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Listen to Glen Morgan trying to hide his frustration with shippers in this interview with The X-Files Diaries! As always, my detailed notes below:

• Morgan & Wong were about to sign for “Moon over Miami” run by Harley Peyton (of Twin Peaks; it lasted half a season), but then watched TXF pilot and wanted in. They were sort of pushed to work with Carter by Peter Roth. Marilyn Osborne also shifted to TXF over from the Steven J Cannell productions.
• Carter would have been happy to have done UFO of the week, the network and Roth were pushing for more stuff. Gordon & Gansa were not sure what the show was about, they did weird science. Morgan & Wong did horror. [That’s really important, imagine if Carter had got his way!]
• There was no writers room then, only for comedies. They only got together to talk about ideas.
• He acknowledges the great directors Bowman, Nutter and Manners. M&W wanted Nutter and Manners over from Cannell, but Goodwin didn’t want them, they had done things that were out of style like The A-Team. But then some directors dropped out and they were brought in. Morgan worked with Kim’s brother Kelly in Space: Above and Beyond.
• “Squeeze/Tooms“: M&W’s office was a small box, there were cockroaches. Wong thought what if a guy came out of the air vent. Morgan thought of how serial killer Richard Ramirez could break into people’s homes and thought what if a man could stretch. Carter had been to France recently and was spooked by foie gras, thought what if a man eats livers. Morgan visited an escalator that was being repaired, thought what if Tooms lived there. [No mention of the liver-eating mutant of The Night Strangler as an inspiration!]
• “Beyond the Sea“: was about his mother reacting to her own father passing.
• “Home“: they figured that Scully would start thinking of motherhood at her age, judging from personal friends and Gillian being a mother. “Wonderful, Wonderful” was one of his mom’s favourite songs.
• “The Field Where I Died“: his father had a fascination with reincarnation. Ken Burns “The Civil War” documentary series was an inspiration, in that a man called Sullivan wrote a letter accompanied by violin music called “Ashokan Farewell“. The people Kristen portrayed were all people they knew. Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown were inspirations, there are misunderstood things about those tragedies. The regression scenes were both running 8-10 min long each, they had to cut severely like 8 min, he had to cut things that gave more legitimacy to Scully’s point of view. (Goodwin’s cut of “One Breath” ran 16 min long!) Wong likes crane shots. The point of the episode was that we do not have one but a bunch of soul mates.
• “Musings of a CSM“: Bill Davis gave Wong grief while shooting, he thought the script was making fun of him (Lance Henriksen thought the same in Millennium). Based on comic The Autobiography of Lex Luthor. They were fascinated by the CSM in the pilot, who is he? In “Tooms” and “One Breath”, Bob Goodwin said don’t give him a line or scene, he can’t act! Morgan wrote “Musings” as if the CSM really did these things. Carter and executive Ken Horton thought they should change “Memoirs” to “Musings” to make it more ambiguous, and didn’t want Frohike to die. M&W tried to create a shot of Frohike getting shot with a sign and Hershey’s syrup, tried to put it in the cut that the network would see, but the shot disappeared! Over time, Morgan has to give credit to Carter, there’s another reading of the character if the CSM was a failed writer. There’s even a link with “Forehead Sweat”, maybe the CSM was reinforcing his own memory to convince himself he did these things. Says Darin is the better writer. [Even Glen says that!]
• “Never Again“: “where’s Scully’s desk” was in response to online fan comments. Morgan and Gillian wanted Scully to have sex (Mulder had had flings so why not?), Carter didn’t think that was right for the character. He had a disagreement with Carter, but it’s his show, his decision (he doesn’t sound bitter). He didn’t edit the ep, he wrote it and was out. Frustrated that this episode didn’t air after the Superbowl.
• Revival: He tried to watch almost all the episodes to catch up. [Wow!] The marketing people thought “Founder’s Mutation” would fit better as the 2nd ep and it was switched with “Home Again”. For “This”, he felt they were plodding so he wanted to kick off things with more action. The s11 cinematographer Craig Wrobleski was great, he wished they had him more. The handcuff line in “This” was pandering to shippers!
• When they start discussing the Mulder-Scully ship: “You two need therapy!” [That’s my Morgan!]
• In early discussions with Fox: if Scully sees an alien or if they kiss, the show’s over.
• All couples on TV were fooling around, but they wanted to be different, two people can be very emotionally attached without sex, and you didn’t see that on TV.
• But, every good show recalibrates itself over time, he sees why M&S ended up together in the long term.- He is proud of the Scully effect.
• The genius of Carter is “I want to believe”, not “I believe”, not “I don’t believe”.

https://xfilesdiaries.libsyn.com/138-glen-morgan-interview