Nov. 19, 11:30 am UTC • 15 min Vince Gilligan is eternal proof of the strength of the ‘X-Files’ writers room. But frankly, that room has a ton of competition across television history. By • — When Vince Gilligan’s Pluribus debuted on Apple TV earlier this month, more than a few Breaking Bad fans expressed confusion about why the man who created Walter White and Saul Goodman was making a globe-trotting sci-fi show. Rather than cue up a clip of Schmidt from New Girl complaining about youths, let’s forgive them for not knowing that Gilligan broke into television with The X-Files, writing episodes about shape-shifters with vestigial tails, cancer-eating mutants, alien conspiracies, and more. Pluribus is Gilligan getting back to his roots after 15 years in a world of crystal meth and con artistry. Looking back at the start of Gilligan’s career is a reminder of what a remarkable team of writers X-Files creator Chris Carter assembled. In addition to Gilligan, X-Files at various points employed: Howard Gordon, longtime showrunner of 24 and cocreator of Homeland (along with fellow X-Files alum Alex Gansa) Frank Spotnitz, who went on to create The Man in the High Castle and several other series Tim Minear, who helps run the 9-1-1 franchise and has been a key producer on many brilliant-but-canceled 21st-century dramas, like Firefly and Terriers Darin Morgan, who may have the greatest small-sample-size career of any TV writer, having written only about a dozen episodes ever across multiple series, all of them bangers (most notably The X-Files’ “Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose,” with Peter Boyle as a psychic who warns Fox Mulder about the dangers of autoerotic asphyxiation) A handful of other writers who have worked constantly since the ’90s, including Thomas Schnauz and John Shiban, who joined Gilligan over in the Heisenberg-verse Football fans talk a lot about coaching trees—how so many current successful NFL coaches used to work for Mike Shanahan, or how Bill Parcells at various points in his career employed Bill Belichick, Sean Payton, and Tom Coughlin. (This usually extends to discussion of how those trees spawn other trees, with mixed success, like Belichick’s.) But there are TV coaching trees, too, where producers or shows bring together many writers and/or directors who then go on to have amazing careers of their own, and in some cases create their own trees. What helps a particular show grow a tree like this? It’s not as simple as success breeding more success. When Friends exploded on the scene in the mid-’90s, almost every staff writer was offered a development deal to create what executives hoped would be the next Friends; many are still working today, but the only one who became a hit-maker in his own right was Bill Lawrence (Spin City, Scrubs, Shrinking), and he got fired after Friends’ first season. On the other hand, some of the sturdiest coaching trees sprang from shows that either had small audiences or weren’t looked at in their time as obvious incubators for future stalwarts. One major answer to the above question is quite simple: reps. Of the dozen shows I picked as having the best coaching trees of all time, 10 were made for broadcast network television, at a time when seasons were at least 22 episodes long. (One of them is from so far back that it made 39 episodes every season—the equivalent of the entire combined runs of two contemporary Netflix shows.) Even the two HBO series included on the list usually made at least 13 episodes per season, which is substantially more than what your average streaming show churns out today. Those longer seasons required bigger staffs, which provided more opportunities for young writers to both break into the business and hone their craft. And because those seasons were filmed on a much longer schedule than all but the biggest hits are granted today, there was time for writers to be on set and pick up other skills along the way. The X-Files was one of the most visually striking television shows made to that point (and still looks great on rewatch), and Gilligan got to watch its directors in action for the better part of seven years before he got his chance to helm an episode; now he’s among the best TV directors ever, in addition to one of the best TV writers. Some of the series below are notable for mixing things up from episode to episode, helping their staffers to become versatile, and/or allowing lots of different kinds of writers to flourish within the same room. Others were largely the same from week to week in structure and tone; their creators just had a particularly keen eye for talent, which is the most crucial aspect of all of this. Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue) was one of the most acclaimed showrunners of all time. But his greatest talent was less his own writing than his knack for choosing the best collaborators. (His best series were all ones he cocreated with others.) The star of the show that tops the list was a great performer, but what made him immortal were the young writers he was savvy enough to pluck out of obscurity and give a showcase to. And as impressive as The X-Files tree is, it’s not the best in TV history. It’s not even in the top five. Honorable Mention Choosing either The Simpsons (which gave us Brad Bird, Conan O’Brien, and Greg Daniels, among many others) or Saturday Night Live (how much time do you have to list all the names?) feels a bit like cheating, because when you’ve been on the air for, respectively, 37 and 51 seasons, you’re of course going to launch a lot of great careers. (The same applies to long-running talk shows.) Donald Glover started out as a 30 Rock writer, as did Pitch Perfect writer/Blockers director Kay Cannon. Several other alums—Tracy Wigfield (Great News, Peacock’s Saved by the Bell revival), Sam Means (NBC’s upcoming The Fall and Rise of Reggie Dinkins with 30 Rock star Tracy Morgan), and Luke Del Tredici (Peacock’s Killing It)—have created their own shows, often but not always under the Tina Fey umbrella. Dawson’s Creek would have an argument for inclusion just for the sake of Greg Berlanti, who went on to oversee the CW’s entire universe of DC Comics dramas, produce long-running hits like Riverdale and Brothers & Sisters, and create the four-hanky CW drama Everwood. Future White Lotus auteur Mike White also worked on the first two seasons, and several other alums created series after doing time with Joey, Pacey, and Jen. Like Friends once upon a time, Rick and Morty has become the go-to writing staff for development deals—and with a higher hit rate so far. Mike McMahan created the terrific animated spoof/tribute Star Trek: Lower Decks. Michael Waldron created Loki and has been entrusted with writing Avengers: Doomsday. (He also cocreated the odd Glen Powell football comedy Chad Powers, so nobody’s perfect.) Jessica Gao also got recruited by Marvel, as creator on She-Hulk: Attorney at Law. The Ringer Explores TV Legacies Source: https://www.theringer.com/2025/11/19/tv/tv-show-coaching-trees-ranking