The One-Timers part 3

Members of the Family

This group includes episodes by people connected with the production, but not previously as writers. They had the advantage of knowing the characters and how the show works, which the Early On one-timers and even some of the Staff Writers lacked. The episodes covered in this post are Wetwired, Demons, Trevor, En Ami, and Rm9. Although all things is part of this category as well, I’m saving that episode for last, and it will be in a separate post.

Wetwired 3×23

First up, Wetwired. Written by Mat Beck, visual effects coordinator on the show. I have the blue revision (4/3/96) and the green revision (4/9/96). The script was heavily rewritten by John Shiban, Vince Gilligan, and Frank Spotnitz. So much so that they worked an amalgamation of their names, “John Gillnitz” into the script. They would do that throughout the series, but this was the first time.

The first thing I noticed was that some of the iconic moments from the episode didn’t seem to be scripted: Mulder flopping down on the sofa in Scully’s motel room while they’re talking about the effects of TV, Mulder riding the exercise bike at the house while they’re investigating, Mulder fiddling with his tie when he tells the Gunmen he’s colorblind. It struck me that these scenes as written were dialogue-heavy with little to no action. These were examples of the director, Rob Bowman, bringing the script to life.

Next, I noticed that the script notes describing the characters’ thoughts and feelings were very emotional, going deeper than I typically see in a script. It was kind of beautiful. The whole thing sort of read like fanfic. So I thought this is either Mat Beck’s writing style, or JS VG FS saw it as an opportunity to let their feelings flow, in a script that doesn’t bear their names. 

Demons 4×23

Demons, written by R.W. Goodwin. I read the yellow revision (4/13/97) and the goldenrod (4/17/97). I also have the white shooting schedule (4/10/97). Goodwin was the executive producer during the Vancouver era and usually directed the first and last episodes of the season. But this is the only episode he wrote. When I met him at Philefest, he said he loved getting to do Demons, but trying to write a show that you’re producing is like a doctor trying to operate on himself.

From the shooting schedule I learned that scenes with Amy Cassandra’s sister were deleted. They seem to be part of Scully’s investigation while Mulder was in jail. There was also at least one scene with Scully on her phone while driving. And the final scene would have been Mulder and Scully on a park bench at the Mall in DC, talking about holes in Mulder’s memory. These scenes don’t appear in the yellow revision, dated 4/13/97, so they were cut prior to the first day of shooting, 4/15/97. But the goldenrod revision (4/17/97) was done after shooting started. I would really love to see some earlier versions of this script!

I love this script note: “Mulder comes out of the bathroom (wearing either his pants or a towel, whichever he prefers)”. Knowing the actors as he did, Goodwin must have known David would choose the towel, but it was nice of him to give Mulder options.

And this: “Mulder gets up in gentle defiance of Scully”

I won’t include pictures of all of them but there are a lot of script notes/details that show familiarity with these characters:

• Off Scully’s extreme impatience with Mulder…
• Mulder and Scully exchange a look, hers a warning…
• Off Scully’s fear for her partner, for his condition and possibly his guilt…
• Mulder is hip to [Detective] Curtis and his techniques…
• Mulder closes his eyes, suffering from his own inability to explain…
• Mulder catching sight of something off-screen. Scully is entering the room…
• Scully studies Mulder. All the fight is gone from him…
• Scully shakes her head, exasperated by Mulder, by her inability to explain more…
• Scully nods, reading Mulder’s aching conviction to find the truth…
• He is not to be stopped. But Scully inches toward him anyway, against all good judgment…

In the episode Mulder makes an O.J. Simpson joke when he’s listing all the evidence against him. That’s not in either of the scripts I have. It was likely added during filming, quite likely ad-libbed by David.

A scene is added in the goldenrod version showing the officer’s actions right before he shoots himself. It clarifies what was happening somewhat. The officer is named Michael Fazekas. There is a TV writer/producer named Michele Fazekas, who started her career as a production assistant on The X-Files. That’s the name Frank Spotnitz gives to the local PD officer in Detour. Odds are both characters were named after this PA.

This is very interesting. In these versions of the script, when Mulder accuses his mother of betraying his father, she denies it, saying “I was faithful.” When Mulder presses her, she turns to walk away, but he grabs her. She DOES NOT slap him.

I can’t imagine Mulder grabbing his mother without provocation. It would seem out of character, given their previous interactions that we’ve seen and what we know about Mulder. It’s easier to understand after Teena slaps him though, with the heightened emotions. Teena’s slap is believable under the circumstances too. I don’t subscribe to the theory that Teena abused Mulder physically. I think her abuse was more of an emotional abandonment (I’ve written a whole blog post about that https://myxfilesobsession.home.blog/2019/03/30/in-defense-of-teena-mulder/). To me the scene plays out as Mulder finally giving up on getting answers from his mother.

The scripts also contain a deleted scene between Scully and Teena after Mulder ditches Scully at his mother’s house. We would have learned some surprising back story: Mulder had petit mal seizures until about age 12.

Imagine the implications! Was it epilepsy? Or was he being abducted, like Max? Apparently this was a path the mythology creators didn’t want to go down, because the idea was killed here and never revived in any later episode.

In the script, when she confronts him in the Quonochontaug house, Mulder fires the gun toward Scully but into the wall behind her. In the episode we see that he had spun around before shooting, and he emptied the gun into the opposite wall, ensuring that he wouldn’t harm Scully or himself. It’s so much more powerful that way.

Yellow and goldenrod versions end in the Quonochontaug house. Scully’s voice over was added afterwards.

I find it interesting that Scully’s cancer is never referenced or alluded to in the script or episode. Perhaps an indication that Goodwin had been working on the story for a while, before the mid-season addition of the cancer arc.

Trevor 6ABx17

Trevor, written by Ken Hawryliw and Jim Guttridge. Hawryliw was prop master on the show in seasons 1-5, and it looks like this is his only writing credit. Guttridge is a composer and orchestrator, but not on The X-Files. He was a friend of KH’s. Trevor is his only writing credit. I have the blue revision (2/5/99) and the salmon revision (2/18/99).

Hawryliw has said in a recent interview on Sammensværgelsen – en dansk X-Files Podcast that they made 12 or 13 story pitches before landing on the story for Trevor. He said it was difficult to come up with an idea that hadn’t been done before. After the story was approved, they had about a week and a half to deliver the script. I wonder how accurate that is, given the length of time between the revisions I have (which suggests to me there wasn’t as much of a time crunch). Since Hawryliw is describing things that happened 24-25 years earlier, I’m taking his stories with a grain of salt. 

He said that Chris Carter didn’t want a purely science fiction story, it needed a human motivation. He said the “beautiful idea” they came up with was that Rawls could have anything in the world (he could break into banks, steal anything) but the one thing he wanted was to hug his child, and he could never have that. It’s very interesting that his description of the ending was that Rawls sacrificed himself to save his son. That’s not at all what I take away from the episode. More on that later. 

Hawryliw couldn’t remember who did the rewrites, but he thought it was probably John Shiban, and Vince Gilligan did a polish as well. He said the condom joke seemed like a Vince thing. Hawryliw said Carter’s assistant told him he was rewritten less than Stephen King and William Gibson. 

Hawryliw wanted to write an old school episode, with a scary monster like in the early seasons. And he wanted to keep Mulder and Scully together throughout the investigation, which gave lots of opportunity for banter. I think he accomplished this. Although some find the investigation plodding, I think it was an interesting idea, and Pinker Rawls is a truly terrifying villain. 

In reading the blue revision, it seemed to me that a lot of the script notes sound like Vince Gilligan, at least in the first two acts. I mean, I never worked on the show and I’ve never met them, and maybe I can’t tell the difference between John Shiban and Vince Gilligan, but I’ve read a lot of X-Files scripts. If you gave me this to read and asked me to guess who wrote it, I’d say Vince Gilligan. For example:

• We’re peering into a Southern road farm prison (refer to “Cool Hand Luke”)
• Again, no blood or ooze
• Redwop dust (anyone with history with the show would know this)
• A couple of Skynyrd and ZZ tapes
• June watches a lot of Martha Stewart 
• Robert gooses the volume on the remote
• Thrift-T-Mart Mall
• The handcuffs shatter like peanut brittle
• Rawls wriggles his fingers, voodoo-like
• The steel breaks off in Saltine-like shards

The first notable difference I’m seeing between the blue revision and the episode is when Mulder and Scully talk to June, it’s in an interrogation room, instead of her house. So they’re at the police station when they discover Rawls had been in the trunk of their car. Then cut to two state troopers at June’s house, discovering the place has been torn up, and Rawls, who attacks and kills them. By the salmon revision, Mulder and Scully interview June in June’s house, eliminating the transfer to the police station. They discover that Rawls had been in the trunk of their car while still at June’s house. The two troopers take June into protective custody from there, instead of getting killed by Rawls. This is much tidier, saving time and lives!

When Mulder and Scully find June’s medical bills and realize she had a child just months after Rawls went to prison, Scully says “‘I want what’s mine.’ This man is looking for his child, Mulder.” The script continues, “Mulder knows it. Off them, seeing Rawls in a different light…” This suggests we’re supposed to see something noble in Rawls because of this. He’s not just after the money he stole, he wants his son. But I never read Rawls that way. He’s a monster. He sees his son as something to possess. He isn’t motivated by love but by a sense of entitlement. He won’t let anyone else have what belongs to him. That’s why he’s so terrifying. That’s why June did everything she could to keep Trevor from Rawls. It’s not this new power that makes him a monster. He already was one.

To me, this is what makes Trevor such a good episode. It’s so interesting to me that that’s not what the writer intended, and still seems to think. He sees Trevor as Rawls’s soft spot, his redemption. But I don’t think it’s there. More on this later.

Here’s a fun find. In the blue revision, Mulder asks for rubber 9mm bullets “or something to that effect (as per Tommy Day’s research)”

By the later revision, Tommy’s research had determined it should be rubber 12 gauge shotgun slugs.

Here’s a significant change. In the blue revision, Rawls bangs on the phone booth door and is about to reach in to grab Trevor when Mulder shows up and shoots him with the rubber bullets. He staggers away, and that’s when June hits him with the car.

In the later revision, Rawls sees that he has broken a hole in the glass and could reach in to grab Trevor, when he sees how scared the boy is. “It’s not like he’s suddenly a good guy, or that he’s had a big change of heart–he just doesn’t know what the hell to do….He backs off, turns away.” And that’s when he gets hit by the car.

Then we get one final page, the only new page in the salmon revision:

This is how the episode plays out. Mulder suggests that Rawls wanted another chance. But it’s not definitive. 

I suppose I can see how Hawryliw could describe this as Rawls sacrificing himself for his son. Maybe. It’s more just a choice to de-escalate in the moment and think about what he’s doing, and then June showed up. He didn’t ever intentionally give anything of himself. Perhaps I’m reading too much into a comment in an interview 25 years after the episode was written. I remain firmly on June’s side, however. Rawls would have hurt the boy and had to be stopped.

En Ami 7ABx15

En Ami, written by William B. Davis, who played the Cigarette Smoking Man from the Pilot through My Struggle IV. I have the gold revision (2/11/00). Production draft was 1/24/00. Here’s another script by someone familiar with the show, or at least with the mythology episodes. 

With most of the Syndicate’s key figures killed off in season 6, Davis was needed for fewer episodes in season 7, so he came up with a story for himself. He hadn’t had many scenes with Gillian, so he included her in the story, postulating that CSM could make himself irresistible to Scully and seduce her to his agenda. (Shapiro, Official Guide to The X-Files, vol 6).

Davis presented his idea to Chris Carter, who was intrigued. Carter then had Davis work with Frank Spotnitz to write the first draft of the script. After that, Davis did some intensive rewriting with Spotnitz and John Shiban. 

According to Shiban, Davis saw himself as the romantic hero of The X-Files and En Ami as a love story. (Shapiro). I’ve heard Davis say this before and I can never tell if he’s joking, or just horribly mistaken.

Spotnitz said the challenge would be finding a way for the audience to believe Scully would trust this man she’s spent 7 years hating. (Shapiro). I think they came up with a plausible scenario, if not a completely believable one. 

With all the help Davis had drafting and revising the script, it’s hard to draw any conclusions about his writing. There are some story beats in the script that are so incongruous that I think they must have been Davis’s ideas.

Act One, in the office, Mulder and Scully are talking about the healing in Goochland, VA. The script includes this description: “MULDER (earnestly, a la Roma Downey, with accent) All you have to do is open your heart. God is always there waiting to answer your prayers.” This line was cut, and Mulder just nods at Scully instead. I kind of wish we got to hear David do the accent. We still get a Touched by an Angel reference, though. As he leaves the office to investigate, Mulder says “I just gotta know if it was Roma Downey or Della Reese.”

CSM to Scully: “I’m not here to dash their illusions. Only to remove yours.” That’s a really good line. Very in character. I bet Spotnitz wrote it. 

CSM tells Scully he’s tired of Mulder’s foolish ideas of overthrowing the system. Then the next scene in the script, which was ultimately cut, has Mulder in Skinner’s office demanding a subpoena to confiscate every computer at DARPA to find out who sent him an email. Looking very foolish indeed.

The scene continues with Scully telling Skinner she found no evidence of any government agency involved in healing the boy. She’s obeying CSM’s order to keep information from Mulder. He senses her prevarication, and she looks “deeply uncomfortable with the lie she’s just told.” Mulder confronts Scully after they leave Skinner’s office. When she again says she found nothing, Mulder insinuates that she’s lying and storms off. At that, Scully pulls out the business card left by CSM, making her decision. 

This whole scene was cut for good reason. Mulder can’t already be suspicious of Scully when she leaves him a message saying she’ll be out of town attending to a family emergency. And without the scene, Scully doesn’t have to lie to Skinner.

As Scully is driving with CSM, the script has the radio playing “Brahms Cello Sonata No. 1 in F minor (or some other equally beautiful piece), which gives the scene a strange mood. Driving with this man we’ve known and feared for years, to the haunting melodies of Brahms. Scully stares straight ahead, the melody not lost on her.” The production team decided to go with Mark Snow’s score instead. 

I feel like telling Davis “stop trying to make fetch happen!” Scully is never going to be persuaded CSM is some misunderstood soul, and neither is the audience.  I’ve seen other writers who just didn’t quite get the characters right. I think this is the first time I’ve seen a writer  deliberately trying to change who the characters are.

Here’s a silly bit: “The Lone Gunmen. But something’s wrong. They look different. Frohike … dressed like Byers. Langly and Byers are in disguise too. Byers dressed like Langly, … Langly dressed like Frohike.” This made it to the episode, but I didn’t realize they were supposed to be disguised as each other until I read it in the script. 

In the script, when Scully confronts CSM asking how she got out of her clothes, CSM responds, “I undressed you in the dark if it makes any difference.”

I guess that was too ick, because it was deleted. In the episode CSM doesn’t answer the question about how she got out of her clothes. He just says he carried her because she was delirious. In the flashback in My Struggle III this was sanitized further, with a CSM voice over added, saying “we carried you, my housekeeper and I…you can ask her.”

Davis said he was basically happy with how the episode came out. He originally pictured CSM as a much better actor at winning Scully’s affection, and Scully was somewhat less resistant, but the episode was restructured. (Shapiro). 

When I read this comment I immediately thought of one specific moment in the episode, and an unusual circumstance with the script. 

At the end of Act Three, Scully and CSM are in the restaurant. CSM tells her she looks stunning in the dress he picked out for her. Scully tells him she’s still not clear what her role is. It’s at this point in my script that a page is missing. It goes from page 44A to page 46, which is the start of Act Four. I’ve checked with other script collectors I know, and none of them has this missing page or a different version of the script.

In the episode, CSM tells Scully that what they’re being given is the cure for all human disease. Then he says, “I’m a lonely man, Dana.” He steps outside, while Scully looks pensive.

Is he making an “indecent proposal”? And are we to think Scully is considering it? Does the missing page take it further?

In the episode, CSM steps outside to meet with black haired man. While he’s gone, Scully is delivered a note with the meeting location for the next morning.

Did the missing page have something different? And why is it missing? Was it so horrible that it was intentionally destroyed by the powers that be? Is my conspiracy-addled mind just grasping to find meaning in what was probably a photocopy error? We may never know!

Finally, there’s this deleted scene, after Scully leaves the cabin: “The CSM is sitting on the bed where Scully slept, holding the beautiful dress he got for her. Bringing it to his face…he inhales the trace essence of what he’ll never possess. Is it possible to be moved by his sadness?”

I found this tweet from when I first read the script three years ago: 

My feelings haven’t changed.

Rm9sbG93ZXJz 2AYW07

Rm9sbG93ZXJz, written by Kristin Cloke & Shannon Hamblin. I have the green revision (11/5/17). Original draft was 10/17/17.

Kristen Cloke is a long time member of the X-Files/1013 family. She played Melissa Rydel in The Field Where I Died, had a recurring role in Millennium, and is married to Glen Morgan, who directed this episode. Cloke told The X-Cast that she had been writing with Morgan for years, but this was her first chance to write something for him to direct.

Hamblin worked as Glen Morgan’s writing assistant on Lore and then season 10 of The X-Files, and Morgan asked if she’d be willing to write an episode with Kristen Cloke for season 11. Hamblin told The X-Cast that Morgan had a basic idea that they started with and some elements he wanted to include, and Cloke & Hamblin came up with a story to go around it. One thing Morgan insisted on was that there be no dialogue in the beginning. As Cloke explained, they wanted to emphasize what it was like to be so engrossed with technology that it’s like there’s no one else in the room.

Hamblin was a longtime fan of the show, but she didn’t go back and watch previous episodes to prepare, because she knew this episode was going to be different from anything else. 

Hamblin and Cloke created story notecards for the episode together and then divided up the scenes and wrote them independently. They each worked Scully’s personal massager into a scene without having discussed it! Cloke’s was the one they ended up using because it fit the story better.

The sushi scene plays out a little differently in the episode than in the script. The script doesn’t include any laughter or playfulness. Mulder is in full-on grumpy old man mode. I imagine Glen Morgan and the actors had input on this, making it feel more like the Mulder and Scully we would expect on a date, while still making the point that they’re more focused on their electronics than each other.

Script note gold: “Scully offers him her credit card. Mulder, however, removes his card from his wallet and holds it up, as if to insist on paying. Ever the smart and practical feminist, Scully shrugs and lets him pay.”

In the script, when Scully’s driverless car arrives, “[Mulder] reacts as if ‘You sure?’ She sighs, gives him a hug, and opens the door.”

We were robbed! I’ve long felt that this would have been the perfect place in Season 11 for a kiss. A quick peck goodbye, something you’d expect from a longtime couple. But we didn’t get that, or any other kiss the entire season. I know there were lots of hugs and some other implied activities in the season, but still… There’s BTS footage where Mulder kisses Scully on the top of her head before she gets in the car. That would have been cute! Hmmph.

“Waiting at his phone and hungry from no dinner, he reaches into a box of Pop-Tarts, removes the mylar paper, and eats.” 

I’ve noticed over the years that it’s practically a fanfic trope that Mulder loves Pop-Tarts, which is funny because we’ve never seen him eat any until this moment. When I met Kristen Cloke at Philefest, I asked her if she was aware of the fanfic Pop-Tarts trope, and she said yes, that’s exactly why they included it in the episode. She said because there was so little dialogue, they wanted to fill the screen with little touches that would remind the viewers that they were watching Mulder and Scully, as well as honor the very active fandom. You can see this with the way Mulder practices his baseball grip, just like we saw in Home, and with Scully’s use of “Queequeg” as her password. Even the whole premise of the episode plays with the idea that Mulder is a notoriously bad tipper, as seen in Bad Blood and The Unnatural. But the Pop-Tarts reference is my favorite.

The final line of the script: “Their phones ring and beep…but they ignore them and continue looking into each other’s eyes. Much more exciting than an illuminated screen.” So lovely!

I read a review that described the episode as feeling like “a wholly new thing that also understands what makes Mulder and Scully, and The X-Files itself, tick.” Alan Sepinwall, UPROXX. I agree completely. 

Up next, I wrap up the series with an in-depth look at all things…