fly Girl on the Fox sketch comedy series In Living Color. That led to her iconic lead role in the movie Selena, based on the murdered Tejano pop star. She then exploded to household-name status, thanks to the triple-platinum-selling album On the 6 and breakout roles in such films as Out of Sight and The Wedding Planner. “All my career, people have been saying things like, ‘Oh, you are starring in that?,’” Lopez says. “‘It’s not usually somebody who looks like you who can do that.’”

Greenblatt was so confident in Lopez’s appeal that he picked up Shades of Blue for 13 episodes and has scheduled it on the high-stakes battleground of Thursday night. “She came from nothing and became this global brand,” Greenblatt says. “They have to cordon off a neighborhood when we are shooting. It is hard to imagine that she is so normal, because once you go through the crazy Hollywood star system, you become something else.”

***

Shades of Blue is just part of Lopez’s exceptionally busy schedule this year. She has signed a contract at the Axis at Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, where, beginning January 20, she will do 96 shows over two years for a rumored staggering salary of $26 million. She will commute back and forth to Los Angeles to work as an executive producer on the ABC Family/Freeform drama The Fosters and to judge the final season of Fox’s American Idol, which premieres Wednesday, January 6.

“She offers contestants real and valuable insight,” Idol host Ryan Seacrest says. “She shares her smart stories, her work ethic and values and her passion.” And, of course, “she has added glamour to the American Idol stage.”

With the premiere of Shades of Blue, she’s ready for the world to see her less glamorous side. That’s why she’s playing a tough cop, that’s why she’s taken charge as a producer, that’s why she is making the decisions about the tough issues the show has to confront.

“I am happy to be one of the people who are breaking the mold,” she says. “We can’t keep acting like we are in the ’50s. Women are strong. Women are bold. And now it is reflected in our art.”

Shades of Blue premieres Thursday, Jan. 7, 10/9c, NBC.

The Year in Cheers & Jeers: 2015’s Best and Worst in TV

It’s that time of year again… Here are some highlights from our annual look at the best and worst of the year in television…

Cheers to supreme diva (and our Performer of the Year) Taraji P. Henson for giving a weekly master class in attitude as Empire’s delectable Cookie, an outrageous lioness of a hip-hop heroine, dominating network TV’s biggest, boldest hit. Tossing shoes and throwing shade—we live for her Dynasty-style catfights with “Boo Boo Kitty”—this fashion-forward fox is the cat’s meow.

Jeers to TV’s big “deaths.” The Walking Dead’s Glenn (Steven Yeun) ended up surviving that zombie attack and Game of Thrones’ Jon Snow (Kit Harington) appears to be alive as well—if the HBO posters for Season 6 are to be believed. When producers toy with an audience’s emotions, their credibility as authentic storytellers is immediately jeopardized. Fool us once…

Cheers to the next generation of late night. David Letterman and Jon Stewart are irreplaceable, and their emotional sign-offs won’t soon be forgotten, but Stephen Colbert’s brainy reinvention of CBS’s Late Show and Trevor Noah’s appealing stewardship of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show haven’t missed a beat. James Corden and Larry Wilmore are terrific newbies, the Jimmys (Fallon and Kimmel) are at the top of their game, John Oliver is killing it on HBO and, soon, Samantha Bee’s new TBS series will finally bring a female POV into the mix, giving us yet another reason to stay up.

Jeers to Miley Cyrus on MTV’s Video Music Awards. Miley, honey, what’s good? You were supposed to host the show, not give it a two-hour bad touch. Go put on some clothes, remember that you have real talent, and for the love of all things holy, please stop sticking out your tongue.

Cheers to Katy Perry’s Left Shark. The singer’s performance of “Teenage Dream” at the Super Bowl halftime show was quickly upstaged by an uncoordinated backup dancer who eschewed the established choreography for an avant-garde showcase complete with wildly flailing fins. His moves missed the mark, but as far as entertainment value goes, this shark didn’t bite!

Jeers to Grey’s Anatomy for sending Patrick Dempsey’s McDreamy to an eternal dreamland in an unsatisfying exit after 11 seasons. The shocking move left Meredith (Ellen Pompeo) a widow and single mom—though does anyone ever see those kids?—and left longtime fans wondering if it isn’t time to put this ABC medical soap out of its misery.

Cheers to Viola Davis’s Emmy victory. After making history as the first black woman to win Lead Actress in a Drama (for her portrayal of complicated lawyer Annalise Keating on ABC’s How to Get Away With Murder), Davis gave a heartfelt, rousing speech that classily criticized Hollywood for not creating enough roles for women of color. To be clear: She killed it.

Jeers to FX’s fleabag American Horror Story: Hotel for making Lady Gaga look so anemic as the bloodsucking Countess. Bringing back terrifying memories of Madonna’s acting career, Gaga’s performance was all style—but what style!—and too little substance. Hotel was the most incoherent American Horror yet. We checked out early.

Cheers to The Flash and Arrow for digging deep into the DC Comics archives. Whether it’s Jay Garrick, Firestorm, Hawkgirl, Wally West or even Gorilla Grodd, the CW hits have saved the day for comic book fans who never thought they’d see these heroes and villains on live-action TV.

Jeers to The Good Wife for faking Alicia (Julianna Margulies) and Kalinda’s (Archie Panjabi) farewell. The final moment between the characters should have provided closure; instead, it fueled rumors of off-camera turmoil since it was clear the actresses didn’t shoot the scene together. Margulies blamed Panjabi’s scheduling conflicts, but Panjabi fired back, tweeting, “I was in New York ready to film the scene!” Not the kind of drama the series wanted to produce.

For more Cheers & Jeers, pick up the December 21/December 28 double issue of TV Guide Magazine, on sale now.