Tooms - Production

Production

Devising a sequel to "Squeeze" posed a challenge for writers Glen Morgan and James Wong, who had never written a follow-up to any of their work previously. Morgan felt that the primary difficult was in moving the story forward while still leaving room to recap what had happened previously for the benefit of viewers who had not seen the first episode; this led to the use of the courtroom scene as a means to repeat any necessary information. Morgan also felt that Harry Longstreet, the initial director for "Squeeze", had been "a problem", and a second episode allowed for the use of scenes which Longstreet had failed to film for the earlier episode. To this end, the episode was helmed by David Nutter, who series creator Chris Carter considered the "best" director working on the series.

Morgan was inspired to write this episode after seeing men working on an open escalator in a mall around Christmas time. He thought of the scare factor from a creature living underneath the escalator, and felt Tooms would be the perfect choice for the creature. Tooms was the first villain in the show's history to make an appearance in a second episode. It was actor Doug Hutchinson's idea to play Tooms nude during the escalator sequence, a decision which Carter felt "caused a little discomfort", but that "actually added to the scene". The bile-like substance coating Tooms and his nest was actually a yellow piping gel, which the cast found would stick to their skin and pull out hair upon removal. Tooms framing Mulder for assault seems to have been inspired by a similar plot point in the film Dirty Harry.

"Tooms" introduced the character of Walter Skinner, although this would be his only appearance in the first season. The character had been conceived as playing against the stereotypical bureaucratic "paper-pusher", being instead someone more "quietly dynamic". Actor Mitch Pileggi had auditioned unsuccessfully for several other parts on the series before being cast as Skinner. At first, the fact that he was asked back to audition for the role had puzzled him, until he discovered the reason he had not cast for the previous parts—Chris Carter had been unable to imagine Pileggi as any of those characters, due to the fact that the actor had been shaving his head. When Pileggi attended the audition for Skinner, he had been in a grumpy mood and had allowed his small amount of hair to grow back. Pileggi's attitude fit well with the character of Skinner, causing Carter to assume that the actor was only pretending to be grumpy. After successfully auditioning for the role, Pileggi thought he had been lucky that he had not been cast in one of the earlier roles, as he believed he would have appeared in only a single episode and would have missed the opportunity to play the recurring role of Skinner.

The episode's climactic scene in the shopping mall where Tooms had made his nest was filmed in City Square Mall, Vancouver. Shooting at the location required the permission of every store owner on the premises, and care was taken to ensure that the stage blood used for the escalator scene did not seep into the escalator's motor to avoid possible damage. "Tooms" includes The Smoking Man's first line of dialogue in the series, and his only lines of the first season. Carter was initially unsure that the character would ever receive any dialogue, feeling that he would seem "more forbidding" if he remained silent. However, he described actor William B. Davis as "an extremely competent actor", noting the character's increasing popularity.