Vote up the X-Files episode you would have wanted to see on TV.
The X-Files provided seven seasons of strange, eerie, and sometimes terrifying television, but what if some of the craziest storylines never made it out of the writer's room? Writers of the series came up with a lot of groundbreaking episode ideas, but you might be even more amazed at what they decided not to film - a secret origin story, a new horror franchise, crossovers with other TV shows, and even a mind-blowing alliance between two of horror's most iconic characters. This list of unfilmed episodes will have you looking at the series in a completely different way, and might even give you the urge to write fan fiction about what might have been.
Before the success of the season 7 crossover episode COPS, X-Files head writer Vince Gilligan (wait, the Breaking Bad guy? Yes, that guy.) toyed with the idea of an episode of X-Files produced as an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. The episode would have featured Unsolved Mysteries host Robert Stack and re-enactments with unknown actors who looked like Mulder and Scully. After a few tries at getting the story right, Gilligan gave up on the idea and instead wrote the episode "Bad Blood" featuring young, pre-fame Luke Wilson.
147 votes
2
138 VOTES
A Tribute to "Night of the Living Dead"
Photo: George A. Romero
Imagine if Stephen King wrote a modern update of the classic Night of the Living Dead starring Mulder and Scully, and it was directed by zombie creator George A Romero. It could have been legendary, but the idea fell just short of becoming reality. Romero, King, and X-Files executive producers were on board for the episode, talks were underway, the wheels were in motion - but eventually it all fell apart, as Hollywood dream teams usually do.
Somewhere in the multiverse there exists an alternate reality in which the horror franchise "Final Destination" never happened, but was instead a single episode of The X-Files entitled "Flight 180." In 1994, screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick created a spec script for X-Files entitled "Flight 180." He wrote it for his agent, to show around as a sample, and because X-Files was his favorite show. Years later, Reddick reworked the episode, which was about a man (Scully's brother) who can foresee his own death, into what has become a bustling series of blockbuster thrillers. Never give up, kids.
More than a decade before it was cool to have Abraham Lincoln fight supernatural villains, X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong had the idea to include him as an apparition haunting the White House, which Mulder and Scully investigated on the down low. The writing team lost momentum and interest in the idea after a series of rewrites were ordered on a different episode, and instead squeezed out the episode "Never Again," which featured the voice acting talents of Jodie Foster.
114 votes
5
92 VOTES
Mulder Gets Abducted
Photo: 20th Century Fox
David Duchovny dreamed of writing and directing an episode in which Mulder is abducted, and seen trapped in an alien spaceship. The episode would explain Duchovny's absence from the show after he left. Unfortunately, he was on rocky ground with series creator Chris Carter after leaving, and Carter flatly told Duchovny he wasn't interested in such an episode because it didn't feature Dogget, the character who replaced Mulder. Ouch.
92 votes
6
104 VOTES
The Victor Eugene Tooms Origin Story No One Read
Photo: Fox Television / http://www.fox.com/
Actor Doug Hutchinson, who portrayed recurring X-Files villain Victor Eugene Tooms, wrote an origins story script for his character. In an interview for a 1996 issue of the X-Files Magazine, Hutchinson explained his story: "He is an incarnation of a ravenous, liver-eating Central American Indian God in an experiment to find out how he could remain so young and immortal; he was infused with a drug that backfired and he ended up escaping the asylum. So now he’s eating livers like M&Ms – he’s on a rampage!"
Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, no one at Fox could even read the script, so the idea was shelved.
