The X Files Once Took It So Far That 1 Story Got Banned from Re-Runs for 3 Years

One thing that can make a TV show the worst or the greatest thing you've ever seen is the right level of provocation in its premise. Though audiences today are more partial to wholesome shows, in the 90s, it was all about pushing people to the edge of their seats and making them shiver with anticipation.

The X-Files was great at doing just that. Aside from Mulder and Scully's slow-burn romance, the show was no stranger to exploring the most outrageous conspiracy theories and showing a lot of violence.

Most of the time, this led to great results, both critically and commercially, but once the math got so wrong that the beloved show was taken off the air for three full years. This was all because of the episode titled Home (S4E2), which is hard to describe without doing injustice to its horror.

The plot leads Agents Mulder and Scully to a small town called Home in the middle of Pennsylvania to solve the murder of a deformed newborn. Though the subject matter is already sensitive enough, as the investigation unravels more details about the citizens of Home, viewers, along with the characters, are exposed to even more triggering content.

From incest to decapitation, Home is disturbing in more ways than one, mostly because its horrors are based on human nature. In a show that focuses so much on the supernatural, a story that is so frightening, yet so human, cannot leave anyone indifferent.

After all kinds of reactions, from disgust to pure outrage, were received by the studio, it was decided not to re-run Home for three years. The X-Files would continue as usual, but this episode would be left out. Fortunately, not forever, as Fox found an instance where such a horror would be appropriate and re-aired the episode on Halloween.

Many die-hard The X-Files fans were hoping to see the show come back to this episode in its revival back in 2016. They were even teased by the creators of the show who titled the fourth episode Home Again, but the plot itself ended up having nothing to do with the original story. Looking back, that seems like a decision made for the better.

If you want to rewatch the original The X-Files or revisit the episode Home in particular, you can go ahead and stream the show on Hulu or Disney Plus.

Source: The New York Times