In its most infamous monster-of-the-week episode, "Home," Fox's "The X-Files" took the idea of small-town American isolationism to the furthest extreme network TV would allow. First broadcast in October 1996 — two months before the TV Parental Guidelines system went into effect — "Home" juxtaposes Norman Rockwell images with hidden horrors that could be triggering even now for some viewers. In the span of one hour (44 minutes, minus commercials), the episode toggles between blue skies, baseball, a cornfield and Cadillac, '50s pop, references to "The Andy Griffith Show," and much uglier subject matter like infanticide, birth defects, home invasion, violence against Black people, and an incestuous mutant family.
To say it delved into taboos would be an understatement. This wouldn't be your average rerun: Fox withheld airing "Home" again for a full three years until October 1999, by which time the episode would be carrying the show's first and last TV-MA rating. "Only on Halloween ... would we dare air an episode so controversial," read the accompanying TV Guide ad, reprinted in 2015 by The New York Times.
Writers Glen Morgan and James Wong told the Times that "Home" took its title, first and foremost, from their own homecoming to "The X-Files." The duo had been with the show from the beginning. They were the first writers to pen an episode after series creator Chris Carter, and would go on to pen 10 more episodes before departing.
Home" brought Morgan and Wong back into the fold, and they reasserted themselves by pushing the envelope. The episode opens with a squishy birthing scene where a trio of genetic monstrosities deliver the baby, then bury it alive in the rain.The people who responded first were the executives," Wong said. "I remember getting a call from a producer. He goes, 'You guys are sick!'"
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