Movies - TV
How Dick Van Dyke Inspired One Of The X-Files’ Best Episodes
By WITNEY SEIBOLD
In the episode of “The X-Files” titled “Bad Blood,” Agents Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) have to get their story straight after Mulder murders a young man.
Mulder kills a man thought to be a vampire, but the episode explores this through flashbacks with slightly different versions of the same event.
The original teleplay for “Bad Blood” was a spoof of the hit show “Unsolved Mysteries.” However, writer and producer Vince Gilligan struggled to make it work and began to panic.
Inspired by “The Dick Van Dyke Show” episode “The Night the Roof Fell In,” Gilligan found his solution. The use of multiple perspectives aligned with his vision for “Bad Blood.”
In Andy Meisner's book “Resist or Serve: The Official Guide to the X-Files, Vol. 4,” Gilligan admits, “I thought the best approach would be to tell a very simple paranormal story.”
Gilligan further shared that had to think about how the story could work without being confusing, stating, “So I thought 'Vampires — hell, everybody gets that.'”