Back in the Fall of 1994, the quirky CBS drama Picket Fences was heading into its third season while Fox’s spooky paranormal-investigation series The X-Files was about to start its second season. Neither were huge ratings hits, airing on Friday nights, but both had become critical darlings and both tended to buck the rules of Prime Time television. And that almost included crossover with the two shows in the 1994-95 season, but those plans were sadly halted by network executives.
Allegedly, the idea emerged when David Kelley and Chris Carter met in the parking lot and started discussing their shows (both of which were produced by 20th Century Fox). The two producers actually moved forward with writing the scripts for the crossover which would start with the X-Files episode that would air at 9 PM EST and then continue into the 10 PM EST Picket Fences installment. Kelley had not received approval from CBS on this, though, and when the network executives found out, they nixed the crossover. Both shows went ahead with their episodes, though, they just made tweaks to the stories and removed references to the other shows.
“Red Museum” was the episode of The X-Files which was planned as the beginning of the crossover. The setting was changed from Rome Wisconsin where Picket Fences takes place to the fictional town of Delta Glen. Mulder and Scully investigate a cult that may be possessing teenagers in that town and that may be conducting experiments on cows. The story was wrapped up in that episode, but the original plan was to have it carry over into Picket Fences in the next hour with Mulder and Scully making an appearance.
The Picket Fences episode that would have concluded the crossover was “Away in the Manger”. Both episodes were the tenth for each series that season and would have aired together except that CBS pushed the Picket Fences ep a week to assure there was no continuity between the two. Carter Pike is investigating what he believes to be genetic experiments on cattle at a nearby farm. The town of Delta Glenn is mentioned in the episode along with the fact that two FBI agents were conducting an investigation there. The character Dr. Jerrold Larson, who appeared in the X-Files installment, is also directly mentioned in the episode.
The direct crossover never happened, but the remnants of the story exist in those two episodes. It would have been great fun if it happened, but CBS execs had no interest in promoting a Fox show and pulled the plug before it happened. Though wouldn’t it have been a blast to see Carter Pike and/or Douglas Wambaugh match wits with Mulder and Scully?
You can read more about the crossover at this link.
