The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X Files
The Truth is Out There: The Official Guide to the X-Files (1995)
by Brian Lowry
279 pages - HarperPrism
This book covers the first two seasons of the television show. I picked this up for a few cents at a library book sale, otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't have gone out of my way to get my hands on it. The most interesting parts are the pieces at the beginning, that talk about how the show was inspired and created, and how it got a chance to be a pilot, and then a series. Another piece details what is involved in producing an episode. Much of the rest of the book is taken up by bland profiles of characters and actors (why do they always mention the person's birth date minus the year? Do they expect readers to want to know their astrological signs, without letting the reader know how old the actors are?) as well as a few pages on each episode that are mostly taken up by too-long summaries of the plot (why would someone be reading this if they hadn't seen the episodes?).
It's an 'official' guide, so there's a lot of back-slapping and self-congratulating, and there's hardly a critical word said about anything. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit is that Darin Morgan, who went on to write some of the most entertaining and intelligent episodes of the series, first played the part of the 'flukeman' in the episode The Host, and the costume took so many hours to get into that once it was on he stayed in it for 20 hours straight, which meant that he had to relieve himself into it. Ew.
by Brian Lowry
279 pages - HarperPrism
This book covers the first two seasons of the television show. I picked this up for a few cents at a library book sale, otherwise I'm sure I wouldn't have gone out of my way to get my hands on it. The most interesting parts are the pieces at the beginning, that talk about how the show was inspired and created, and how it got a chance to be a pilot, and then a series. Another piece details what is involved in producing an episode. Much of the rest of the book is taken up by bland profiles of characters and actors (why do they always mention the person's birth date minus the year? Do they expect readers to want to know their astrological signs, without letting the reader know how old the actors are?) as well as a few pages on each episode that are mostly taken up by too-long summaries of the plot (why would someone be reading this if they hadn't seen the episodes?).
It's an 'official' guide, so there's a lot of back-slapping and self-congratulating, and there's hardly a critical word said about anything. Perhaps the most interesting tidbit is that Darin Morgan, who went on to write some of the most entertaining and intelligent episodes of the series, first played the part of the 'flukeman' in the episode The Host, and the costume took so many hours to get into that once it was on he stayed in it for 20 hours straight, which meant that he had to relieve himself into it. Ew.