LOS ANGELES (thefutoncritic.com) -- "The X-Files" is likely to return once again, but not until the 2017-18 season.

Fox Television Group chiefs Gary Newman and Dana Walden indicated as such during this morning's pre-upfront conference call with the press.

"Yes, we've had conversations with Chris Carter and David [Duchovny] and Gillian [Anderson] and I believe everyone is onboard to do another installment of the show," Walden said. "Right now, as I think we've talked about before, it's a little bit difficult. The three of them are working in different places around the world. It's trying to coordinate schedules. Hopefully, that will come together this season, so that at this time next year, we'll have something exciting to announce on the 'X-Files' front. But, I believe that all parties involved want to do more episodes of 'The X-Files.'"

Later when pressed for more specifics about how far said talks have gone, Newman added, "We've had conversations with all of them that have included discussions of what kind of episodic order makes sense. Some of that will be driven by their schedules and how much time they have, but conversations are ongoing. I can tell you that Chris and David and Gillian all would like to do more of these and certainly the network and the studio would love to do more. So, we feel encouraged by that. As Dana said, it shouldn't be anything you anticipate before the '17-'18 season."