There is no doubt about it the X-Files has to be the weirdest program on tv these days. If you haven't caught it yet you are missing out on the biggest resurgence of tv science fiction since the return of Star Trek - The Next Generation over ten years ago !
The X-Files feature two FBI agents, Fox "Spooky" Mulder (David Duchovny) and Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). From episode one these two characters have seen people come back from the dead, the living die for no apparent reason, people turn into things, things turn into people, things that were supposed to be people but we never figure out what they were, people who are people, just people with bad habits (such as setting fire to things or throwing lightening bolts at other people) etc..
There the weird people on X-Files that are usually characterised as being physically different. Such as the circus people episode that involved a person who could eat anything including the thing that was killing people in the episode. There was also the episode called "phantom" that involved a quadruple amputee who could mentally project his physical self into a different place and commit murders.
The series has been recently criticised for the poor portrayal of both women, non-whites and those of us with physical disabilities. So as an amputee with some skill of writing I set about writing my own script that involved a person(or persons)with a disability in a more positive role.
To get a better idea of what the X-Files are all about, what better idea to be on the show as an extra? With that in mind I got the call from my agent for a part on X-Files, set in a hospital. Guess what part I got to play ? A guy in wheelchair!
To see the scenes I "appear" in Apocrypha Pt2 check out the following photos. Sorry the quality isn't much better.
- Scene 1
- Scene 2
- Scene 3
Whilst on the set and waiting around for my moment of very brief stardom I made the most of things by talking to as many people who didn't seem too busy. I talked to a person who had been with the show since the second episode and I talked to people that had just been with the show since the new season. All had their opinions on the show. I even talked to some of the principal actors on how happy they were with the roles they had been receiving.
All in all I gathered more information in the nine hour session that I could have done from any textbook, script writing course or instructional video; including the best way to get a script in front of Chris Carters' eyes
You maybe asking what my script is about ? Well that remains a secret, but many members of the Amputee Listserv know where some of my inspirations come from. The script is based on amputee issues often discussed on the listserv. I'll leave it at that.
As of January 20th, 1996, the script is in final editing stages, mainly being reformatted to the specifics of the X-Files script format.
Hopefully we will see this script land on the desk of Chris Carter and he can turn it into reality, well at least the X-Files version of reality.
UPDATE: Sept96
A very odd thing happened. I received back two replies to my two submissions of the X-files script. Both sent letters back saying the show does not accept unsolicited scripts and the script was being returned unread. The "unread" script was nowhere to be seen! Neither of the two packages contained the returned script.
So maybe weird things do happen on and off the X-Files screen.
