Trivia / The X-Files S04 E06 "Sanguinarium"

• Writing by the Seat of Your Pants: Like many first time X-Files writers, Valerie and Vivian Mayhew had a difficult time shaping their story to the specifications of the show. Valerie would describe their original idea as "pagers are scary" which eventually developed to involve doctors and witchcraft. (Somewhere along the line, the pagers disappeared.) Still, their spec script was heavily rewritten by the full-time staff, with Howard Gordon, Vince Gilligan, Glenn Morgan and James Wong all playing major roles in reshaping the final draft. The Mayhews credited Morgan and Wong in particular both for helping them develop their original ideas (Morgan suggested making the doctors plastic surgeons) and rewriting some of their draft's more awkward passages, while Gordon apparently came up with most of the gorier murder scenes.