Random X-Files Storylines That Never Aired (16 items)

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  (#3) A Tribute to "Night of the Living Dead"

  Imagine if Stephen King wrote a modern update of the classic Night of the Living Dead starring Mulder and Scully, and it was directed by zombie creator George A Romero. It could have been legendary, but the idea fell just short of becoming reality. Romero, King, and X-Files executive producers were on board for the episode, talks were underway, the wheels were in motion - but eventually it all fell apart, as Hollywood dream teams usually do.
  
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  (#6) The Victor Eugene Tooms Origin Story No One Read

  Actor Doug Hutchinson, who portrayed recurring X-Files villain Victor Eugene Tooms, wrote an origins story script for his character. In an interview for a 1996 issue of the X-Files Magazine, Hutchinson explained his story: "He is an incarnation of a ravenous, liver-eating Central American Indian God in an experiment to find out how he could remain so young and immortal; he was infused with a drug that backfired and he ended up escaping the asylum. So now he’s eating livers like M&Ms – he’s on a rampage!" 

  Unfortunately, due to legal reasons, no one at Fox could even read the script, so the idea was shelved. 
  
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  (#2) The Secret Origin of "Final Destination"

  Somewhere in the multiverse there exists an alternate reality in which the horror franchise "Final Destination" never happened, but was instead a single episode of The X-Files entitled "Flight 180." In 1994, screenwriter Jeffrey Reddick created a spec script for X-Files entitled "Flight 180." He wrote it for his agent, to show around as a sample, and because X-Files was his favorite show. Years later, Reddick reworked the episode, which was about a man (Scully's brother) who can foresee his own death, into what has become a bustling series of blockbuster thrillers. Never give up, kids.
  
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  (#11) The Tilt-A-Whirl Hostage

  This pitch never evolved past a basic idea from writer Vince Gilligan. For years, he tried to sell the other writers and producers on the concept of an episode in which a man holds a hostage on a Tilt-A-Whirl. It was a funny gag in theory, but ultimately it was decided there wasn't much of a mystery to build around it. Vince would later re-use some ideas from his pitches for the episode "Drive," featuring future Breaking Bad star Bryan Cranston.
  
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  (#4) Abraham Lincoln Haunts the White House

  More than a decade before it was cool to have Abraham Lincoln fight supernatural villains, X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong had the idea to include him as an apparition haunting the White House, which Mulder and Scully investigated on the down low. The writing team lost momentum and interest in the idea after a series of rewrites were ordered on a different episode, and instead squeezed out the episode "Never Again," which featured the voice acting talents of Jodie Foster. 
  
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  (#10) Pacific School of Religion

  The original idea behind the classic episode "Kitsunegari" was conceived by longtime writer Tim Minear, who envisioned a cryptic storyline about an atheist in prison who begins hearing the voice of God, commanding him to commit murder. The pitch was accepted, but due to time constraints the original idea was folded in with an existing character named Robert Modell in the episode "Pusher."
  

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