8 TV Shows You Had No Idea Were Rewritten By Real Life Events

Compared to cinema, TV is a rather fluid art form. With multiple writers, episode directors and usually a much shorter turn around between seasons, it's possible to alter certain aspects of shows in order to combat reality.

Often writers are forced to quickly adapt to real life circumstances, like a star getting sick or pregnant. Heck, the day-to-day lives of writers sometimes effects what they want to happen to their characters, too.

Regardless, it's always fascinating to examine how shows deal with these inevitabilities in different ways, masking them or accommodating them as best they can.

Do they use stunt doubles? Swiftly kill off characters? Or try and write in a reason for their absence? There are a bunch of possibilities. Let's take a look at eight striking examples.

The X-Files - which first aired in September 1993 - is one of the most popular science-fiction television shows of all time, revolving around Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, two FBI agents who investigate the paranormal.

Early on, however, the show's story line was dramatically affected by Gillian Anderson's real life pregnancy, forcing the writers to come up with some sort of explanation. Originally, executives at Fox considered the idea of re-casting Anderson's character, or replacing her with a different agent. It's possible this is the reason why the X-Files are shut down at the end of season (during which Anderson's pregnancy was known), in order to ease the transition between characters.

Instead, the writers decided Scully would be kidnapped by aliens, allowing her to disappear in order to give birth to her child. Not only did this capitalise on the show's sense of mystery, it also meant that the few times she did show up all she had to do was pretend to be unconscious.