Erotic David Duchovny Series Changed Cable Forever

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 11 hours ago

Before he was Fox Mulder, David Duchovny was Jake, a heartbroken man whose fiancée commits suicide and leaves behind a diary detailing her innermost thoughts, feelings, and the details of multiple affairs. Jake ask women to send in their stories of love and betrayal. That’s the basic premise for Zalman King’s Red Shoe Diaries, the anthology that brought softcore to premium cable networks and re-launched Showtime for the 90s. No one would have guessed how amusing it would become only a year after it launched in 1992, to have The X-Files Fox Mulder acting as the Cryptkeeper of Erotica. 

Red Shoe Diaries Set A New Standard For Cable

Duchovny’s role in the series was the same as the Cryptkeeper in Tales from The Crypt, or Rod Serling’s in The Twilight Zone: briefly introduce the story, then get out of the way. His narration plays out over recycled footage of walking with his dog, getting an envelope, and opening it up as new narration brings us into the upcoming story. All of which are as barebones as you’d expect and exist as an excuse to get to the erotic part of the erotica. 

Red Shoe Diaries is, looking back, quaint. The stories all follow the same formula of woman meets man, falls for his (or him for her) charms, the enjoy their time together, and most of the time, part ways. A newly divorced woman falls in love with a hometown cowboy, a model rediscovers her love for life thanks to a cabbie, business rivals become lovers, the early seasons are filled with the type of trope-filled story you’d find in any romance section. 

It’s a little later on that Red Shoe Diaries gets weird, though the soft-lightning, awkward music ripped straight from Pure Moods, and Duchovny’s narration remain, when the stories are about trapped astronauts having fun before they die, a Mexican luchador, a sci-fi tale in the future where love is forbidden, and a fallen angel. None of which reached the spice level of a dark romantasy novel you can buy from Barnes & Noble. But in the 90s, this was groundbreaking. 

The Ex-Files

Red Shoe Diaries ushered in a wave of similar artistic erotica shows on premium cable, including a revival of Emmanuelle, Women: Stories of Passion, and even faux-reality television including Taxicab Confessions. Before Showtime struck gold with Dexter, the network was mostly known for this type of softcore show. 

The success of The X-Files helped raise the profile of Red Shoe Diaries, especially once fans learned David Duchovny starred in the Season 1 episode, “Jake’s Story.”  This was long before Californication was even a passing thought. In Germany, the series was rebranded as Foxy Fantasies, heavily implying Duchovny was playing Fox Mulder instead of Jake. 

Looking back from 2026, the other enjoyable part of Red Shoe Diaries is a few of the guest stars you’d never expect, including a pre-Friends Matt LeBlanc, a post-Star Trek: The Next Generation Denise Crosby, both of whom appear twice during the show’s run. 

Prior to the Golden Age of Cable, following the launch of The Sopranos, premium cable was kept afloat through movies and shows like Red Shoe Diaries that could get away with far, far more than the broadcast networks. It’s an evolutionary step from the avant-garde wild west original cable shows of the 80s to the first massively successful original Showtime series, Stargate SG-1. Without Zalman King’s soft focus lighting, David Duchovny’s Jake, and Playboy Productions, we might live in a world without Teal’c and the Goa’uld, Dexter Morgan, and cannibalistic girls’ soccer teams.

As further evidence that television culture has changed, today you can stream Red Shoe Diaries for free on Tubi.