How The X-Files Accidentally Pushed Mulder And Scully’s Romance
Younger fans may not realize how much of The X-Files’ early success was due to a growing community of online fans, many of whom wanted to see Mulder and Scully put down those flashlights and finally hook up. Series creator Chris Carter initially seemed opposed to pairing these characters off, and it took long and excruciating years for all of these characters’ cute chemistry to culminate in a real relationship. This has caused many fans to speculate that Carter never wanted his FBI agents to hook up in the first place, but he basically made that inevitable by dismissing other romantic interests in Season 1.
The Chemistry Was There From Day One
When you think back to the first season of The X-Files, you likely remember the intense chemistry between Mulder and Scully. What you might not remember was the failed attempts to give these characters other love interests. Those characters never stuck around because the tension between stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson was palpable, a fact which greatly affected the pilot episode of this hit show.
The Network Tried To Interfere
For the pilot episode, executives at Fox were concerned at first that there needed to be some love interest in the mix. Because of this, they wanted to add the character Ethan Minette as Scully’s boyfriend, someone who already dislikes Mulder based on reputation alone.
Carter eventually cut the character out because the show already had what the network wanted: “It was very easy to cut Ethan out,” he said, “because he just slowed down the scenes where you would see Mulder and Scully together, which is where all the heat really was.”
Seeing Other People
Despite knowing just how much “heat” Mulder and Scully could bring on their own, the X-Files creator still made attempts to give these characters other love interests. For example, the episode “The Jersey Devil” has Scully going on a date with a man named Rob, but sparks don’t exactly fly. Despite the new beau’s interest in continuing the relationship, Scully wants to focus on her work with Mulder, and Rob is never seen again.
Delaying The Inevitable
The most elaborate attempt to give one of these characters an outside love interest occurred in “Fire,” and the attempt went (ahem) up in flames. British cop Phoebe Greene is introduced as one of Mulder’s old girlfriends who returns to help him work on a case, and the script includes plenty of material fleshing out their previous relationship. That relationship was supposed to provide the emotional throughline of the entire episode, but because of the visible lack of chemistry between these characters, Greene was edited out of the episode as much as she possibly could be.
Later, the show would try to give Mulder and Scully other romances: we meet Mulder’s old flame (and possible former wife!) in season 5, and Scully hooks up with a bad boy who convinces her to get a bad tramp stamp tattoo in Season 4. At this point, though, the show was simply delaying the inevitable because most fans wanted to see their favorite characters exploring each others’ bodies rather than the latest UFO rumors.
Not If But When
My thesis is simple: whether Chris Carter really wanted Mulder and Scully to hook up or not, he accidentally made their romance inevitable by removing other romantic possibilities in Season 1. The show not only brought up the prospect of other boyfriends and girlfriends but explicitly showed how those pairings didn’t work.
Frankly, audiences put two and two together after seeing these two show no real interest in anyone else but constantly risk their lives for each other. By the end of that first season, it was no longer a question of if these characters would get together but when.
The ‘Ship That Created The Internet
As a lifelong ‘shipper, I’m happy that Mulder and Scully got together, though I will always find it infuriating how chastely Chris Carter portrayed their relationship. After all those years of teasing, it became rare to see these hot characters so much as kiss each other. If you want anything else, remember that the truth—by which I mean fanfiction nastier than anything in Mulder’s VHS collection—is out there.
