The X-Files Made Being Paranoid Feel Completely Reasonable
Nerdy Up North
The setup
FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully investigate unexplained cases known as the X-Files. Mulder wants to believe in aliens and the paranormal, while Scully approaches each case as a sceptical scientist — at least until the evidence becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.
The X-Files works because Mulder and Scully are basically arguing about the entire premise of the show while they are inside it. Mulder walks into every room convinced the answer is aliens. Scully can have a monster standing three feet away and still wants to know whether there is a rational explanation.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson make that dynamic much more than believer versus sceptic. Their trust builds so gradually that you barely notice how important they have become to each other until the show starts putting one of them in danger and suddenly everything feels personal.
I actually prefer a lot of the monster of the week episodes to the huge mythology. When The X-Files gives you one horrible little town, a strange creature and forty five minutes to solve it, it can be brilliant. Episodes like Home, Tooms and Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose all feel completely different while still being unmistakably X-Files.
The conspiracy story is gripping at first because every answer creates another question. Eventually, though, there are so many layers of government cover up, alien plans and people who may or may not be telling the truth that it starts feeling like even the show has misplaced the original explanation.
That does not damage what it changed. The mood, music, torch lit corridors and paranoia became a blueprint for loads of genre television that came after it. Even the phrase 'the truth is out there' became bigger than the series itself.
And yes, after enough episodes, you do start wondering whether Scully should maybe just give Mulder the occasional 'fair enough, that one was definitely a monster.'
Positives
Mulder and Scully are an all time television pairing, the monster episodes are incredibly varied, the atmosphere is brilliant and the show had a massive influence on genre TV.
Negatives
The long running conspiracy mythology becomes tangled and less satisfying the further it goes.
Verdict
The X-Files is at its best with two agents, a dark road and something impossible waiting at the end of it. The truth might be out there, even if the mythology sometimes forgets where it put it.
