X Files - Script to Screen

Before any TV script can finally filmed it goes through a series of changes to refine it into the finished version we see on the screen. Chris Carterís original script for the pilot episode of The X Files, which is soon to be repeated on BBC2, is no exception. Some of the changes made to the script were relatively minor but some changed the direction that the series took. Other changes merely tightened the story of that particular episode.

The original pilot script has been shortened considerably before it made it on air. Possibly it was over long or possibly it was originally intended for a longer slot. As a consequence of this a number of characters have been removed from the story.

In the televised version Mulder says that Ray Soames, whose body is exhumed early in the episode, confessed to the murder of the earlier victims. In the original script a different character, named Danny Doty, has confessed to murdering the first victims. Doty is also one of the apparently jinxed Class of 89. Doty has only been convicted of one of the murders despite confessing to three of them. This is due to there being virtually no evidence to link him to the crimes. Mulder and Scully go to visit Doty in prison to find out if he knows anything about the murder of Karen Swenson.

In the TV version Mulder never gets to put into practise his ìnatural aptitude for applying behavioral modelsî despite the fact that some time is spent establishing Mulder as a brilliant psychologist. In the original script Mulder uses these skills to question Doty. This means that in the original Mulder has visible practical skills to equal Scullyís whereas in the transmitted version Scully's medical training gives her the upper hand. It is inferred that Doty confessed so that he could go to prison, not because he committed the crime but because he wanted protection.

In this scene we would have got our first clues about what is happening to the Class of 89. Most of these are red herrings that are not reworked into the TV version. Doty claims that they all joined a club and calls the puncture marks on the bodies ìCleopatraís snakebiteî, which helps to justify Scullyís belief that the murder victims are members of a religious cult. Doty also claims that all of Ray Soamesí family have been killed. In an earlier scene we are told they have disappeared. This is not mentioned at all in the TV version and the original script never tells us for certain what has happened to them.

Also missing from the original script is an explanation of what happens to Danny Doty after Mulder and Scully find out Billy Miles was the killer. We are only told that Doty felt the same murderous impulses that Billy Miles did and Mulder surmises that he confessed because he was scared by what he was capable of.

In the original script Scully has a boyfriend called Ethan. Scully feels that the only good thing about Ethan is that he is better than having no one at all. She cancels a holiday with him to go ìchasing little green menî with Mulder. Her readiness to dump him at the first opportunity is used to signify Scullyís devotion to her career. Scully thinks that they will soon split up because they have nothing to talk about and they are both more interested in their jobs than each other. In the original script Scully also has a brown belt in karate and a degree in astronomy, as well as the qualifications mentioned on TV.

Another character who was removed before shooting began is Truit, the coroner. In a scene missing from the TV version Mulder and Scully go to the town hall to find that someone, presumably Truit, has told the local people they are coming and as a result they are confronted by an angry mob. Truit has tried to stop Mulder and Scully from exhuming any of the bodies by getting the families of the murder victims to take out court orders against them. More importantly Mulder accuses him of being responsible for the fire that destroys the mutated body and all the evidence that he and Scully have collected. In the TV version no one is directly accused of starting the fire but it could be inferred that it is the work of the sinister Cigarette Smoking Man, who is entirely absent from the original script. Instead of a government cover-up, there is a cover-up by the local authorities who do not want to accept that any more members of their community are involved in the murder.

Most of the Cigarette Smoking Manís part in the original is taken by an agent called Jones. Instead of being against Mulderís investigations, as the Cigarette Smoking Man and the other FBI bosses are in the TV version, Jones, for reasons that are not explained, is trying to help Mulder. Jones is responsible for assigning Scully to spy on Mulder because he believes that she will treat him fairly.

Jones' bosses make it clear to Scully that they want her to debunk Mulderís work. This makes more sense than the TV version, where all the FBI bosses are apparently under the thumb of the Cigarette Smoking Man. This begs the question, why did they send someone as honest as Scully to destroy Mulderís credibility? Why not just send any old stooge? In the original script it seems they have been duped by Jones.

The last two scenes of the episode are different, obviously enough as the Cigarette Smoking Man is absent. In the original script the FBI bosses are angry that Scully has not given them the negative report on Mulder that they wanted. Jones grins at Scully to indicate he is pleased but hides his feelings from his superiors. Jones is ordered by his superiors to burn Scully's report, which he does. He then takes the alien implant and to a secret storage center in the country and places it in a file with four identical implants. His motives remain unclear. In the TV version the Cigarette Smoking Man takes the implant and puts in a file in the Pentagon, indicating that there is some kind of government cover-up going on.

The original script has a much more ambiguous ending than the TV version. The idea that there is a government conspiracy to cover-up The X Files is not expressed. Instead the FBI bosses come across as blinkered men who feel Mulder is a ìnutî who is damaging the FBIís standing. They are terrified that one of their agents will end up in court confirming UFO abduction stories. The conspiracy is only at local level.

Another major difference is that Mulder and Scully have an ally within the FBI in the form of Jones. This something that they donít have in the TV series until the third season. Mulder and Scully are not working against a highly orchestrated government conspiracy. What has really been added to spice up the script is the element of paranoia that made the show so popular.

Anthony Forth

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