Another interview courtesy of the X-Files Diaries podcast, this time with Kristen Cloke-Morgan (Glen Morgan’s wife and creative partner), talking in-depth about the revival episode that she co-wrote, the memorable no-dialogue AI episode. Quick notes below:

On “The Field Where I Died“: she thinks the background of her character was that she was probably abused as a child, every time she got in a difficult spot she escaped into another personality.

On “Rm9…“, which she calls “Followers“:

• Glen Morgan had 3 ideas: drones, no dialogue, AI (maybe?)
• She and co-writer Shannon Hamblin boarded the episode at the Morgans’ garage, then photographed the cards and took them to Vancouver for Glen to give notes. It was a collaborative writing process.
• They had done an episode of “Space: Above and Beyond” with no dialogue.
• The actors liked it.
• Scully wearing more comfortable clothes and shoes was not her input.
• The funny bits are Shannon’s, she’s more serious.
• There are few women in TXF. It would have been awkward if a man had written Scully with a vibrator. The vibrator design had to be approved by the studio! The vibrator idea came out of research they did on connected devices.
• They were able to have notes and rewrites on the spot in Vancouver, they were there during prep. They produced their own episode, like Carter had writers do back then, now writers don’t do that any more.
• Many of the crew in Vancouver they knew, collaboration was great.
• Scott Stence (?) did the videos and graphics, he came up with the design for the smiley face, she had him add teeth to make it more creepy. “Scott is coming for dinner” on Scully’s fridge was an easter egg, it was not scripted.
• Hand holding at the end was Glen’s idea, about connection.
• Mulder’s line “why is your house better than mine?” was improvisation by Duchovny, they kept it in.
• Shooting in Mulder’s house was very cold.
• They removed the last line of Scully replying “we can’t teach them to care”, they rewrote that line a lot, maybe it was Glen that cut it out.
• It’s inevitable that, where it can, AI will replace humans. But it can’t write something that will move you like TXF episodes written by humans.
• In the Tay experiment [Microsoft AI chatbot on Twitter], the female-looking AI was abused by males and taught racist sexist things. She was moved by that.
• Robots and AI are much more frequent now vs 2017. Glen used AI images to help for movie pitches. She feels like she is participating in teaching it, and is reluctant.
• She had ELO songs in the script originally; she is a Prince fan.
• When Mulder and Scully got out of the restaurant, a hug was scripted but a kiss was shot, it was cut out.
• Anderson didn’t remember the song “Teach your children well”, Shannon led a rendition for her.
• She was amazed at the set of the sushi restaurant, by set designer Mark Freeborn. She was impressed by the robot wranglers, the programmers for the robots’ movements, the drones people. There were few robots on set, they were duplicated digitally.
• An important distinction vs TXF in the 90s: with politics now, you believe in the truth you want to believe, you create your own reality, instead of believing in The Truth.

(Photo of Kristen from PhileFest, from X-Files News)

https://xfilesdiaries.libsyn.com/145-interview-with-kristen-cloke-morgan