Tommy Westphall universe theory centered around St. Elsewhere.
In the world of comics, X-Files crossovers got even crazier, with one massive past event tying Chris Carter's franchise to the Ghostbusters, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and even The Crow. It's hard to imagine any of those crossovers working onscreen, but such is the magic of comic books, a landscape in which just about any crazy idea can be made a reality. Compared to all those, an X-Files team-up with Unsolved Mysteries seems like quite the logical move.
None other than future Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan was set to pen the X-Files and Unsolved Mysteries crossover episode, with plans to air it in the middle of season 5. Here's why that ultimately didn't happen, despite it sounding like a genius idea.
The X-Files Almost Crossed Over With Unsolved Mysteries - Why It Didn't Happen
In 1997, Vince Gilligan was tasked with writing the 12th episode of season 5, to be shot after the show went on a few week break for the holidays. His idea was to have The X-Files crossover with Unsolved Mysteries, and on paper, it seems inspired. The story would've seen a standard X-Files case of the week profiled as if it was a segment on Unsolved Mysteries, complete with host Robert Stack narrating the action. An added comedic element involved different actors playing Mulder and Scully in the show's reenactments, which stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson were apparently quite onboard with, as it would've required a lot less work on their parts.
As great as all of that sounds though, Gilligan hit a creative wall when it came to actually writing the full crossover episode. He just couldn't figure out how to make it work as a whole, and eventually just shelved the idea. This left him still needing to come up with a new script, which thankfully ended up being the fan-favorite X-Files episode "Bad Blood." While Gilligan was able to salvage his assignment, one can't help but wonder how cool a finished X-Files crossover with Unsolved Mysteries could've been. Alas, Hollywood is full of abandoned ideas, some of them coming off better on paper than what actually gets made.