Charlie Kaufman's got nothing on this guy.
The offbeat strangeness is what first impresses you about these works, but the true beauty is in the way he used the freedom of the imaginative nature of the shows to let him work the offbeat strangeness into something human. The horrible pitfall of all of what is now termed "serialized imaginative fiction" (sci-fi, fantasy, horror, etc) is that the mythology becomes the end rather than the means. The characters just become pawns to describe the universe.
It is clear that Morgan had no interest in the mythos of either of the shows, other than to the extent he could use them for satire. Even the actors themselves were little more than fodder for wisecracks. In 'Jose Chung's From Outer Space', Scully's hair is described suspiciously as being "a little too red." In 'Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me' the demons comment on Frank Black's dire countenance (there is no countenance more dire than Lance Henriksen's). The net effect of all this self-referential satire is that all the extraneous baggage such as the series mythos or the dominant personalities are trivialized and we are left with the human story at the core in plain view.
Morgan actually got his start on X-files as an actor, playing the Flukeman — the monster with the suckhole for a mouth that lived in your toilet. He was also granted the distinct honor of having his butt-crack on display when he played a man with a tail in one of the later episodes. More importantly, he was the uncredited writer of a scene that is something of legend in X-files circles — the 'conversation on a rock," wherein Scully berates Mulder for not appreciating how bad she felt about her dog getting eaten by a sea monster and Mulder admits his long standing desire to have a peg-leg (arrrgh!).
I have no idea where Morgan is now or if he is at work on any projects. A Google search turns up no obvious clues. But every time I find myself sitting through another stale, mediocre episode of some TV series that once held my interest, I think a good thought for Darin. He was able to elevate the mundane into something truly memorable.
Article comments
1 - Bill Sherman
I agree that Morgan's scripts for X-Files are some of the best that show saw - makes me wish that, instead of just doing those bloated full-season boxed sets, Fox put out some anthology discs with the better stand-alone episodes. I know I'd buy a two-disc X-Files set of those four Darin Morgan shows. . .
2 - David Mazzotta
Sign me up for one of those too.
By the way, if you want more background on Darin, you can check out Darinland for more details than you care to know.