Vince Gilligan wasn't always the maverick TV writing genius we all came to admire/worship when he came up with Breaking Bad. Before he hit on the (admittedly insane on paper) concept of a meth-making, cancer-ridden chemistry teacher, he cut his teeth pitching and penning some of the weirder X-Files episodes we saw during the show's nine season run. He even wrote an episode starring his Breaking Bad lead, Bryan Cranston, about a crazy man who kidnaps Mulder and forces him to drive across the country - is he deranged, or is he onto one of those sweet government conspiracies Fox loves so much? He's definitely an anti-semite, that's for sure. The premise of Drive has its origins in a much different, much more ridiculous pitch Gilligan had, however. So insane and ridiculous, in fact, that it became something of a running joke in the writers' room. So, like, you know Tilt-A-Whirls? Over here we call them Waltzers, those low-risk, low-adrenaline fairground rides where you sit in a spinning cup that goes round and round a conveyer belt? Yeah, Gilligan's original idea was that somebody would get taken hostage on a circus attraction that doesn't even move that fast. That was an idea the creator of Breaking Bad pitched multiple times. Alongside the obviously ridiculous elements of that concept, the writers pointed out some other glaring flaws in the idea: the Tilt-A-Whirl lacked any explicit mystery for Mulder and Scully to investigate. Which is how he decided to add that, after the ride was shut off, the hostage taker's head would explode. Which was still very, very silly, and didn't work until it was adapted to the Speed-esque scenario of Drive, with secret government experiments into low-frequency waves as a weapon thrown in the mix. The end result is pretty great but still, an high-stakes hostage negotiation on a Tilt-A-Whirl starring Walter White? That would have been a sight to behold.
Tom Baker is the Comics Editor at WhatCulture! He's heard all the Doctor Who jokes, but not many about Randall and Hopkirk. He also blogs at http://communibearsilostate.wordpress.com/
