Believe it or not, The X-Files often drew on real-world events for their scripts. We're not sure if, like, the Flukeman was a ripped-from-the-headlines deal - and for the sake of our nightmares, please say it wasn't - but they often took news stories and gave them a supernatural spin. One such event was the tragic fate of TWA Flight 800, a domestic airliner which exploded and crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on the approach to New York in July of 1996. All 230 passengers were killed, making it the third-deadliest aviation accident in US history. Sounds like a good case for Mulder and Scully, thought Jeffrey Reddick! Of course, just having them investigate a plane crash would not also be pretty un-X-Files, but probably not their jurisdiction. We know most of the things Dana and Fox get up to aren't actually the job of the FBI, but still. How do you make it weird? "I read this story about a woman who was on vacation and her mom called her and said 'Don't take the flight tomorrow, I have a really bad feeling about it'," remembers Reddick. "She switched flights and the plane that she would have been on crashed. I thought, thats creepy - what if she was supposed to die on that flight?" Sounds familiar, huh? That's because, after the idea was rejected by Chris Carter, X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong took it, and made it into Final Destination.
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/
