List of unmade episodes of The X-Files
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During the nine-year original run of the
American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...
science fiction television program '' The X-Files'', a number of stories were proposed but, for a variety of reasons, never fully produced. Below is a list of unmade episodes which were submitted by recognized professional writers, but were not filmed or aired. Abandoned episode scripts have been discovered from eight of the series' eleven seasons, while several others have been documented that were intended for unspecified seasons. The reasons for the episodes' stagnation include the
Fox Foxes are small to medium-sized, omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull, upright, triangular ears, a pointed, slightly upturned snout, and a long bushy tail (or ''brush''). Twelve sp ...
network rejecting ideas, budget-related problems and stories evolving into later-made episodes. In addition, several episode ideas were developed but were completely scrapped after the show's producers did not show any interest. The plots of the unmade episodes vary, with many of the proposed entries involving a theme of ghosts. In many cases, according to executive producer Frank Spotnitz, elements of unmade episodes were adapted, or were moved from one episode—or in one case, franchise—to another. For example, a fifth season episode involving an atheist hearing the voice of God was developed into "
Kitsunegari "Kitsunegari" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of American science fiction television series ''The X-Files''. It was written by Vince Gilligan and Tim Minear, and directed by Daniel Sackheim. It aired in the United States on January 4, ...
", and the proposed story "Flight 180", written by
Jeffrey Reddick Jeffrey Reddick (born 12 July 1969) is an American screenwriter and film director, best known for creating the ''Final Destination'' franchise. Life and career Reddick was born in Jackson, Kentucky and attended Breathitt County High School. He ...
was re-written and released as the popular 2000 horror film '' Final Destination''.


Season 1

:"Dark He Was and Golden-Eyed" After the success of the series' first
monster-of-the-week "Villain of the week" (or, depending on genre, "monster of the week", "freak of the week" or "alien of the week") is an antagonist that only appears in one episode of a multi-episode work of fiction. A villain of the week is commonly seen in Bri ...
episode, " Squeeze", Doug Hutchison, who portrayed the episode's antagonist Eugene Victor Tooms, wrote a prequel to the episode entitled "Dark He Was and Golden-Eyed" and sent it to series creator Chris Carter. Hutchison reportedly loved his role and admitted that “I was adamant about coming back on the show". However, the script was returned unread for legal reasons. Hutchison’s version of Tooms differed significantly from episode writers Glen Morgan and James Wong’s character. Hutchison later explained that he envisioned Tooms as "an experiment to find out how I could remain so young and immortal; he was infused with a drug that backfired and ended up escaping the asylum. So now he’s eating livers like M&Ms – he’s on a rampage!" He further explained that the abandoned script revealed that Tooms was the incarnation of "a ravenous, liver-eating Central American Indian God". Furthermore, his script featured "a lot of flashbacks" as well as a confrontation between Tooms and Dana Scully near the end.


Season 2

:Alternative "Little Green Men" story Originally, the season two premiere "
Little Green Men Little green men is the stereotypical portrayal of extraterrestrials as little humanoid creatures with green skin and sometimes with antennae on their heads. The term is also sometimes used to describe gremlins, mythical creatures known for cau ...
" was supposed to be written by Chris Carter. In the rough draft of this version, Fox Mulder would have been sent to Moscow. However, Carter ran out of time to create his episode and, instead, assigned Morgan and Wong the task of writing the season opener.


Season 4

:Untitled story about Abraham Lincoln's ghost During the middle of season four, Morgan and Wong started to write their fourth and final episode for the season before moving on to helm the show's sister series, '' Millennium''. The story the two developed was a “sort of Abraham Lincoln’s ghost in the White House type of thing”. Both writers had desired to write a story where Lincoln's ghost haunts the White House and Mulder and Scully investigate. Morgan explained that he had "done a lot of research and I had always wanted to write a feature about Lincoln’s ghost". However, due to the massive amounts of rewrites the two were forced to do for " Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", both Morgan and Wong lost interest in the story. Morgan explained, "I felt they didn’t want my heart and soul anymore, so I wouldn’t give this one to them". The two later crafted "
Never Again "Never again" is a phrase or slogan which is associated with the lessons of the Holocaust and other genocides. The phrase may originate from a 1927 poem by Yitzhak Lamdan which stated "Never again shall Masada fall!" In the context of genocide ...
" in its place. Years later, Frank Spotnitz said that he "always wondered about" the story and what the finished product would have been like.


Season 5

:Original version of "Christmas Carol" During the second week of October 1997, David Duchovny was scheduled to be away from Vancouver for promotional purposes for the movie '' Playing God''. The producers decided to develop a Scully-centric episode that would be filmed the week Duchovny would be away. With the episode scheduled to air during December, Vince Gilligan, John Shiban, and Frank Spotnitz decided to craft a Christmas episode and put Dana Scully into a situation similar to that of Scrooge in the 1951 British version of ''
A Christmas Carol ''A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas'', commonly known as ''A Christmas Carol'', is a novella by Charles Dickens, first published in London by Chapman & Hall in 1843 and illustrated by John Leech. ''A Christmas C ...
'', starring Alastair Sim. The episode was later completely re-written. :Untitled religion story Tim Minear pitched an idea for an episode that involved a convicted criminal who happened to be an
atheist Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there no ...
. While in prison, he would have heard the voice of God, commanding him to kill a truly evil man, and then he would have suddenly found himself mystically transferred out of the prison. Although the police would be after him, only Mulder would believe he was working for the greater good. Minear noted that "I pitched it and I was going to do it, eventually, until we found ourselves at a point in the year where we needed a script really fast". Executive producer Frank Spotnitz suggested to Minear that the "convicted atheist" should actually be Robert Modell from the third season episode " Pusher". The script was completely re-written, and became "
Kitsunegari "Kitsunegari" is the eighth episode of the fifth season of American science fiction television series ''The X-Files''. It was written by Vince Gilligan and Tim Minear, and directed by Daniel Sackheim. It aired in the United States on January 4, ...
". :"Unsolved Mysteries" episode Vince Gilligan developed a cross-over idea while writing an episode during the fifth season; the script would have involved a story being presented by Robert Stack of the NBC show '' Unsolved Mysteries'', with unknown actors playing Mulder and Scully. This script was later aborted, and Gilligan directed his attention towards writing the episode " Bad Blood".


Season 6

:Untitled Tilt-A-Whirl story Vince Gilligan proposed a story idea featuring a man holding an individual hostage on a Tilt-A-Whirl. Gilligan pitched this idea at several meetings and it soon became a recurring joke. Most of the comments Gilligan received noted that his premise lacked an explicit mystery to investigate and so Gilligan decided that after the ride was shut off, the man's head would explode. This idea later evolved into "
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". :Untitled gold mine story David Amann, after writing his first episode " Terms of Endearment", proposed a story that involved a monster loose in an abandoned gold mine. Frank Spotnitz, the show's executive producer, did not particularly like the idea of a gold mine, but he enjoyed the concept of a monster loose in an enclosed space. The episode was soon completely re-written into " Agua Mala" :Untitled dog stories Jeffrey Bell developed two separate stories that eventually developed into one single entry: "
Alpha Alpha (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἄλφα, ''álpha'', or ell, άλφα, álfa) is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of one. Alpha is derived from the Phoenician letter aleph , whic ...
". The first was going to be a "reversal" of 1963 movie ''
The Incredible Journey ''The Incredible Journey'' (1961), by Scottish author Sheila Burnford, is a children's book first published by Hodder & Stoughton, which tells the story of three pets as they travel through the Canadian wilderness searching for their beloved m ...
'', featuring "a desperate family hatmoves three thousand miles to get away from their killer pet—who's waiting for them at their new house, really pissed". The second story idea would feature a child who released his anger through the dogs at a local animal shelter. In this version, the dogs functioned as a manifestation of the child's id. Bell scrapped both of these ideas because they lacked "really cool visuals".


Season 7

:''Night of the Living Dead'' remake Reportedly,
Stephen King Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author of horror, supernatural fiction, suspense, crime, science-fiction, and fantasy novels. Described as the "King of Horror", a play on his surname and a reference to his high s ...
, who had penned season five’s " Chinga", wished to write an episode based on George Romero's cult 1968 zombie film '' Night of the Living Dead''. In addition, Romero was slated to direct the episode. According to Spotnitz, the staff of ''The X-Files'' met with both King and Romero and the two showed an interest in producing the episode. Initially, the episode was slated for the seventh season, but it never came to fruition. The season's fourth episode, " Millennium", did however, deal with the idea of zombies. :Untitled time story
Chip Johannessen George Frederick "Chip" Johannessen (born November 16, 1955) is an American writer, editor, and producer of several popular television series. He is credited with work on ''24 (TV series), 24'', ''Homeland (TV series), Homeland'', ''Dexter (TV ser ...
, who had formerly been an executive producer on the Carter-created television series '' Millennium'', wrote a draft for ''The X-Files'' in which the episode's main antagonist was a prisoner with the ability to stop time. Executive producers Carter, Frank Spotnitz, and John Shiban found the episode's premise promising. However, Carter enjoyed the story because it bore stylistic similarities to the first season episode " Beyond the Sea". The concept was eventually re-written completely differently into "
Orison Orison may refer to: * An archaic word for prayer * Orison Rudolph Aggrey Orison Rudolph Aggrey (July 24, 1926 – April 6, 2016) was an American diplomat who served as the United States Ambassador to Senegal, Gambia, and Romania. Aggrey w ...
".


Season 8

:Untitled Mulder abduction story After the partial departure of Duchovny, Carter decided to focus almost solely on the character of
John Doggett FBI Special Agent John Jay Doggett is a fictional character in the Fox science fiction-supernatural television series ''The X-Files''. With his FBI partners Dana Scully (season 8) and Monica Reyes (season 9), they work on the X-Files together, ...
during the first half of the season. Duchovny was unhappy because the show never fully examined Mulder's abduction properly. Reportedly, Duchovny offered to write and direct an episode based around the concept of Mulder being trapped in the alien spaceship, as seen in the season opener " Within" and " Without". Carter, however, nixed the idea because "it was not about Doggett."


Unspecified season

:Untitled tomb story James Wong, during an interview to promote ''The LAX-Files'' book, revealed that the writers for ''The X-Files'' had an idea for "a story about tombs", but Fox "refused o considerthe
dea The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic enf ...
" :Untitled abortion story James Wong, during an interview to promote ''The LAX-Files'' book, revealed that staff writers Howard Gordon and
Alex Gansa Alex Gansa is a screenwriter and producer best known as the creator, executive producer and showrunner of the Showtime series ''Homeland'', based on the original Israeli series ''Prisoners of War'' created by Gideon Raff. He produced and wrote a ...
had an idea for a story involving abortion, but Fox "refused o considerthe
dea The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA; ) is a United States federal law enforcement agency under the U.S. Department of Justice tasked with combating drug trafficking and distribution within the U.S. It is the lead agency for domestic enf ...
, much like the tomb story. Carter, in a separate interview with '' Newsweek'' later claimed that the show was not "looking to press the limits of anything that is a more hot-button topic, for example, abortion". :"The Song of the Sun" ''
Law & Order ''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the '' Law & Order'' franchise. ''Law & Order'' aired its entire run on NBC, premiering on ...
'' cameraman D.W. Paone, a fan of the series from its first broadcast, wrote and submitted a freelance script during its early seasons, co-written with author
Frank Scoblete Frank Scoblete (born 1947) is an American author who has written both under his own name and King Scobe about casino gambling. Referred to by ''The Washington Post'' as "a widely published authority on casino games," his books include ''Beat th ...
. Paone and Scoblete's script dealt with the
ancient astronaut theory Ancient astronauts (or ancient aliens) refers to a pseudoscientific hypothesis which holds that intelligent extraterrestrial beings visited Earth and made contact with humans in antiquity and prehistoric times. Proponents suggest that this ...
, and was concerned with the
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Pharaoh Akhenaten, who, in their script, was presented as an alien who returned to Earth once again in the year 1995. Paone had chosen to focus on Akhenaton due to his own interest in Egyptology, and was confident that Scoblete's dialogue was true to the series' characters. Although they were able to submit the script due to an acquaintance with producer
Daniel Sackheim Daniel Sackheim (born in 1962) is an American television and film director, producer, and photographer. Sackheim has produced and directed for ''The X-Files'', ''Law & Order'', ''House'' and ''NYPD Blue''. He also directed '' The Walking Dead,'' ...
, it was later refused after being read by several producers and writers, including John Shiban, and deemed to be too expensive to produce on an episodic television budget. :"Flight 180"
Screenwriter A screenplay writer (also called screenwriter, scriptwriter, scribe or scenarist) is a writer who practices the craft of screenwriting, writing screenplays on which mass media, such as films, television programs and video games, are based. ...
Jeffrey Reddick Jeffrey Reddick (born 12 July 1969) is an American screenwriter and film director, best known for creating the ''Final Destination'' franchise. Life and career Reddick was born in Jackson, Kentucky and attended Breathitt County High School. He ...
wrote a spec script for ''The X-files'' in order to get an agent in 1994. He said, "I was actually flying home to Kentucky and I read this story about a woman who was on vacation and her mom called her and said 'Don't take the flight tomorrow, I have a really bad feeling about it'. She switched flights and the plane that she would have been on crashed. I thought, that’s creepy—what if she was supposed to die on that flight?" Reddick's script featured Scully's younger brother, Charles, having a premonition of his flight crashing, which prompts Mulder and Scully to investigate the event. While Reddick never submitted the spec script to ''The X-Files'', it was revamped by Reddick as a feature, and coincidentally, ''X-Files'' vets James Wong and Glen Morgan were brought on as writers/director and the project became the 2000 horror film '' Final Destination''. Reddick later presented the script to horror website
Bloody Disgusting Bloody Disgusting is an American multi-media company, which began as a horror genre-focused news site/website specializing in information services that covered various horror medias, including: film, television, video games, comics, and music. ...
, which uploaded it onto their website on June 16, 2015. :"Crampton" In 1998,
Thomas Ligotti Thomas Ligotti (born July 9, 1953) is an American horror writer. His writings are rooted in several literary genres – most prominently weird fiction – and have been described by critics as works of ''philosophical'' horror, often formed into ...
and Brandon Trenz submitted a script in which an FBI agent is assassinated by a man who transforms into a mannequin, leading Mulder and Scully to follow a trail of clues to the sinister backwater town of Crampton. The script culminates in the agents witnessing a roaring black void behind a curtain at a magic performance.


References


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External links

* {{Portal bar, Science fiction, Television Unmade episodes *