Author: Chris Snelgrove Published
It’s almost impossible to overstate how sexy it is The X-Files Back in the ’90s… In addition to the on-screen chemistry between the charming leads, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, the two also appeared in several sexy photos, including Notorious The famous Rolling Stone cover in which they cuddled up in bed. Honestly, after this photo shoot served as the sexual awakening for an entire generation, we don’t think the show even knows what “too hot” means. But one episode proved almost too hot for television: Season 1’s “Gender Benders,” whose concept and story kept changing out of fear that the network would reject it.
gender bender
for writers The X-Filesthe first season was about testing the boundaries, determining what worked best for the show’s story and characters, and what they could pass muster for the network to censor. In Gender Benders , screenwriters Larry Barber and Paul Barber start with a simple yet provocative question: How do you make sex as scary as creepy aliens or chain-smoking government weirdos? The answer to the question was essentially a mandate from the top, with co-executive producer Glen Morgan later saying that creative staff asked for “a sexier episode.”
as The X-Files Producers and writers soon discovered that was easier said than done, with Morgan admitting that “it’s hard to find a story that shows sex in such a horrific way.” The episode “Gender Benders” is the answer to that question…sort of extent. The writers came up with the idea that aliens could change gender, but the episode went through several iterations due to concerns about how the Fox network would react to certain story beats and general concerns about how audiences would feel about a series that questioned pre-existing ideas. Revising sex and gender, especially in the 90s.
missing part
Even after so many years, The X-Files The writers and producers haven’t fully revealed what changes they had to make for “Gender Bender.” One thing we do know, though, is that they originally planned a creepy moment for the episode’s trailer where one of the characters’ crotch begins to rot. It was a bit too much of an emphasis on the whole sex horror angle, and co-executive producer R.W. Goodwin later simply explained why they removed the moment entirely: “If I were watching that episode with my kids, I would turn it off” .
While the gender-bending element is still present thanks to some shape-shifting bad guys, this The X-Files This episode arguably loses its original focus on sex and sexuality. As Glenn Morgan said, the concept for the final episode was an answer to a very different question: “What if there were people from another planet like the Amish?” The answer wasn’t very appealing, and ” “Gender Bender” was pretty (ahem) weak, but it did have the benefit of introducing audiences to Nicholas Lee, who would later return as fan-favorite recurring villain Alex Krichek.
as The X-Files Fans, we can’t look you in the eye and say Gender Bender is a good show, but the story of how it develops is still fascinating. Interestingly, the episode was initially intended to focus on gruesome sex, but concerns about online censorship and audience backlash kept the show from descending into David Cronenberg-style full-body horror. Without these constraints, we might have gotten a cutting-edge episode where a melting crotch was probably the least weird thing in the entire episode.
