Putting the newspaper aside, Eric crossed his arms and looked at the woman sitting opposite him. During this era, whether in film and television or in reality, quite a lot of women seem to like to wear shirts.
Of course, Eric also prefers women who wear shirts and jeans since it makes women look more mature and gives them a slightly androgynous look.
At the very least, he feels that these women look much better compared to women of the future who only wore odd dresses.
Moreover, in Eric's opinion, a woman in a shirt can also ooze sex appeal, especially when a woman wears a large mens size shirt without anything on the bottom, displaying her two bare long legs...
Elisabeth noticed Eric staring at her intently and her courage quickly dissipated. She put her arms on the desk and covered her chest before she yelled at Eric, dissatisfied, "Hey, what are you looking at, you bastard?"
"Nothing, I was just thinking, are you going to wear this to work?" Although she looks pretty good, the shirt and jeans are obviously not fit as office attire.
"Of course, I'm your assistant, not an office girl. Do you want me to wear a skirt and high heels while I run around with you on the set?"
Eric realized that she wouldn't budge, so he shook his head and acquiesced. Anyways, he never expected that she would actually prove helpful since she was essentially Murdoch's spy. He would just focus on his work and forget about her.
Of course, he didn't plan on letting her become privy of his company's private affairs.
Eric opened the drawer in his desk and began to look through it.
Elisabeth smiled triumphantly as if she had defeated Eric.
Eric found a document and a pen next to it and gave it to Elisabeth before he said, "This is the contract for your position as my assistant as a crew member of Sleepless in Seattle. There's one copy for you and one for me."
Elisabeth picked up the documents and began to peruse through it, not rushing to sign it. Eric looked at his watch and picked up the newspaper and began to read it, once again.
After a while, Elisabeth asked Eric, "Eric, I signed it. What should I do next?"
Eric put one copy of the contract back in the drawer and replied, "You can go back now. When the crew leaves for Seattle a few days later, someone will inform you."
"Wha..." Elizabeth opened her mouth slightly and quickly realized that Eric didn't plan to keep her around. She angrily yelled, "How can you do this?! I protest! If you don't assign work to me, I...
I will not leave your office today!"
Eric frowned and began to regret agreeing to Murdoch's request. Just when he was considering how to get rid of her, a knock sounded on his office door and Alan walked in as he said, "Mr. Williams, the writers have arrived. They're waiting in the conference room."
"Alright, I'll be there in a moment," Eric replied and waited for Alan to leave before he said to Elisabeth, "Liz, I really don't have any work for you here, so you should just go back. Someone will inform you when the time comes."
Initially, neither side was willing to make concessions. Eric even said that if Fox was unwilling to take the risk, Firefly could invest in the show alone, but this would mean that Firefly would solely own the show's copyright. This proposal was immediately rejected by Barry Diller.
After all, who can guarantee that this new TV show might not turn out to be as popular as Friends?
The two sides remained in a stalemate for a few days before Murdoch personally made a decision. He announced that since Eric was so confident, can't Fox, one of the Big Six, even take such a small risk?
After all, despite the huge profits from Friends, Fox will still accumulate a loss of tens of millions of dollars for the year 1989 due to the many failed projects. Therefore, even if the cost is higher, Eric's project is less likely to fail, so it's a better choice.
After receiving Murdoch's approval, Eric got back to work. The TV show which Eric had planned to produce was The X-Files which, according to his memory, was the only hit show, which was not a cartoon or sitcom, produced by Fox during the '90s.
However, the ratings of this show during the first few seasons were not great.
In fact, if it weren't for the die-hard fans, The X-Files, which was extremely popular on streaming in the future, would've likely been cancelled after the first season.
Even though the style of the first three seasons of the X-Files was very unique, the ratings only started to grow from the fourth season after the show's unique style was changed.
In his opinion, the biggest reason behind the ratings of the first three seasons being low was due to the lack of a main storyline. Although there were strange monsters or supernatural events in each episode, the lack of a main storyline led to a low audience retention rate.
It wasn't until the show's screenwriter Chris Carter connected the seemingly random clues revealed throughout the first three seasons in the fourth season that The X-Files turned into a complete sci-fi story.
Another reason for the initial unpopularity of The X-Files was due to the sci-fi elements being unpolished and dull. Eric believes that this might be due to Chris Carter not having conceived the entirety of The X-Files' main storyline at the start.
Nevertheless, initially, he had sent an invitation to Chris Carter to become the lead screenwriter of The X-Files. After all, he had been the show's creator, so he might have some ideas even if he hadn't yet conceived the entire story.
Chris Carter, however, is not a fledgling screenwriter. He is currently working as a screenwriter for Disney. When Eric sent someone to contact him about The X-Files, Chris Carter replied that he was not interested in a science fiction TV show, so he rejected the offer.
This event once again allowed Eric to witness the awesome and mysterious power of the butterfly effect. The father of The X-Files stated that he was not interested in creating a science fiction TV show. Needless to say, Eric's reaction was...very wonderful.
After walking inside the conference room, Eric pointed towards the end of the large table to let Elisabeth sit down and walked towards the front of the table. He greeted everyone and had the six men and two women introduce themselves.
After the self-introductions, Eric stood up and walked towards the large white board at the front of the room. He picked up a black marker and wrote a word on the white board: The X-Files.
"Ladies and gentlemen, all of you present here are writers who specialize in writing science fiction for movies and TV shows, so you must have realized that I have called you here to write for a sci-fi TV show. The name of this TV show is The X-Files."
Under the nine pairs of curious eyes, Eric put down the black marker in his hand and continued, "Alright, let me first introduce the background of this sci-fi show I have conceived."
"The story begins from the origin of life. The universe is so large that we can't imagine how far it extends. There are infinite possibilities in this vast universe.
During the hundreds of millions since the supernova, across the vast universe, our planet was certainly not the only one that can produce intelligent life. The Brett star is the origin of this whole story.