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The X-Files
X-Files opening titles from first 8 seasonsThe X-Files title screen
Created by	Chris Carter
Starring	David Duchovny Gillian Anderson Robert Patrick Annabeth Gish Mitch Pileggi
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	201 (as originally aired)
Production
Running time	45 min (per episode)
Original release
Network	FOX
Release	September 10, 1993 – May 19, 2002

The X-Files is an American television series created by Chris Carter. The show first aired on FOX on September 10, 1993, and ended after a nine-year run on May 19, 2002. The X-Files was one of the network's first major hits, and its main characters and slogans ("The Truth Is Out There," "Trust No One," "Deny Everything," "I Want to Believe") became pop culture touchstones, simultaneously tapping into and inspiring a plethora of conspiracy theories, paranoia about the U.S. government, and belief in the existence of extraterrestrial life. The show, perhaps to add to the mystique, never displayed episode titles on screen. It was one of the first TV series whose fans disseminated information such as this strictly via the Internet.

In the series, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson play two FBI agents, (Fox Mulder and Dana Scully) tasked with investigating the titular "X-Files." These cases, marginalized by the FBI, often involve paranormal phenomena. Mulder plays the role of the "believer," having faith in the existence of aliens and the paranormal, while Scully plays the skeptic, initially assigned by her departmental superiors to debunk his unconventional work and contain its profound implications.

As the show progressed both became embroiled in the same larger conflicts (termed "the mythology" or "mytharc" by the show's creators) and developed a close and ambiguous friendship — which some fans, known as "shippers," saw as more than platonic. The X-Files was declared by TV Guide to be the 37th Best TV show of all-time, and the second greatest cult TV show of all time, trailing only Star Trek.

At the time of its final episode, it was the longest running sci-fi show in American television history, a title since lost to Stargate SG-1.

Cast of characters

Main cast

Recurring guest cast

Plot and Mythology

Fans commonly divide X-Files stories into two categories: "Mytharc" ("mythology") episodes, which concerned the ongoing tale of a governmental conspiracy regarding the extraterrestrial, and stand-alone episodes (sometimes called "Monster-of-the-Week" episodes), which dealt with unusual creatures and situations relating to the paranormal, generally being unrelated to the series mythology. Several installments also explored the relationship between Mulder and Scully, while some episodes focused on popular supporting characters such as Walter Skinner or the Lone Gunmen.

Below is a list of episodes that concern the mythology of The X-Files in broadcast order. Some fans have even gone so far as to write up the entire storyline of the show, including all important dates.

• Season 1: Pilot, Deep Throat, Conduit, Fallen Angel, EBE, The Erlenmeyer Flask
• Season 2: Little Green Men, Sleepless, Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath, Red Museum, Colony, End Game, Anasazi
• Season 3: The Blessing Way, Paper Clip, Nisei, 731, Piper Maru, Apocrypha, Wetwired, Talitha Cumi
• Season 4: Herrenvolk, Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man, Tunguska, Terma, Memento Mori, Tempus Fugit, Max, Zero-Sum, Demons, Gethsemane
• Season 5: Redux, Redux II, Christmas Carol, Emily, Patient X, The Red and the Black, The End (season 5 finale, continued by Fight the Future movie...)
• X Files: Fight the Future
• Season 6: The Beginning, Dreamland, Dreamland II, S.R. 819, Two Fathers, One Son, Biogenesis
• Season 7: The Sixth Extinction, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Sein und Zeit, Closure, En Ami, Requiem
• Season 8: Within, Without, Per Manum, This Is Not Happening, Deadalive, Three Words, Vienen, Essence, Existence
• Season 9: Nothing Important Happened Today, Nothing Important Happened Today II, Trust No 1, Provenance, Providence, William, The Truth

Note: The X-Files: The Game fits into the mythology, taking place somewhere near the end of the third season. The episodes Renascence, Resonance, and Reckoning from the game The X-Files: Resist or Serve fit into the mythology, having an unknown placement somewhere in the seventh season.

Legacy

The X-Files directly inspired numerous other TV series, including Strange World, Burning Zone, Special Unit 2, Mysterious Ways, Carnivàle, Dark Skies, Freaky Links, The 4400, Lost, Psi Factor: Chronicles of the Paranormal, Futurama and Supernatural.

The influence can also be seen on other levels: television series such as Alias have developed a complex mythology that brings to mind the "mytharc" of The X-Files. In addition, many procedural dramas feature a Mulder-esque lead with a supervisor similar to Skinner or Kersh. Some of these procedurals, such as NCIS, also feature a quirky technogeek similar to the Lone Gunmen characters. Other shows have been influenced by the tone and mood of The X-Files, e.g., Buffy the Vampire Slayer, which drew from the mood and coloring of The X-Files, as well as from its occasional blend of horror and humor.

In 1997, The X-Files was lampooned on an episode of The Simpsons entitled "The Springfield Files". The episode revolved around a strange occurrence in Springfield, with Mulder and Scully coming to investigate and working closely with Homer Simpson. Duchovny and Anderson voiced their respective characters in the episode.

Influences

Television

Chris Carter listed television series Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone, Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside and especially Kolchak: The Night Stalker as his major influences for the show. Actor Darren McGavin who played Carl Kolchak in Kolchak: The Night Stalker appeared in two episodes of The X-Files as Agent Arthur Dales, a character described as the "father of the X-Files." Carter also mentioned that the relationship between Mulder and Scully (platonic but with some sexual tension) was influenced by the chemistry between John Steed (Patrick Macnee) and Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg) in the 1960s British spy TV program The Avengers. The early '90s cult hit Twin Peaks is also seen as a major influence on the show's dark atmosphere and its often surreal blend of drama and irony. David Duchovny had appeared as a cross-dressing DEA agent in Twin Peaks.

Film

Several feature films have also influenced The X-Files. The producers have cited All the President's Men, Three Days of the Condor, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Thing, The Boys from Brazil, The Silence of the Lambs, and JFK as influences on the series. Gangster movies such as the Godfather trilogy are also frequently referenced in the show's conspiracy plotlines, particularly concerning the Syndicate. A scene at the end of the episode Redux II (5.02), for instance, directly mirrors the famous baptism montage at the end of The Godfather.

Awards

Over the course of its nine seasons, the show was nominated for 141 awards, winning a total of 61 individual awards from 24 different agencies, including the Emmys, the Golden Globes, the Environmental Media Awards, and the Screen Actors Guild Awards. The X-Files also won a Peabody Award in 1996, during its third season.

The show earned a total of 16 Emmys; two for acting, one for writing, and 13 for various technical categories. In September 1994, The X-Files won its first award, the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Graphic Design and Title Sequences.

Peter Boyle later won the Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his portrayal of the title character in the third-season episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose". In the same year, Darin Morgan won the Emmy for Outstanding Individual Achievement in Writing for a Drama Series for the same episode. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" was one of four highly-acclaimed episodes Morgan wrote during his short time on the show's writing staff. In 1997, Gillian Anderson won the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Drama Series award for her portrayal of Agent Dana Scully.

Throughout its run, The X-Files also won Emmy awards in a number of technical categories: Graphic Design and Title Sequences, Cinematography, Sound Editing and Mixing, Art Direction, Single Camera Picture Editing, Makeup, and Special Visual Effects.

History

See main article: List of The X-Files episodes

Seasons 1 – 3

Two of the most highly-regarded writer/producers were Glen Morgan and James Wong, whose contributions to the first two seasons, such as the first season episode "Beyond The Sea," were exceptionally popular and influential. They also returned for the first half of the fourth season. Prior to coming to The X-Files, they had worked extensively with David Nutter, Rob Bowman, and Kim Manners on a number of shows produced in Canada for Stephen J. Cannell. The duo also had an important role in hiring John Bartley, the cinematographer who gave the show its early dark atmospheric look, and who won an Emmy Award for his work on the show.

In the first two seasons, Morgan and Wong introduced some popular secondary characters, such as The Lone Gunmen, the Scully family, and FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. Their first episode for the show was "Squeeze", featuring the elastic Eugene Victor Tooms. This episode became the template for the popular "Monster-of-the-Week" episodes that became a mainstay of the series over the next nine years.

They also helped to establish the show's fledgling "mytharc," which was initially established as a government plot to cover up anything pertaining to the existence of extraterrestrial life, and Mulder's attempts to discover the fate of his sister, who was abducted some years previously. As the show went into its second and third seasons, it confirmed the existence of extraterrestrial life within the show and suggested that a shadowy sub-governmental group known as The Syndicate — one of the members being the Cigarette Smoking Man — were in co-operation with these aliens, in order to allow them to colonize Earth, which would be achieved via use of the so-called Black Oil.

Seasons 4 – 6

Over the course of the series, the show established and built upon the mytharc that grew in complexity and prominence as the show progressed. The Syndicate's co-operation with the colonisers was proven to be a ploy, as they were secretly attempting to develop a vaccine to the Black Oil, which was shown to be an agent which would allow for the transportation of alien beings, and which would be spread through bees come the time for colonization. However, another alien faction was proven to exist, and these rebels opposed the colonists, and hence the Syndicate for their co-operation with them. Consequently, the rebels destroyed the Syndicate. In addition to this, there were a few turns of events involving the ever-deepening bond between Mulder and Scully, including her contraction of cancer, and the interaction between the two characters. Whether they "should" or "should not" consummate their relationship was a matter of immense debate among the fan community for several years, and is still subject to scrutiny, since even after abundant hints, Carter refuses to substantiate whether the two characters ever had sexual intercourse. Initially filmed in Vancouver, Canada, the show was later relocated to L.A. in 1998, at the start of the sixth season.

The X-Files: Fight the Future

In 1998 the series produced a motion picture, The X-Files (also known as The X Files: Fight the Future). It was intended as a continuation of the season five finale "The End" (5x20), but was also meant to stand on its own. The season six opener "The Beginning" picked up where the movie left off.

In the soundrack to the movie Chris Carter discloses the history of Human/Alien relations and the internal threat of Mulder and Scully on the X-Files:

Chris Carter: The Method, as they called it, though it was more so a germ-line procedure of singular meta-scientific complexity had been given to them by the alien colonists as a quid pro quo. The Syndicate would help them to create a population of alien hybrids who would hide in plain sight, cloned from human ova and alien biomaterial. So there would be a clone race immune to the Black Oil when the return to the planet began. For this, the Syndicate would be sequestered, granted a sort of immunity or asylum, given a place in the grander scheme.

They were the Vichy government to the German final solution - collaborationists whose motivation was simple: self-directed survival. These cloning operations were spread across the country, the cataloguing and record-keeping done through a complex intra-institutional system that connected to every branch of government, from the Social Security Administration to the Department of Defense. The operation, under the working title 'Purity Control,' had been launched in 1948, its original conception the brain-child of German scientists given immunity themselves from war crimes and allowed to continue the eugenic experiments that were Hitler's dark legacy.

The Syndicate had begun as a subset of a shadow intelligence agency whose original orders were to create plausible denial and an effective cover-up of 'Purity Control.' But through 50 years, numerous U.S. and UN administrations, the principal players began to wrest control, accumulating power and influence across international borders, such that by 1990 the operation ceased to have a member accountable to any one government and whose only orders will be taken from a man named Strughold, a German industrialist who had fled his homeland to Northern Africa. These men, whose knowledge and access provided control of a foreseeable future, had in spite of this, everything to lose. Their secret work, the cloning preparations and the cataloguing constituted their greatest vulnerability - exposure. Their detection would insure not just their own demise but a far-reaching dissolution of social and religious order around the globe.

To protect against this, the Syndicate employed methods of disinformation, using covert government programs that had been regrettably discovered as a kind of smokescreen. They dodge or blind where the transgressions of Congress-accountable agencies serve to hide their own more odious undertaking. They had even at times used a UFO phenomena to create a hysteria that science and the intelligentsia denounced so completely as to make belief in believers seem ridiculous and completely discreditable.

They had also, in a crisis, used a tool of the colonists themselves - alien bounty hunters who policed the cloning operations and enforced rule on the countdown to colonization. A double-edged sword whose cold-blooded tactics had helped to stem a leak or threat but who also kept watch on the Syndicate. A threat in itself as the Syndicate had something to hide that not even the colonists knew of - a vaccine against the Black Oil, an inoculant against the substance in which the alien life force was held; in fact, the very medium of the life force itself.

To guard this secret was perhaps even more critical than the truth of the existence of alien life and of colonization. If the Syndicate's own secret vaccine were discovered, a vaccine that would make themselves immune from the effects of the Black Oil, they would certainly be destroyed and the timetable for colonization stepped up. They would protect this secret with their lives, they would kill to protect it as it symbolized the only hope they had of avoiding enslavement when the planet was overtaken. That they had been able to, over decades, conduct their work on the vaccine undetected, was a result of a code among the Syndicate members to put honor and the future above personal politics.

But now this code was beginning to break down, an incipient scramble for power beginning to develop, a threat from within that doubled the threat from without -- from agents Mulder and Scully and the X-Files.

Seasons 7 – 9

The final three seasons were a time of closure for The X-Files. Many characters within the show were written out, including the Cigarette Smoking Man and Mulder's mother, and several plot threads were resolved, including the fate of Mulder's sister, a long running plot device within the show. Following a contract dispute with Fox, David Duchovny quit the show after the seventh season.. This contributed to uncertainties over the likelihood of an eighth season. To accommodate for this, Mulder was abducted at the end of the seventh season. With both Duchovny and Anderson's involvement reduced, the show's eighth season introduced two new X-Files agents, John Doggett and Monica Reyes (played by Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish).

It was Chris Carter's belief that the series could continue for another ten years with new leads. This was not to be the case, however, as over the course of the final two seasons, Doggett and Reyes did not provide the ratings boost Chris Carter had hoped.

The show completed its ninth and final season with the two-hour episode "The Truth", which first aired on May 19, 2002, finishing third in its timeslot in the Nielsen ratings. The show ceased production at the end of the ninth season — on a cliffhanger, though Carter knew that this would be the final episode.

Future of the show

Plans for another movie are announced periodically but have yet to come to fruition. While Carter, Duchovny and Anderson have all expressed their desire for involvement, there is still no script and no official shooting schedule. According to Bowman, director of the first film, and producer Frank Spotnitz, the plot for a second film would most likely be a stand-alone story, rather than focus on the alien conspiracy storylines.

In January of 2005, Duchovny confirmed that a sequel was in the works and that it would be a "stand-alone horror film." In an article in Parade (magazine) published on August 6, 2006, David Duchovny said he still believed that there would be a sequel to the first X-Files movie, Fight the Future. "We're all signed on," he said of the movie. "I think it could work very well as a sequel, an authentic franchise that will hold up—much more so than Mission: Impossible." Back in early 2004, Duchovny stated his belief that the sequel would start shooting in 'the next year or so'.

In a posting on her website, Gillian Anderson has also stated herself that she is very much willing to take part in the project: "And as far as the X-F movie? I have no f****** clue. I think there's still a law suit, as far as I know the script has not been written, and as much as we all want it to take place as soon as possible, AND YES THAT INCLUDES ME, AND ALWAYS HAS, SO STOP WITH THE NONSENSE! It is out of my hands. Completely. Write to Fox guys, tell them to make it happen!"

Trivia

This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. Please relocate any relevant information into other sections or articles.

• The season 8 episode "Alone" has artifacts from previous episodes: in Scully's desk drawer are Queequeg's dog tag (from the episode "Quagmire"), the keychain Mulder gave her (from "Tempus Fugit") and the fused coins (from "Dreamland"). Also appearing in this episode is the character of Agent Leyla Harrison, named for an actual person. Leyla Harrison was an X-Files fan and a writer of fanfiction who died in February 2001. Well-known and well-loved among The X-Files Internet community, writers on the show created the character (a self-professed admirer of Mulder and Scully) to honor her memory.
• The controversial and violent episode "Home", which featured a story about a family that has been inbred to almost proto-human levels of development, was kept out of syndication for three years after its initial airing.
• Creator Chris Carter's birthday is October 13, thus the frequent references to the number 1013 on the show and the reason Fox Mulder's birthday is also October 13. It is also the name of Carter's production company, Ten Thirteen Productions. The number 1121, and especially the time 11:21 PM, also appears regularly on The X-Files, particularly in the early seasons. This is a reference by Chris Carter to his wife Dori's birthday, November 21.
• The 2000 horror film Final Destination was based on an unused X-Files script. The film was directed by James Wong, who worked on the X-Files.
• The band Killswitch Engage derived their name from the X-Files episode "Kill Switch".

Taglines

The phrase "The Truth is Out There" is usually shown on screen at the end of the opening credits sequence. However, over the course of the series, this phrase would occasionally be replaced with something else, especially for "mytharc" episodes.

• Trust No One — "The Erlenmeyer Flask"
• Deny Everything — "Ascension"
• éí 'aaníígÓÓ 'áhoot'é — "Anasazi" ("The truth is far from here" in Navajo)
• Apology is Policy — "731"
• Everything Dies — "Herrenvolk"
• Deceive Inveigle Obfuscate — "Teliko"
• E pur si muove — "Terma" ("And still it moves" in Italian - attributed to Galileo)
• Believe the Lie — "Gethsemane"
• All Lies Lead to the Truth — "Redux"
• Resist or Serve — "The Red and the Black"
• The End — "The End"
• Die Wahrheit ist irgendwo da draußen — "Triangle" ("The truth is out there somewhere" in German)
• In the Big Inning — "The Unnatural" (a baseball-themed episode)
• Amor Fati — "Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" ("Love of fate" in Latin)
• Believe to Understand — "Closure"
• Nothing Important Happened Today — "Nothing Important Happened Today II"
• erehT tuO si hturT ehT — "4D" ("The Truth is Out There" backwards)
• They're Watching — "Trust No 1"
• Dio ti ama — "Improbable" ("God loves you" in Italian)

Merchandise

Music

Mark Snow released music from the first three seasons of the X-files on a compact disc entitled The Truth and the Light - Music from the X-Files. He also released the soundtrack of the X-files movie. Snow composed the theme song and he released it with other songs from and inspired by the show on the 1996 soundtrack Songs in the Key of X.

DVD releases

Complete Season Sets

Mythology Sets

These DVD sets contain the episodes related to the conspiracy mythology, and avoids the stand-alone episodes sometimes known as "monster-of-the-week." Note that this is a slightly shorter list of episodes than can be found in the Plot and Mythology section.

The X-Files Mythology Vol. 1 - Abduction

• UPC: 024543169307
• Release Date: 2005-06-07
• Episodes: Pilot, Deep Throat, Fallen Angel, EBE, The Erlenmeyer Flask, Little Green Men, Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath, Red Museum, Colony, End Game, Anasazi, The Blessing Way, Paper Clip

The X-Files Mythology Vol. 2 - Black Oil

• UPC: 024543190714
• Release Date: 2005-08-02
• Episodes: Nisei, 731, Piper Maru, Apocrypha, Talitha Cumi, Herrenvolk, Tunguska, Terma, Memento Mori, Tempus Fugit, Max, Zero-Sum, Gethsemane, Redux, Redux II

The X-Files Mythology Vol. 3 - Colonization

• UPC: 024543191230
• Release Date: 2005-09-27
• Episodes: Patient X, The Red and the Black, The End, The Beginning, S.R. 819, Two Fathers, One Son, Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati, Sein und Zeit, Closure, En Ami, Requiem, Within, Without

The X-Files Mythology, Vol. 4 - Super Soldiers

• UPC: 024543208303
• Release Date: 2005-11-22
• Episodes: Per Manum, This Is Not Happening, Deadalive, Three Words, Vienen, Essence, Existence, Nothing Important Happened Today, Nothing Important Happened Today II, Trust No 1, Provenance, Providence, William, The Truth (two hour finale)

VHS releases

Before the DVD season releases, The X-Files had all its episodes released in VHS season sets, as well as single episodes put together. There were also some other material released on VHS such as The X Files - Forensic Evidence Box and the X Files Trivia Game.

"File" sets

1. File 1 : The Unopened File (episodes : Anasazi, The Blessing Way, and Paper Clip)
2. File 2 : Tooms (episodes : Squeeze, Tooms)
3. File 3 : Abduction (episodes : Duane Barry, Ascension, One Breath)
4. File 4 : Colony (episodes : Colony, End Game)
5. File 5 : 82517 (episodes : Nisei, 731)
6. File 6 : Master Plan (episodes : Talitha Cumi, Herrenvolk)
7. File 7 : Tunguska (episodes : Tunguska, Terma)
8. File 8 : Tempus Fugit (episodes : Tempus Fugit, Max)
9. File 9 : Redux (episodes : Gethsemane, Redux, Redux 2)
10. File 10 : Emily (episodes : Christmas Carol, Emily )
11. File 11 : Patient X (episodes : Patient X, The Red and the Black)
12. File 12 : The End (episode : The End + 45 min. of interviews about the Movie)
13. File 13 : One Son (episodes : Two Fathers, One Son)
14. File 14 : Biogenesis (Biogenesis, The Sixth Extinction, The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati)
15. File 15 : Closure (episodes : Sein Und Zeit, Closure)

"The X-Files"

1. The X Files : Dreamland (episodes : Dreamland, Dreamland 2)
2. The X Files : Millennium (episode : Millennium)
3. The X Files : Requiem (episodes : Requiem, Within, Without)
4. The X Files : Deadalive (episodes : This is Not Happening, Deadalive, Three Words)
5. The X Files : Existence (episodes : Essence, Existence)
6. The X Files : Nothing Important Happened Today (episodes : Nothing Important Happened Today, 1 and 2)
7. The X Files : Providence (episodes : Provenance, Providence)
8. The X-Files: The Truth (episodes : The Truth, The Truth 2)

"Wave" sets

Those were two episodes released on one VHS, in production number order. For example : Wave 1 : Pilot/Deep Throat, Wave 2 : Squeeze/Conduit, Wave 3 : The Jersey Devil/Shadows etc.

Video games

The X-Files has inspired two video games. In 1998, The X-Files: The Game was released for the PC and Macintosh and a year later for the PlayStation. This game is set somewhere within the timeline of the second or third season and follows an Agent Craig Willmore in his search for the missing Mulder and Scully.

In 2000, Fox Interactive released The X-Files: Unrestricted Access for the PC and Mac which allowed users access to all the case files.

Then, in 2004, The X-Files: Resist or Serve was released for the PlayStation 2. This game is an original story set somewhere in season seven and allows the player control of both Mulder and Scully. Both games feature acting and voice work from several members of the series' cast.

Relationship to other Ten Thirteen Productions shows

Chris Carter, creator of The X-Files, founded Ten Thirteen Productions, which produced his other science fiction shows.

Millennium

• In the season 1 "Millennium" episode "Lamentation", Frank Black visits the FBI Academy in Quantico. In the background of one shot, two agents resembling Mulder and Scully are seen walking down a staircase. In reality, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson's photo doubles were intentionally included in the episode as an inside-joke.
• In the season 2 "Millennium" episode "Jose Chung's Doomsday Defense" the fictional novelist Jose Chung appears, who was first seen in the season 3 "The X-Files" episode called "Jose Chung's From Outer Space".
• Millennium's second season episode "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me" has a scene of two FBI-agents filming a fake alien autopsy. These agents strongly resemble Mulder and Scully.
• In Millennium's second season's final episode "The Time is Now" Peter Watts finds a Morley cigarette stub. Morley is a fictional cigarette brand also smoked by "The X-Files" character Cigarette Smoking Man.
• When "Millennium" character Emma Hollis walks through a Vancouver apartment building in the third season's episode "Human Essence", one can hear coming from a resident's television some dialogue and Scully's voice accompanied by the soundtrack from the episode "Kill Switch" from The X-Files's fifth season.
• Actor David Fredericks plays J. Edgar Hoover in the Season 3 "Millennium" episode "Matryoshka", reprising his role from "The X-Files" episodes "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" and "Travelers".
• Lance Henriksen and Brittany Tiplady make their final appearances as "Millennium" characters Frank & Jordan Black in the Season 7 "X-Files" episode entitled "Millennium".

Harsh Realm

• In the season 7 X-Files episode "Sein Und Zeit", one of the characters is watching Harsh Realm on his TV. He remarks, "I don't know what this is but it's fantastic."

The Lone Gunmen

The key relationship of this show to The X-Files is its starring role of John Fitzgerald Byers, Richard "Ringo" Langley and Melvin Frohike; the "Lone Gunmen" of the eponymous show. Due to it being set within the same "universe" as The X-Files, the show also occasionally featured characters from The X-Files, such as Walter Skinner in TLG's "The Lying Game" episode; Fox Mulder and Morris Fletcher in The Lone Gunmen episode entitled "All About Yves," the show's finale.

With the cancellation of The Lone Gunmen series before a resolution to this cliffhanger could be produced, The X-Files episode entitled "Jump the Shark" — a reference to the television term — served as an epitaph to the show. It featured the Lone Gunmen, Jimmy Bond, Yves Adele Harlow, Kimmy the Geek, plus Walter Skinner and Morris Fletcher, two "X-Files" characters also featured on The Lone Gunmen.

Broadcast history

The first season of The X-Files premiered on September 10, 1993 on FOX. For the first few years of its run, its ratings steadily increased, reaching its zenith in terms of ratings by its fifth season..

Approximately a year later, it started showing in the United Kingdom upon the terrestrial channel BBC2, airing at 21:00. Since then, it has expanded into other countries across the world, either being dubbed or subtitled to accommodate for foreign language viewers. A short time after the United Kingdom started airing The X-Files, Channel 10 acquired to the rights to broadcast it on Australian television, which it did until the finale in 2002.

References

1. "TV Guide Names Top 50 Shows". Retrieved 2006-08-29.
2. "TV Guide's 25 Top Cult Shows". Retrieved 2006-08-29.
3. "IMDb Award Page for The X-Files". Retrieved 2006-06-10.
4. "The X-Files Undercover: Special Effects & Sound". Retrieved 2006-06-10.
5. "No Aliens for X-Files 2: The sequel is still on". Retrieved 2006-06-10.
6. Unknown author. "X-Files 2 Has a Pulse". Retrieved 2006-10-21. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help)
7. "PARADE Magazine". Retrieved 2006-08-06. {{cite web}}: Text "In Step With...David Duchovny" ignored (help)
8. "Gillian Anderson Official Website, News Page". Retrieved 2006-08-10.
9. "IMDB page on X-Files DVD sets". Retrieved 2006-10-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
10. "Product listing for Mythology Vol. 1 at Barnes and Noble". Retrieved 2006-10-24. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
11. "Chart Showing X-Files season ratings on FOX". Retrieved 2006-06-14. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

• Paul C. Peterson, Religion in The X-Files, Journal of Media and Religion 1(3), 181 – 196 (2002).
• N.E. Genge, The Unofficial X-Files (New York: Crown Trade Paperbacks, 1995), 228pp.
• Brian Lowry, Trust No One: The Official Third Season Guide to The X Files (New York: Harper Prism, 1996), 266pp.
• James Hatfield and George "Doc" Burt, The Unauthorized X-Files (New York: MJF Books, 1996), 309pp.
• Jeanne Cavelos, The Science of the X-Files (New York : Berkley Boulevard Books, 1998), 288 pp.

See also

• Black oil
• Colonists (The X-Files)
• Syndicate (The X-Files)
• List of X-Files episodes
• List of X-Files informants
• The Truth and the Light - Music from the X-Files

External links

• Template:Tvguide show – TV listings, cast and details, photos, videos and more.
• The X-Files Wiki - a wiki about "the X-Files television series, movie, and related spin-offs"
• BBC X-Files Site (Unofficial). The BBC's X-Files section, with information, pictures, interviews, and more.

• Science fiction television series
• 1993 television program debuts
• 1990s TV shows in the United States
• 2000s TV shows in the United States
• The X-Files