Hey 👋 just reading your All IVF Roads Lead Away from The Unnatural and to Millennium post, and I agree with the S6 timing for the IVF attempts. I never bought into the S7 timeline (I commented that on IG under a video and many people got upset) as the relationship shifted after Amor Fati. I won’t compare haircuts etc as we know this is all retcon
On the topic of retcon, what’s your theory on why CC / 1013 decided to add that IVF story in Per Manum?
I am not really sure how it adds to anything more, other than saying Scully’s pregnancy is a miracle and was deeply desired by both of them
The timelines on IVF / IVF process might have been butchered (and Mulder storing her ova in his pocket is a no-no but nvm), but I believe there was a deeper deliberate intention there, I never figured out what it was and I would love to hear your take on it.
Hey, luckily for everyone, Frank Spotnitz told us! :DDD
April 2001: The pivotal, if not confusing, mythology episode ‘Per Manum’ used flashbacks to establish the fact that, at some unspecified time in the past, Scully was trying to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization. (Per X-Files canon, Scully’s own abduction back in Season 2 left her barren.) The reasoning for bringing up the in vitro angle at all, Spotnitz explains, was twofold. “One is that [Scully’s infertility] was a thread of The X-Files’ mythology that had never been sewn up. Back in season 4, we saw Mulder with the harvested [ova] that they’d taken from Scully; but we’d never had an opportunity to address it until now. The other reason was that we have this bombshell with Scully’s pregnancy, but we have no emotional context for it. So it felt good to show the audience the back story for Scully and Mulder, leading up to this news that she was indeed pregnant.”
That's Spotnitz for you, always remembering and bringing back the dropped throughlines. For example: CC originally toyed with the idea of giving Maggie cancer in Season 4, but Frank (jointly with Shiban) recalled the MUFON women and presented Scully's cancer arc instead. (Spotnitz also thought up Scully's pregnancy as early as Season 5, which wasn't acted upon until he and CC closed the mytharc and plotted the road to Requiem.)
As an aside, the brain disease (I remain convinced) was a way to give Mulder a substantive subplot in DD's absence... and was butchered because there was nothing canonically to spring from (unlike the IVF arc-ish, which had its foundation in Season 4.) Contrast the unplanned nature of Mulder's health crisis (not a sign or symptom in Season 7) with the prominent arc of CSM's blatant decline (from Amor Fati-Requiem) and well.... Poorly done. A fact Spotnitz also acknowledged-- In the absence of pre-existing context for season 8’s dramatic surprises, the writers relied instead on flashbacks tailored to fit this year’s narrative. “Had I known there would be a season 8, I would have preferred to salt in all of the clues about these flashback episodes last season,” says Spotnitz of how he dealt retroactively with fitting in Mulder’s illness and Scully’s [pregnancy.] “But there really is no way to unravel these mysteries in my mind, and make use of David in the time that he was available to us, without having some flashback episodes.”
Anyway, hope that helps! And sorry for the delay!