Darin Morgan is an American screenwriter best known for several offbeat, darkly humorous episodes of the television series The X-Files and Millennium. His teleplay for the X-Files episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" won a 1996 Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series. In 2015, Morgan wrote and directed one episode for The X-Filesseason ten, and returned again in 2017 to write and direct another episode for season eleven. He is the younger brother of writer and director Glen Morgan.
Writing career
Morgan was born in Syracuse, New York and studied in the film program at Loyola Marymount University, where he co-wrote a six-minute short film that led to a three-picture deal with TriStar Pictures. Morgan subsequently wrote a number of unproduced screenplays and appeared in two small guest roles on The Commish and 21 Jump Street, where his brother Glen was a writer.
''The X-Files''
In 1994, Morgan was cast as the Flukeman, a mutated flukeworm the size of a human being, in "The Host", a second-season episode of The X-Files, where his brother, Glen, worked as a writer and producer. The episode originally aired on September 23, 1994. The role required Morgan to wear a cumbersome rubber suit for twenty hours at a stretch, an experience he described as "terrible, just horrible." Subsequently, he worked with his brother in developing the story for the next episode, "Blood", for which he received story credit. At the suggestion of producer Howard Gordon shortly thereafter, Morgan became a full-time staff writer for The X-Files, where he wrote his first episode, "Humbug". A quirky, funny, sometimes gruesome story about a series of murders in a colony of circus freaks, "Humbug" is considered a landmark episode in the history of The X-Files for broadening the dark tone and style of the series and taking it into funnier, less predictable directions. It was nominated for a 1996 Edgar Award. Morgan's next episode, "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose", originally aired on October 13, 1995. "Clyde Bruckman" remains a favorite of fans and critics alike, and was acclaimed for retaining the humorous spirit of "Humbug" while extending its story into darker, more poignant territory. Both Morgan and actor Peter Boyle, who played the titular depressed psychic Clyde Bruckman, won Emmy Awards for this episode. Morgan wrote two additional episodes of The X-Files in the 1990s: the absurdist cockroach invasion story "War of the Coprophages" and "Jose Chung's From Outer Space". He also contributed to a rewrite of the episode "Quagmire", although he was uncredited for his contributions at the time. He left the show after its third season, but joined the writing staff of Millennium, writing and directing two episodes with layered plots and humorous dialogue: "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" and "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me". In a March 2015 interview, Chris Carter revealed that Morgan would write an episode for the show's then-announced tenth season. The episode, entitled "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster" aired on February 1, 2016. Morgan worked on the show's eleventh season, contributing the script for the episode "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat". In addition to his work as a writer, Morgan appeared in The X-Files episode "Small Potatoes", playing Eddie Van Blundht, a self-described "loser" with the ability to shape-shift. As well as being hired by Joel Silver to write the second intended Tales From The Crypt film after Demon Knight called Dead Easy a New Orleans zombie romp. However his script was rejected by producers Gilbert Adler and A. L. Katz.
Later work
On August 11, 2004, it was announced that Morgan and screenwriter Sam Hamm were writing an untitled screenplay under development by DreamWorks SKG. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the story "concerns a marriage counselor, whose daughter is about to get married, who discovers that his future son-in-law is suffering from the delusion that he's a superhero." Morgan worked on the second episode of former X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz's remake, as consulting producer, though the show was canceled before any of Morgan's scripts were produced. The only script that Morgan wrote before the show was canceled was called "The M Word". It concerned a serial killer and a were-lizard, who may or may not be one and the same. It is available as a PDF on the second disc of the show's DVD set. The script was later rewritten for the tenth season of The X-Files as "Mulder And Scully Meet The Were-Monster." Morgan worked as a consulting producer on the short-lived TV reboot of Bionic Woman and Fringe. He subsequently joined his brother Glen's productions of Tower Prep and Intruders as a supervising producer, writing multiple episodes of each show. In 2015, Morgan wrote and directed one episode for The X-Files season ten titled "Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster", and then returned again in 2017 to write and direct "The Lost Art of Forehead Sweat" for season eleven.
