By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
The X-Files has arguably had two pilot episodes…the one that kicked off the show back in Season 1 and the first episode of Season 10, which kicked off the show’s unfortunate revival. But what if there was a secret pilot hiding in plain sight for decades and was better than either of those other episodes? We’re talking about the Season 2 X-Files premiere “Little Green Men,” which episode co-writer Glen Morgan said “had to be kind of a new pilot.”
Why, though, would this veteran X-Files writer think the Season 2 premiere had to be a new pilot when Season 1 did a perfect job establishing the show’s sexy, spooky vibes? One reason is that the Season 1 finale “The Erlenmeyer Flask” featured the titular X-Files getting closed down and Agent Mulder’s government informant Deep Throat getting assassinated. The show’s rules and its characters had changed, and “Little Green Men” co-writer James Wong said that he and Morgan “wanted Mulder to question himself.”
Mulder questioning himself was a big part of what made this season premiere different because he functioned for most of Season 1 (and most of the show, really) as a crusader who always knew exactly what the government was trying to keep hidden. Mulder’s zeal is so powerful and well-known that on multiple occasions, the villainous Cigarette Smoking Man refused to kill the younger man because it would turn him into a martyr for other truth seekers. Therefore, seeing this X-Files character second-guessing himself and wallowing in a bit of misery made “Little Green Men” a secret pilot that recontextualized his entire character.
Beyond that, Wong pointed out that this Season 2 premiere needed “to answer the logistical questions” such as “what’s Scully doing now, what’s Mulder doing now.” Working on the X-Files is what brought these two together in the first place. With that department shut down, these two FBI agents had a new status quo, and “Little Green Men” worked like a second X-Files pilot in part because it had to re-establish who these characters were, both apart and together.
While Glen Morgan and James Wong were two of the best writers for The X-Files, not all of their ideas for this new pilot stuck around for the rest of the show. For example, both of them liked the idea that Mulder’s fascination with aliens was all in his head…like, that he might have imagined his sister’s extraterrestrial abduction and spent a lifetime erroneously chasing down bad guys who didn’t really exist. It’s a neat concept that would be right at home in modern genre storytelling, but it’s also a concept that completely changes one of the show’s main characters and his guiding passion.
Having learned that Morgan and Wong considered their X-Files episode “Little Green Men” a second attempt at a pilot has given us new respect for this awesome episode. The story does more than catch us up on characters and establish a new status quo; it also sets the show up for success, giving the second season enough momentum to make it much better than Season 1. As for Mulder being driven by demons in his own mind…well, that’s one plot point we’re happy never really made it past this episode.
