 Originally, the script called for Banton's shadow to be able to move independently; Carter and writer Howard Gordon rewrote the story to remove this aspect, which ended up "sav[ing] an enormous amount of money in animation costs", according to Gilligan.After reading the first draft, Carter also felt that Banton's fear of having the government control him should be "more than just paranoia".He thus wrote X into the story; writer Frank Spotnitz later noted, "It had been a long time since X had done anything and the character really needed to grow."