never again
i found this very interesting. it was in one of my episode guides, and i thought i'd post it. it's all about the episode 'never again'. i'll put it under a cut, just to save my ass.
note: please forgive any typos. there is a lot to type and little time :) thank you.
back story:
The aptly numbered 4x13 is perhaps the most talked-about -- and certainly the most idiosyncratic-- episode of the fourth season. Critics and viewers alike commented on how many iron-cladTV rules were broken in "Never Again."
In which other network drama series, they wondered, had they ever seen:
1. The two in and yang, joined-at-the-hip lead characters nonforcibly separated for most of the episode
2. A thrilling climax in which neither rode to the rescue of the other.
3. A scene in which the two heroes sit down and matter-of-factly discuss the secret unspoken conflicts, tensions, and inadequacies that underlie and drive the relationship between them.
And when has a prime-time heroine ever exposed her basic needs and neuroses so openly --- and, yes, embarrassingly?
'I thought it was a great idea," says Gillian Anderson. "I personally was going through a dark period at the time, and I wanted to explore Scully's dark side. For some reason, Glen and Jim were on the same wavelength that week. Afterward, a lot of people told me that on that episode i was so 'unlike' Scully or that 'it showed my range'. I told them that I thought they were wrong.
'On TV shows," she adds, "You get to see such a small percentage of somebody's personality, because that's what the audience wants to see--- the norm, that something that they can rely on from week to week to week. But we all have many sides of our personalities, all of us have secrets. All of us have parts of ourselves that we don't show to other people. All of us can go home and be depressed at night-- and be smiling during the day. All of us can go home and binge and purge in the middle fo the night and nobody would know.
"I don't think that what iI did here was out of character for Scully. The only thing different is that the audience hadn't seen it before."
Anderson admits to being a bit disapointed that, in order to move "Leonard Betts" (4x14)--which features Mulder and Scully in the series' customary ration-- into the post-Super Bowl time slot, the airdates of 4x14 and 4x14 were reversed.
"If' I'd known that Scully knew that she had cancer when we were filming 'Never Again', I would have played the part differently," she says.
Anderson also cuations that it should not be inferred from this episode that she and Scully have the same needs and desires. She found Scully's erotic fascination with tattooing, for instance, a little hard to understand, which is perhaps why she volunteered to actually have the ouroboros tattooed onto her back during filming.
"They told me it would have taken too long. It wouldn't have been practical," says Anderson with a sad smile of regret.
In reality, the tattoos in the show were decals--designed by art department staffer Kristina Lyne, manufactured by an LA- based company called Real Creations, then applied, touched up, and altered (for instance, when Bettie opens her other eye) by makeup artist Laverne Basham.
The demonic lady on Ed Jerse's bicep was inspired by the work of an old style tattoo artist named 'Brooklyn Joe' Lieber, who practiced his trade in the San Francisco Bay Area, but that's another story.
Of all the music that Mark Show composed for the episode--"There was a real film noir quality to it. So I thought, What a great time to use a lot of jazz type stuff. And a lot of saxophone"--he was most jazzed by the wild, discordant riffs that accompany Ed Jerse as he drags the stunned Scully downstairs. It was, he says, a strange combination of a dance rhythm track combined with "oddball samples of alternative rock" that did the trick.
The Partridge Family tunes floating up from the unfortunate Kaye Schilling's apartment were actually performed by a Partridge Family soundalike band.
However, the Jodie Foster who's credited as the voice of Bettie is actually the Jodie Foster. The Oscar-winning actress, a close friend of Fox Television casting chief Randy Stone, is a longtime fan of The X-Files--and, in fact, was STones original role model for casting the role of Scully in 1993.
When Stone phoned and asked her to play the part, Foster agreed immediately. Working with a somewhat awed Morgan and Wong, she nailed her lines in the recording studio in less than an hour-- then went off to work with Robert Zemeckis on Contact.
The only problem, says Stone, was that his friend was thus unavailable to record her lines for any of the foreign-language versions of the episode. "She speaks French fluently," says Stone. "She would have been great."
Social notes from the cutting edge:
When Gillian Anderson was told about the groundbreaking storyline of "Never Again," she made the unusual request to participate in the choice of guest star. "I said, 'Is it possible that I can just have a sneak preview of the man you're thinking about casting for this character who's supposed to have his tongue down my throat'?" says Anderson.
Adds Anderson, "They said, 'Uh, sure.' So they sent me a head shot of the person they had in mind, and I said 'Oh, I don't know. This doesn't feel right. Can I look at some more people? CAn you show me some tape on this guy?' Whatever. And we go back and forth; it ends up the show was really written for him' and that's who they chose, and he was perfect. He really pulled it off on many levels.
"And the fact is," says the actress, smiling, "we've been dating for six months now."
At press time Anderson and Rodney Rowland---the former star of, you guessed it, Space: Above and Beyond-- were still an item.
Little tid bits from the episode:
the basement incinerator that Ed uses to dispose of his victims is actually, notes art director Garry Allen, the third incinerator that has been designed and built for the series. The first two were for "F. Emasculata" (2.22) and "Hell Money" (3.19). Yet another incinerator, a big industrial unit, will appear later in the season in "Zero Sum".
Ed Jerse's favorite bar is named Hard Eight for Morgan and Wong's production company.
The camera angles and long tracking shot backward down the stairs are a conscious homage to a similar shot in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy
The end. omg, my hands are seriously shaking. ok, if you've already read that....then sorry. i just found it interesting. :)
note: please forgive any typos. there is a lot to type and little time :) thank you.
back story:
The aptly numbered 4x13 is perhaps the most talked-about -- and certainly the most idiosyncratic-- episode of the fourth season. Critics and viewers alike commented on how many iron-cladTV rules were broken in "Never Again."
In which other network drama series, they wondered, had they ever seen:
1. The two in and yang, joined-at-the-hip lead characters nonforcibly separated for most of the episode
2. A thrilling climax in which neither rode to the rescue of the other.
3. A scene in which the two heroes sit down and matter-of-factly discuss the secret unspoken conflicts, tensions, and inadequacies that underlie and drive the relationship between them.
And when has a prime-time heroine ever exposed her basic needs and neuroses so openly --- and, yes, embarrassingly?
'I thought it was a great idea," says Gillian Anderson. "I personally was going through a dark period at the time, and I wanted to explore Scully's dark side. For some reason, Glen and Jim were on the same wavelength that week. Afterward, a lot of people told me that on that episode i was so 'unlike' Scully or that 'it showed my range'. I told them that I thought they were wrong.
'On TV shows," she adds, "You get to see such a small percentage of somebody's personality, because that's what the audience wants to see--- the norm, that something that they can rely on from week to week to week. But we all have many sides of our personalities, all of us have secrets. All of us have parts of ourselves that we don't show to other people. All of us can go home and be depressed at night-- and be smiling during the day. All of us can go home and binge and purge in the middle fo the night and nobody would know.
"I don't think that what iI did here was out of character for Scully. The only thing different is that the audience hadn't seen it before."
Anderson admits to being a bit disapointed that, in order to move "Leonard Betts" (4x14)--which features Mulder and Scully in the series' customary ration-- into the post-Super Bowl time slot, the airdates of 4x14 and 4x14 were reversed.
"If' I'd known that Scully knew that she had cancer when we were filming 'Never Again', I would have played the part differently," she says.
Anderson also cuations that it should not be inferred from this episode that she and Scully have the same needs and desires. She found Scully's erotic fascination with tattooing, for instance, a little hard to understand, which is perhaps why she volunteered to actually have the ouroboros tattooed onto her back during filming.
"They told me it would have taken too long. It wouldn't have been practical," says Anderson with a sad smile of regret.
In reality, the tattoos in the show were decals--designed by art department staffer Kristina Lyne, manufactured by an LA- based company called Real Creations, then applied, touched up, and altered (for instance, when Bettie opens her other eye) by makeup artist Laverne Basham.
The demonic lady on Ed Jerse's bicep was inspired by the work of an old style tattoo artist named 'Brooklyn Joe' Lieber, who practiced his trade in the San Francisco Bay Area, but that's another story.
Of all the music that Mark Show composed for the episode--"There was a real film noir quality to it. So I thought, What a great time to use a lot of jazz type stuff. And a lot of saxophone"--he was most jazzed by the wild, discordant riffs that accompany Ed Jerse as he drags the stunned Scully downstairs. It was, he says, a strange combination of a dance rhythm track combined with "oddball samples of alternative rock" that did the trick.
The Partridge Family tunes floating up from the unfortunate Kaye Schilling's apartment were actually performed by a Partridge Family soundalike band.
However, the Jodie Foster who's credited as the voice of Bettie is actually the Jodie Foster. The Oscar-winning actress, a close friend of Fox Television casting chief Randy Stone, is a longtime fan of The X-Files--and, in fact, was STones original role model for casting the role of Scully in 1993.
When Stone phoned and asked her to play the part, Foster agreed immediately. Working with a somewhat awed Morgan and Wong, she nailed her lines in the recording studio in less than an hour-- then went off to work with Robert Zemeckis on Contact.
The only problem, says Stone, was that his friend was thus unavailable to record her lines for any of the foreign-language versions of the episode. "She speaks French fluently," says Stone. "She would have been great."
Social notes from the cutting edge:
When Gillian Anderson was told about the groundbreaking storyline of "Never Again," she made the unusual request to participate in the choice of guest star. "I said, 'Is it possible that I can just have a sneak preview of the man you're thinking about casting for this character who's supposed to have his tongue down my throat'?" says Anderson.
Adds Anderson, "They said, 'Uh, sure.' So they sent me a head shot of the person they had in mind, and I said 'Oh, I don't know. This doesn't feel right. Can I look at some more people? CAn you show me some tape on this guy?' Whatever. And we go back and forth; it ends up the show was really written for him' and that's who they chose, and he was perfect. He really pulled it off on many levels.
"And the fact is," says the actress, smiling, "we've been dating for six months now."
At press time Anderson and Rodney Rowland---the former star of, you guessed it, Space: Above and Beyond-- were still an item.
Little tid bits from the episode:
the basement incinerator that Ed uses to dispose of his victims is actually, notes art director Garry Allen, the third incinerator that has been designed and built for the series. The first two were for "F. Emasculata" (2.22) and "Hell Money" (3.19). Yet another incinerator, a big industrial unit, will appear later in the season in "Zero Sum".
Ed Jerse's favorite bar is named Hard Eight for Morgan and Wong's production company.
The camera angles and long tracking shot backward down the stairs are a conscious homage to a similar shot in Alfred Hitchcock's Frenzy
The end. omg, my hands are seriously shaking. ok, if you've already read that....then sorry. i just found it interesting. :)