Production
"Elegy" was written by John Shiban and directed by James Charleston. The episode was inspired by an event that happened when Shiban and his future wife were visiting her father in the hospital. According to Shiban, he was very near death and kept looking around the room, even though there were only two visitors with him. Eventually, he asked his daughter how many people were in the room. When his daughter revealed that there were only two people with him, he kept looking around the room. Shiban was inspired by the idea that "a dying person might be able to look through the cracks into the next world". He developed a premise revolving around a "haunted bowling alley" because "it just seemed right".
The character of Harold Spuller was inspired by Shiban's enjoyment of the 1975 film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. In fact, Spuller's friend Chuck Forsch is played by Sydeny Lassick, who appeared in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest as one of Jack Nicholson's fellow patients. Steven M. Porter, who portrayed Spuller, was invited to audition for the show by writer Frank Spotnitz. According to Porter, after the audition he felt that he had "either made a great impression or a complete fool of myself". Many of the gestures that Porter used in the episode were inspired by his appearance in a play called Asylum.
The series sought out a bowling alley for the opening scenes, but many were reluctant to yield over two-thirds of their space as well as close down for three days. Eventually, the Thunderbird Bowling Center was chosen. The series was allowed to film at the location under the condition that the bowling surfaces were preserved. Due to this, the production staff was forced to either wear bowling shoes or wear make-shift "paper booties" on their feet. In between camera set ups, Duchovny and director Charleston bowled several games. Duchovny later joked that after the episode, he "realized how old" he was because he felt sore from all the bowling. He joked, "when you get sore from bowling, it's time to start thinking about your life and where it's going."
Read more about this topic: Elegy (The X-Files)
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