Article Published: Monday, June 06, 2005 - 1:18:08 PM MST
X marks the spot
As four-DVD set brings the 'Files Mythology' back into focus, Chris Carter talks about the creation of his TV hit
By Phillip Zonkel
Staff Writer
CHRIS CARTER - wasn't abducted by aliens and didn't have any close encounters of the third kind. His inspiration in the early 1990s for the hit TV series "The X-Files' seems to have come through an open door.
"I was in my surf trunks, bare feet and a T-shirt," says Carter, who was working from home at the time. "It was August, sunny and hot. The door was open.
"The idea just came to me, and I don't know how. I was conscious of a lack of anything truly scary on TV," says the 48-year-old Bellflower native, who says the spooky 1974 TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker," starring Darren McGavin, and the 1976 film "All The President's Men" were big influences on "The X-Files." "I was conscious that people are afraid of science and technology (and government intrigue), as much as they want it. Otherwise though, the idea just came."
And then the stories came. Over the course of nine seasons, "The X-Files," which went off the air in 2002, followed special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) as they investigated unsolved and often unexplainable cases the FBI labeled X-Files, everything from a fluke-man (half-man, half-flukeworm), a man whose shadow disintegrates people and a family with roots stretching back to the Civil War that has survived by inbreeding.
But the heart of the show was the ongoing story arc of the mythology, a complex web of alien conspiracies and government coverups that has been hidden for more than half a century. "The X-Files Mythology: Abduction," a four-DVD set with 15 chronological episodes from the first three seasons, arrives in stores today.
Ever since he witnessed his sister's abduction, Mulder has believed in extraterrestrials. His obsession with finding his sister grows as he examines the X-Files.
As his search continues, Mulder uncovers a series of interwoven events related to his sister's disappearance.
Agent Scully is assigned to work with Mulder in an attempt to discredit his beliefs in the paranormal and supernatural with her scientific explanations. As the partnership continues, their opposing philosophies become the norm — Mulder "the believer' and Scully "the skeptic."
Here, Carter tells us the stories behind some of the mythology episodes just released on DVD:
Pilot, "Deep Throat' and "Fallen Angel'
"In those first three episodes, it seemed as if we were producing a show that was going to be about aliens and UFOs," Carter says. "What we were ultimately doing was setting up the mythology that would become the spine of the series. It became more than just a show about aliens and alien abduction, even though that was the hook."
"If you look at the first and second episode, you see the mythology carefully laid out and Mulder's search for his sister," Carter says. "The mythology episodes became some of the most popular throughout the life of the series."
"Duane Berry' and "Ascension'
Mulder is assigned to a hostage negotiation where the deranged hostage taker, ex-FBI agent Duane Berry, claims to have been abducted and tortured by aliens.
Originally, the episode was not two parts. It was expanded because of the story's complexity and Gillian Anderson's pregnancy. Since Anderson would be on maternity leave from the series for a short time, Scully is kidnapped by Berry at the episode's climax.
During the second part, "Ascension," Berry takes Scully to a predetermined location where he plans to rendezvous with an alien spacecraft. Berry hands over Scully, who is abducted.
"The 'Duane Berry" story was inspired by a piece I'd read in the New York Times about Phineas Gage," Carter says.
In 1848 Gage, who was the foreman of a railway construction team, had been injured in an accidental explosion that blew a tampering iron through his head. It went in point first under his left cheek bone and out the top of his skull. Part of his frontal lobe, which plays a role in social behavior, was destroyed. Before the accident, Gage was regarded as a well-balanced man. But when he returned to work the following year, his personality, according to his co-workers, had changed for the negative as a result of the accident.
"I wanted to create a character just like (Gage), but who believed he was abducted by aliens," Carter says. "The audience didn't know if he was crazy as a result of an accident or was he really abducted by aliens. It really plays into the characters of Mulder and Scully. Mulder believes he was abducted and Scully believes he's the victim of his accident."
"One Breath'
After being kidnapped by Duane Berry, Scully mysteriously shows up at a hospital in a coma. When Mulder learns that her DNA exhibits signs of genetic tampering, he is convinced the government is responsible for her condition and demands to know the identity of the Cigarette Smoking Man, a dastardly character who first appeared in the pilot episode and works as part of a shadow syndicate with members in the highest levels of government.
Carter named this nefarious character for his habit of lighting up.
"It's a bad habit," Carter says. "He smoked in places where he shouldn" t, like offices and the FBI and hospitals. He didn't care, just like smokers. They don't care."
Until this episode, Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) never spoke, but his confrontation with Mulder ("Don't try and threaten me, Mulder. I've watched presidents die.") convinced Carter that Cigarette Smoking Man's icy eloquence made him more evil.
"I always thought he was valuable saying nothing, but all of a sudden when he spoke, he was good at it," Carter says.
Davis also was a champion water-skier in Canada, which Carter wanted to exploit.
"I always wanted to get him water-skiing, but Frank Spotnitz (Carter's partner in writing the mythology episodes) would never let me do it," Carter says. "He thought it would make the character look silly, but I thought it would be the coolest thing."
"Endgame'
'Endgame" was an important episode to the series because that's when Frank Spotnitz comes on to the show," Carter says. "He and I ended up writing the rest of the mythology. He became my partner in the mythology."
In this second episode of two parts, the alien bounty hunter kidnaps Scully and agrees to trade her for Mulder's sister, who is revealed to be a clone. After the trade goes sour and Mulder discovers the truth about Samantha, he tracks the bounty hunter to his ship buried in the arctic ice and demands the whereabouts of his real sister.
To re-create the North Pole location, tons of real snow was dumped on a mammoth soundstage. Above the snow, the crew made a life-size replica of the bounty hunter's ship.
"It was so audacious to build a submarine on a set like that and truck in snow. It was incredible," Carter says. "I didn't think we could do it on a schedule and a budget of a TV show."
That submarine also is the site where Mulder begs the alien bounty hunter to confirm that Samantha is alive. When the bounty hunter assures him, albeit cryptically, that she is in fact alive, Mulder's quest to find her gains new resolve.
"That was the secret to all those mythology episodes," Carter says, "Mulder kept getting closer and closer."
"Anasazi'
Mulder obtains a digital tape that appears to have the original and uncut top secret intelligence documents about the government extraterrestrial life. Scully figures out that the files have been encrypted in Navajo. The episode begins with the tagline "El " Aaniigoo 'Ahoot'e," the Navajo equivalent for "The Truth is Out There," the signature phrase that opens each episode.
The story line also touches on the history of the Navajo code talkers, a group of Marines in World War II who devised a cryptogram based on the Navajo language that was used during battles in the Pacific.
Carter says his idea for the code talkers was inspired during a 1992 cross-county trip.
"Basically, I took the idea from the wall of a McDonald" s," he says, laughing. "I was driving somewhere on Highway 40 going from Santa Barbara cross-country, and I went to a McDonald" s. They had this thing up (on the wall) about the code talkers. I thought that was the coolest thing."
)
