10 TV Moments That Were Almost WAY Darker
4. The Cigarette Smoking Man Almost Killed The Lone Gunmen - The X-Files
The Cigarette Smoking Man was one of the X-Files many unsolved mysteries for years of the show’s original run before an episode spotlighting the enigmatic figure, Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, finally gave us a little insight into his origin and purpose. The character remained shrouded in mystery even after his time in centre stage, but his story almost took a far darker turn—and offed some other fan favourites in the process.
The Lone Gunmen, comic relief of the show’s early seasons and eventual stars of a much-maligned spin-off show of their own, were going to be killed by the episode’s titular protagonist when they came to close to revealing his true identity. Instead, the creators opted for a more ambiguous ending, leaving the veracity of the Lone Gunmen’s theories unconfirmed.
Of course, this being the X-Files the creators couldn’t resist including a nod to this in the episode proper, with a scene wherein the eponymous mystery man complains that a magazine which published a story of his “completely changed the ending.”