A recent interview with the writers of The X-Files season 11 episode 11X07: Rm9sbG93ZXJz aka “Followers”: Kristen Cloke-Morgan and Shannon Hamblin, from the “Hey That’s Me” podcast. There’s quite a bit of repetition compared to an interview with Cloke from two years ago for The X-Files Diaries. Here are the highlights:
Most importantly:
- Glen offered them to write the episode. During s11 there was a concern that there were not enough female writers, they decided to turn over some episodes to other writers. [Just in case there was any doubt left: Gillian Anderson’s public comments had a positive, immediate and concrete impact on the making of the show: had she not made these comments, this would have been a purely Glen Morgan episode, and I suppose 11X09: Nothing Lasts Forever would have been a Wong-only episode. Gillian’s comments were made in June 2017, the female writers were announced in August, the original script draft (white production) is dated 17 October and there were script revisions to 5 November.]
Also:
- Shannon was a fan of TXF. She met Glen Morgan because a science fiction script she wrote got to him. [Looks like this was not produced — her IMDb page is quite empty.] She was a writers assistant during TXF s11.
- Glen guided them throughout with story notes and corrections.
- Darin Morgan looked at their story cards; he was the one that suggested the blob fish.
- Glen wanted 4 things: the Tay tweets, drones, AI, no dialogue.
- Kristen: there’s too much dialogue, David’s funny and they kept his improvised lines, but they could have been more disciplined. [I agree! It would have been great if there was absolutely no dialogue until the very last scene.]
- Praise for production designer Mark Freeborn [TXF s10-11, IWTB, MM s1-2-3]. They both loved the sushi restaurant. It was a store of some kind before becoming that set.
- Kristen did the voice of Wendy (at Scully’s house).
- They were both on set for the whole shoot for about 3 weeks (except for Kristen for the final scene at the cafe). It was really freezing and raining a lot. It was shot around end of October-beginning of November. It’s rare that writers get invited on set, especially if it’s out of town, but this happened with TXF.
- Mulder’s house exterior was shot on location; the interior was a rebuilt set at a studio. Scully’s house was a real house.
- There were about 8 drones on set, they were replicated with CGI.
- They storyboarded everything. Despite no dialogue, the script was about the typical length.
- Gillian didn’t know the “Treat Your Children” song, and Shannon did a karaoke version in front of the whole crew during the shoot, the crew joined in the singing.
- The end scenes were shot at a plastic bottle making factory.
- “This Man” appearing in every episode: this was a joke between Glen and Kristen’s daughter Greer. [As could be expected — no “alternate universe” theories were mentioned.]
- Above Scully’s head there’s a drawing made by Kristen’s young son. [Unclear where this is: at the final drone scene, or at the final cafe scene. It’s not the robot Nighthawks.]
And also this unexpected bit of information:
- Kristen originally auditioned for Scully. [This is the first time I hear of this! Imagine what could have been. Kristen as Scully, Gillian as Lara Means. Sacrilege: it could have worked!]
