page_title: Terms of Endearment (The X-Files)
section_title: Background
hierarchical_section_title: Terms of Endearment (The X-Files) / Production / Background
caption_attribution_description: English: Chris Carter at the London premiere for The X-Files: I Want to Believe in July 2008.
context_page_description: "Terms of Endearment" is the seventh episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files, and originally aired on the Fox network on January 3, 1999. Written by David Amann and directed by Rob Bowman, "Terms of Endearment" is a "Monster-of-the-Week" story, unconnected to the series' wider mythology. It earned a Nielsen rating of 10.5 and was watched by 18.7 million people on its initial broadcast. The performance given by guest actor Bruce Campbell attracted positive comments, but the plot was criticized.
  The show centers on FBI special agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who work on cases linked to the paranormal called X-Files. Mulder is a believer in the paranormal, while the skeptical Scully has been assigned to debunk his work. In the installment, an unborn child is apparently abducted from its mother's womb by a demon after the prospective parents discover that their child has birth defects. After Agent Spender dismisses the assignment as irrelevant to the X-Files, Mulder and Scully steal the case and investigate the creature. While looking into the report, the duo discover that Wayne Weinsider is a child-abducting demon.
context_section_description: "Terms of Endearment" was written by The X-Files executive story editor David Amann, making it his first writing contribution to the series. The concept for "Terms of Endearment" was "about the fifth or sixth idea" Amann came up with for the show. Amann's original idea was to write what he described as "Rosemary's Baby in reverse". He explained, "I had this idea [for doing the episode] not from the point of view of the hapless woman unwittingly impregnated, but from the point of view of the devil". Amann pitched his idea to series creator Chris Carter, who gave him the commission to write the rest of the episode.
  According to Amann, the initial draft was "heavier on pure shock value and lighter on humor and human interest". In this version, Laura Weinsider birthed a snake rather than a demon baby. In addition, the story unraveled in a more "linear" fashion. This draft also called for the devil to seek a human baby, resulting in the sacrifice of his wife. The series' regular writers felt that this initial version of the story had a certain "inevitability" to it. Carter suggested that the second woman should be a demon. Amann later admitted that this addition made the story "work well". Kerry Fall from DVD Journal suggested that the plot revolved around "the wives and lives of a demon trying to have a normal child."
  The score for "Terms of Endearment" was composed by series regular Mark Snow, who used Gregorian chants to give the atmosphere a "creepy" feel. The 1995 song "Only Happy When It Rains" by alternative rock group Garbage plays several times in the episode, most notably when Betsy Monroe drives away with her demon baby. The quote "Zazas, zazas, nasatanada zazas"—what Laura Weinsider was supposed to have said while "in a trance"—is what the occultist Aleister Crowley used to open the 10th Aethyr of the Thelemic demon Choronzon. "Terms of Endearment" is not the first occasion that the series drew influence from Crowley; a high school from the episode "Die Hand Die Verletzt" was named after him as well.
caption: The X-Files creator Chris Carter greenlit the episode, following a pitch provided by David Amann.
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