Have you ever written some thing that was scary beyond the acceptable limits?
There was one episode that Chris wrote in the second season called Irresistible. It was one of the few X Files that had nothing paranormal in it at all. It was about a serial killer and it scared the hell out of people.
This was the first and only time this has happened to us.
When first draft of the script that came in, the standards and practices people who are the censors for the network sent back a memo. It had one sentence which said that this script is unacceptable for broadcast.
They just said you can�t make a show about this guy, he�s too repugnant! We discovered eventually that they were offended by the fact that he was a necrophile. So we simply went through the script and changed all the references to necrophilia to death-fetishism and then it was acceptable for broadcast
I think the episode that still receives the strongest response, and that outraged the most people was called Home. It was written by Glen Morgan and Jim Long in the fourth season. It�s about a rural family in a town called Home in Pennsylvania.
The teaser is this deformed baby is buried under a baseball field. Again, trying to make it 'normal'. It could be happening in your sand lot baseball diamond. It turns out that these three brothers have sex with their mother to create offspring.
The mother is a women with no arms and legs who lives under the bed and they wheel her out. So it was horrific. There was a very, very scary scene in that episode when the Sheriff and his wife are attacked by the brothers.
People were just angry, horrified, had nightmares and they described shots that we never filmed. They described scenes that they swear they saw that just weren�t there. What happened was the situation was so intense and scary that their imaginations filled in things.
And as outraged as people were, you know we were delighted because we are here to scare people. It�s very gratifying when I meet somebody and they say �you know I saw that episode and it gave me a nightmare� or �I can�t think about this any more the same way�.
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Mulder's Habits
