(Photo: Ralf Smallkaa)

On Wednesday, I wrote about the cheese librarian position open at the American Cheese Society. This was the subject of much discussion on librarian Twitter. Some librarians mentioned that there is a wine librarian position open in California, which of course got me very excited.

The job posting is a sight to behold! Calling the American Cheese Society position a cheese librarian was a bit of a stretch since the job title is Content Manager and an MLS degree is preferred, but not mandatory.

But the wine librarian position is a straight up librarian gig of the highest order. The Sonoma County Library in California is a public library system that serves wine country. This Librarian III position is a highly specialized job that focuses on the needs of the winemaking communities in the area:

As a special library within a public library setting, the Wine Library serves wine industry professionals and wine enthusiasts with aplomb. With collections and services in business and technical resources, rare books portraying the global history of wine, oral  histories and archival information detailing the history of wine in the North Coast region, as well as a comprehensive trove of resources spanning every related subject from growing grapes to pairing wine with anything you might think of, the Wine Library is an indispensable resource for drinkers, aspiring home winemakers, viticulturists, picking crews, hospitality professionals, and corporate business partners alike.

A branch manager is currently filling in as wine librarian. So he needs help. I am not qualified for this position yet. But I will begin drinking heavily so that I can become qualified as soon as possible.

-via @kclayb

A night cream is exactly what it sounds like: a cream that you apply to your face overnight to moisturize while you sleep. Yet some users of a night cream from Dr. Brandt report that more than wrinkle-softening is happening when they use it: they report incredibly vivid dreams, some of which are scary.

We learned about the strangeness from Racked, The cream costs $135 for 1.7 ounces, which is a nightmare in itself, but Sephora recently sent out large samples of it to customers to try, and received a flood of reviews in return. The good: the cream made fine lines disappear and improved most users’ skin. The bad: the strange dreams.

Multiple users have reported similar experiences in their reviews.

The first review mentioning strange dreams came on December 1, 2015:

This product definitely works as advertised. My skin felt better and looked better after using consistently for 10 days. However, some ingredient in his gave me strange and vivid dreams. The dreams stopped as soon as I discontinued using this product. Absolutely befuddling.

One reviewer in late December wrote:

After a few nights of use, I started having really vivid, creepy dreams where I honestly could not wake up. I thought I was hallucinating. They were the kinds of dream where you need a while to recover after you wake up. I don’t know if it gets better once you adjust, but I don’t think it’s worth the $135 for scary dreams.

Strange dreams continued to happen into February:

One morning last week, I woke up feeling incredibly happy. I had the most amazingly vivid dream that actually affected my mood all day long. I even told a few people about it (it was that good). Then, I had similar experiences the following two nights.
…
When I read the reviews about this product, I stopped dead in my tracks. The dreams — other people are having them, too! How on earth can this be explained? A facial moisturizer causing vivid dreams? Well, I was intrigued, so I used it again last night. This morning, I woke up feeling very shaken. I had another dream, but this one was very upsetting. Wow, I don’t know what to say. It makes me feel crazy to write this. But it is 100% true.

In a statement to Racked, a representative for the brand said:

During the testing phase, Do Not Age with Dr. Brandt™ Dream Night Cream was used by consumers once a day for 28 days, during the nighttime and no concerns or side effects were reported. Following this inquiry, we have looked into the product again, consulting with our ingredient manufacturer to investigate the claim’s validity. We have found no scientific backing for this claim.

The thing is, though, there’s not really any requirement for cosmetic ingredients to be tested: the Dr. Brandt brand claims to have run a test on 30 women to see how they liked the results, but didn’t appear to ask them about dreams. Customers who read other reviews could also find themselves paying closer attention to their dreams once they begin using the product.

Is This Night Cream Causing Night Terrors? [Racked]
Do Not Age with Dr. Brandt™ Dream Night Cream [Sephora]

Did you favorite series make The CW renewals list? Find out below!

The CW has given early renewals to 11 of its primetime series for the 2016-2017 season! The CW renewals list includes the shows Arrow, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, DC’s Legends of Tomorrow, The Flash, iZombie, Jane The Virgin, The Originals, Reign, Supernatural, The Vampire Diaries and The 100.

“The CW has become home to some of the most critically-acclaimed shows on broadcast television,” says The CW’s President, Mark Pedowitz, “with a wide array of fantastic scripted series across the week, ranging from musical comedy, to superhero action, to gritty sci-fi dramas. As we continue to further our strategy of more year-round original programming, picking up these 11 series for the 2016-2017 season puts us in a great position of having proven, high-quality shows to launch in the fall as well as midseason and summer of 2017.”

These CW renewals mean that the network’s small screen DC Comics universe will continue to expand. Arrow moves into its fifth season, The Flash into its third and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow into its second. iZOMBIE, based on the comic book series released under DC’s Vertigo imprint, will meanwhile be gearing up for its third season.

The other CW renewals give the musical comedy Crazy Ex-Girlfriend a second season and the soap opera satire Jane the Virgin a third. The Vampire Diaries, then, moves into its eighth season with its spinoff series, The Originals, prepping for its fourth. Reign, the network’s 16th century fantasy romance, will also head into a fourth season as will the science fiction drama The 100. Supernatural, finally, closes out the list of CW renewals as the long-running series looks forward to season 12.

Specific premiere dates for each of the 11 series will be announced at a later time, so check back for updates as they become available.

The post The CW Renewals: 11 Series Are Set to Return appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

Mercy Street renewed by PBS for a second season

PBS announced today that it has given the greenlight to a second season of Mercy Street, PBS’ first original drama in more than a decade. The first season was executive produced by Ridley Scott (The Martian, Gladiator, Thelma and Louise); David W. Zucker (“The Good Wife” and “The Man in the High Castle”) of Scott Free; Lisa Q. Wolfinger (“Desperate Crossing, The untold story of the Mayflower”) and David Zabel (“ER”).

“We are thrilled with the overwhelmingly positive response to ‘Mercy Street’ and the return of high-quality American drama on PBS stations,” said Beth Hoppe, Chief Programming Officer and General Manager, General Audience Programming, PBS. “We’re looking forward to a second season offering more fascinating stories inspired by historical events. The effort from everyone involved, including the producers, directors, historical consultants, actors and PBS stations, resulted in an extraordinary series that exemplifies PBS’ world-class programming.”

Mercy Street’s first season took place in the spring of 1862 in Alexandria, Virginia, a border town between North and South and the longest-occupied Confederate city of the war. Ruled under martial law, Alexandria was the central melting pot of the region, filled with civilians, female volunteers, doctors, wounded soldiers from both sides, free blacks, enslaved and contraband (escaped slaves living behind Union lines) African Americans, prostitutes, speculators and spies. Mercy Street follows the lives of all of these characters, who collide at Mansion House, the Green family’s luxury hotel, which has been taken over and transformed into a Union Army hospital.

Season two picks up directly from the dramatic events at the end of the season one finale, continuing to explore the growing chaos within Alexandria, the complicated interpersonal dynamics of Dr. Foster, Nurse Mary and the Mansion House staff, the increasingly precarious position of the Green family and the changing predicament of the burgeoning black population. The season will introduce a number of new elements, taking us closer to the fight and into the halls of Confederate power, all set against the intensifying war, starting with the Seven Days’ Battle and culminating with Antietam.

“It has been a privilege for all of us on ‘Mercy Street’ to be able to tell these stories at the intersection of drama and history, and we are thrilled to have the opportunity to build on what we’ve already done,” said co-creator and executive producer David Zabel. “The quality entertainment and educational value that ‘Mercy Street’ provides have made the show a perfect fit for PBS, and we’re elated that the first season has resonated with its audience.”

“The success of season one of ‘Mercy Street’ proves how captivating this series is and how viewers have identified and connected with the characters’ lives, even during a much different time in our nation’s history,” said executive producer David W. Zucker. “We are looking forward to continuing to expand on these important themes with the next season.”

“Several years ago, I went searching for a fresh take on the Civil War and stumbled on the world of Union-occupied Alexandria, Virginia,” said co-creator and executive producer Lisa Q. Wolfinger. “The history inspired us to create a complex ensemble drama about life on the home front told from multiple points of view: women, African Americans, doctors and civilians. This wasn’t easy or glamorous history; it wasn’t about battles and glory; this was challenging material rife with provocative themes and fully three-dimensional and often flawed characters. In so many ways, PBS was the perfect fit for us. The fact that ‘Mercy Street’ has been so well-received by PBS’ audiences is exhilarating. We are looking forward to season two and the opportunity to expand our storylines while digging deeper into this pivotal time in American history.”

The ensemble cast for season two of Mercy Street includes Mary Elizabeth Winstead (“The Returned,” The Spectacular Now) as nurse Mary Phinney, Josh Radnor (“How I Met Your Mother,” Liberal Arts) as Dr. Jedediah Foster, Gary Cole (“Veep,” “The Good Wife,” “Entourage”) as James Green, Sr., Hannah James as Emma Green, Brad Koed Jr. as James Green, Jr., Norbert Leo Butz (“Bloodline”) as Dr. Byron Hale, Tara Summers (“You’re the Worst,” “Rake,” “Boston Legal”) as nurse Anne Hastings, McKinley Belcher III (“Show Me a Hero,” “Chicago PD”) as Samuel Diggs, Jack Falahee (“How to Get Away With Murder”) as Frank Stringfellow, AnnaSophia Robb (“The Carrie Diaries,” The Way, Way Back, Bridge to Terabithia) as Alice Green, Donna Murphy (“Resurrection,” “Hindsight”) as Jane Green, Suzanne Bertish (“Rome”) as Hospital Matron Brannan, and Luke Macfarlane (“Brothers and Sisters,” “Over There”) as Chaplain Hopkins.

The post Mercy Street Renewed by PBS for a Second Season appeared first on ComingSoon.net.

We've been in full support of the renewed interest in Brussels sprouts for the past several years. They are one of our favorite vegetables, and we've been happy to find them on restaurant menus and at dinner parties consistently. And while they might be riding the tail of their resurgence, we're still loyal to our favorite mini cabbages. And we have 16 mouthwateringly delicious reasons why. Allow us to elaborate.

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(Photo: Iain Cameron)

The American Cheese Society calls the position "Content Manager." But dig into the job description and you'll see that the organization wants a librarian:

EDUCATION

Four-year accredited Bachelor’s degree with preference for degrees in library science/digital library science. MLS preferred

MLS stands for Master of Library Science, the standard degree that credentials a librarian in the United States.

There's a lengthy description of the typical job duties, most of which are not directly related to the consumption of cheese. But I'm not taking any chances. If I'm going to be ready for the interview, then I need to eat a lot of cheese.

-via Amanda Brennan

If you're a fan of NBC's dearly departed hit series 30 Rock, then you're probably also a fan of the completely entertaining, completely memorable, if not completely lovable, Jack Donaghy. I know I am, and I have to confess that it's not often that I snag such an exclusive, elusive interviewee as the mostly fictional character played by Alec Baldwin. But really, who better to talk to about microwaves than the VP of East Coast Television and Microwave Oven Programming for General Electric?

READ MORE »

Driving an automatic is more straightforward than driving a manual, but there are still ways to mess up parts of your vehicle. Here are five things you shouldn’t do if you drive a car with an automatic transmission.

Read more...

(Photo: Crazy Pedro's)

Chocolate creme eggs are nature's perfect food. They belong everywhere and pizza is no exception. That's why Crazy Pedro's a pizzeria in Manchester, UK invented the creme egg pizza. It's called "I Am The Resurreggtion." This 10-inch pizza has meringue, marshmallows, chocolate sauce, brownie chunks, and, of course, a whole creme egg sliced in two. This is Crazy Pedro's unique way to celebrate the upcoming Easter holiday.

-via That's Nerdalicious!

For a big budget film, a January release date is usually a vote of no confidence by the movie studios. The first month of the year has historically been a dumping ground for films to quietly die, and until recently, it was also the month that Sony had selected for the upcoming adaptation of Stephen King’s The Dark Tower.

However, a new report originating from Deadline has Sony shifting The Dark Tower to a new release date on February 17, 2017. In 2017, February 17 falls just before Presidents Day weekend, a slot that Deadpool and Kingsman have both used as launching points on their way to becoming blockbusters. Nerdist has reached out to Sony for independent confirmation but at time of publication, has not received a response.

The Dark Tower took a major step forward earlier this week when King himself announced that Idris Elba had signed on to play the lead character, Roland Deschain, with Matthew McConaughey as his nemesis, the Man in Black. Mad Max: Fury Road actress Abbey Lee is also slated to star in the film as Tirana, though that has not been confirmed.

In King’s novel series, Roland is a Gunslinger attempting to travel across a wasteland to find the legendary Dark Tower while the Man in Black (who also goes by Walter Padick and Walter O’Dim) opposes him. King has indicated that the film will take place in “our day, in the modern world,” and begin in the middle of the story as opposed to a straight adaptation of the entire saga.

Even though The Dark Tower finally has its leads in place and a release date, there’s still a lot to be done in order to make its premiere next February. Director Nikolaj Arcel is expected to have cameras rolling for the film in April.

Are you happy to hear that The Dark Tower has escaped the January wasteland? Follow the man in black and leave a comment below!

—

HT: Deadline

Image Credit: Donald M. Grant, Publisher, Inc.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

One of the most genuinely sweet moments of last night’s 88th Academy Awards was when always-a-nominee-never-a-winner Leonardo DiCaprio finally took home an Oscar for his role in The Revenant. (Birdman‘s Alejandro González Iñárritu also took home Best Director, though the film lost Best Picture to Spotlight.) This was a long time coming for DiCaprio, not least because his prior five losses have turned him into an Internet meme. Scroll through Reddit and you’ll find countless GIFs of Leo (as himself or iconic characters) unable to grab that elusive little gold man.

But the Internet wasn’t ready to give up one of their best jokes so easily. After all, Inception, which created many of the most delightful DiCaprio memes, is all about living in a dream that seems incredibly real. So, Imgur had some fun with Dominick Cobb’s totem…

But before you get too choked up, a second Imgurian gave the top another spin:

And with that, the Internet lost one of its favorite jokes:

But it’s all right—we can always cast Gary Oldman in the next never-wins meme.

via Imgur (1|2|3)

Subscription boxes always seem like such a good idea until you end up with six months of molding coffee/wine/mascara in the back of a cupboard. An art delivery service that rocks up once a month to prettify your walls, now that’s more like it. The fact that art isn’t a consumable isn’t the most common reason for it being bought, but then, art is more often not bought, so it’s valid.

Art In A Box is a project (or perhaps “project”) from California-based The Compound Gallery that supports a number of young artists eager to get their works onto your walls. The service costs $60 for international delivery and you must subscribe for at least three months. You can choose your favourite media and describe your taste in three adjectives, but after that, what you’ll receive is in god’s hands.

The Bronze In A Box option is also quite promising, although you’re not guaranteed something this creepy.

If you’d rather promise yourself to buy art and then inevitably let yourself down, head over to the regular store, or shoppe as they insist on calling it. Here you can browse a selection of pret-a-porter art and pretend like you’ll remember to check out on pay day.

As the poor, poor readers of this blog will attest, I spend a great deal of time salivating over art – usually with cursey words or pubes, but it’s still valid – and yet, walls remain suspiciously barren. The thing is, wall prints aren’t something that you suddenly need and tend to end up on the bottom of the shopping list. An art delivery subscription service at least makes me commit to acquiring new art. Sure, there’s a risk that some of the arty arrivals won’t be to me taste, but at least they won’t start to smell.

The post Art Delivery: Pic In A Box appeared first on Style It Like You Stole It.

I'm a librarian and I married another librarian. Other good possibilities for me were truck drivers, paralegals, and middle school teachers.

That's what this chart by Bloomberg Business indicates. Adam Pearce and Dorothy Gambrell analyzed US Census data from the 2014 American Community Survey. They examined who married whom by profession and gender. You can find the interactive chart here. It's fun to play to with! 

Of all professions, elementary school teachers were the most likely to marry within their profession. Software developers, dentists, musicians, and air traffic controllers also tend to keep their loving in-house.

-via Flowing Data

Because AMC needed more talk shows about things that weren't The Walking Dead, the network has given a late-night spot to Kevin Smith and Greg Grunberg. Grunberg and Smith's show, which is tentatively titled Geeking Out, will "take a timely look at pop culture through a fanboy lens" with celebrity interviews, clips, and out-of-studio segments. The show will begin, of course, with a special Comic-Con premiere set air late in July. After that, there'll be eight more half-hour episodes running weekly throughout late summer. As any Felicity fan knows, Grunberg's a good friend of J.J. Abrams and a whole bunch of other geek icons. In the release, Smith promises that Grunberg will use his connections to land good interviews and then goes on to call him "gregarious Greg," which makes this whole exercise worth it.

The gang's all here! Fulfilling Amy Sherman-Palladino's wish to have all of Rory's former beaux back, Supernatural's Jared Padalecki has signed on to reprise the role of Dean Forester for the Gilmore Girls revival, TV Line reports. He's the last of Rory's exes to rejoin the cast — Milo Ventimiglia's Jess and Matt Czuchry's Logan are already onboard — but the first victim of Rory's fickle heart. And if there's one person we can almost guarantee never made it out of Stars Hollow, it's good ol' Dean. For his sake, let's hope he's at least now running Doose's Market. Padalecki is just the latest addition to the revival's growing cast, which now also includes Sutton Foster in the Bunheads–Gilmore Girls crossover of your dreams. Variety also reports that David Sutcliffe will be back once again to play Rory's dad, Christopher — after making a totally coincidental and very meta cameo on Netflix's new Degrassi season — likely causing more headaches for Lorelai.

Update: TV Line now reports that Danny Strong will be back as Doyle, one half of the show's secret best couple with Paris Geller, played by Liza Weil, who has also already joined the revival. Here's to more cute bickering about journalism!

Second update: TV Line adds that Emily Kuroda will reprise her role as Mrs. Kim, the strict antique shop owner and mother of Lane. Meanwhile, Variety reports that Vanessa Marano, who hangs out on Switched at Birth, will be back to play Luke's long-lost daughter April Nardini, a role she once said she "kind of hated" playing. Has April grown out of doing wacky science experiments and dividing Luke and Lorelai? Hopefully!

You’ve seen the painting, but you’ve never seen it up close like this! An interactive look at The Garden of Earthly Delights lets you zoom in on the details of the hi-res image and hear the stories behind them. Or you can take a virtual guided tour of the painting, and see all the narrated details. For example, the scene above is in the far right corner of the triptych. The narration tells us:

An ink jar is dangling from the mouth of a helmeted demon. A man wearing a pale-red robe and a pig dressed up as a nun try to persuade a soul to sign a document. This is a serious legal document, the red seals are testimony enough. But what exactly is this man signing for?
Maybe they want the man to sign a pact with the devil to sell his soul. To make it look more convincing, the three have dressed up as a knight, nun and clerk, respectively. The nude man is on to them, it seems, as he is casting anxious looks at the viewer, as if pleading for help. At the same time he seems to be warning us: Don’t fall for the devil’s tricks!

The severed foot? That has its own story. The interactive feature was made to promote a series of three Dutch documentaries about Hieronymus Bosch and his creations. -via Metafilter

More than most, the latest episode of The X-Files ("Mulder & Scully Meet the Were-Monster," written and directed by Darin Morgan) is filled to the brim with Easter eggs, callback characters, and other assorted references. We've attempted to gather as many of these as possible; fellow Philes, call out any we missed in the comments.

The two paint-huffing stoners (Tyler Labine and Nicole Parker Smith) in the teaser sequence previously appeared in a pair of season-three X-Files episodes: "War of the Coprophages" (also written by Morgan) and "Quagmire" (which Morgan did an uncredited rewrite on). "Do you ever think life is so amazing," one of them asks, "that maybe we shouldn't waste it by getting high all the time?" And more paint-huffing ensues. It's nice to see that, much like Mulder and Scully, time hasn't changed the two of them that much.

Mulder and pencils. Usually he throws them into the ceiling (the first episode where that happened was the killer-doll episode "Chinga," from season five, co-written by Stephen King). Here, Mulder throws his No. 2s like darts at the ever-present "I Want to Believe" one-sheet. "Mulder," says Scully, "what are you doing to my poster?" Glad she had a replacement after Mulder kicked and ripped another one in the season-ten premiere.

How Mulder dies. In their initial survey of the murder scene, Mulder remarks about how one of the victims might have taken a midnight stroll in the nude and been attacked by a wolf, a lion, and a bear all at the same time. "That's how I'd like to go out," says Mulder, clearly forgetting that in the Darin Morgan–penned season-three episode "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," the title character played by Peter Boyle (a semi-psychic who can predict how people are going to die) said the agent's life would end as a result of "autoerotic asphyxiation." Typical Mulder — always forgetting the important stuff.

How Scully dies. Speaking of "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," that was also the episode in which the Boyle character predicted Scully's demise: "How do I die?" she asks. Bruckman responds, with a gentle grin, "You don't." Hence Scully's "You forget … I'm immortal" quip to Mulder in this episode.

Porta Potties. The agents first come across Guy Mann (Rhys Darby) in a Porta Potty, which I like to think is a reference to a scene in the classic season-two episode "The Host" in which the sewage-dwelling Flukeman hides in a similar cartable toilet. And the guy who played the Flukeman? Darin Morgan, of course.

Guy Mann's human wardrobe is the same as Darren McGavin's character from the 1970s TV series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, which Chris Carter cites as a primary influence on The X-Files.

Alex Diakun. The peeping-tom motel owner is played by Canadian character actor Alex Diakun, who appeared in three prior Morgan-scripted X-Files episodes ("Humbug," "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," and "Jose Chung's 'From Outer Space'"), as well as in Morgan's season-two Millennium episode "Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me." He also shows up in another Millennium installment, the Chris Carter–penned "Lamentation," from season one. And he's the head-transplanting lead physician in the second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe (2008).

The red Speedo. When the motel owner peeps into Mulder's room, he sees the agent sleeping in the infamous red Speedo from the season-two mythology episode, "Duane Barry," which set so many viewer mouths to “drool.”

The graveyard sequence is especially dense with references. Mulder approaches, and lovingly touches, a tombstone engraved with the name of the late Kim Manners, the director who helmed the most X-Files episodes (52 in total), from his season-two debut ("Die Hand Die Verletzt") to the season-nine series finale ("The Truth"). The epigraph on the stone, "Let’s kick it in the ass," was a frequent Manners saying.

Jack Hardy. The tombstone Guy Mann is standing in front of is for the late Jack Hardy, an assistant director on two Chris Carter series — Millennium and The Lone Gunmen. He held the same position on the second X-Files movie, I Want to Believe. Julie Ng, who is working on the behind-the-scenes features for the season-ten X-Files Blu-ray, told me that Hardy was an especially beloved member of the Vancouver film community.

Mulder’s ringtone. After Mulder drinks himself into a stupor in the graveyard, he's woken up by his ringtone — the X-Files theme song, composed by Mark Snow.

Daggoo! Finally, we need to talk about Daggoo, the cute canine Guy Mann adopts and Scully later sneaks out of the animal shelter. This continues Morgan's trend of referencing Herman Melville's time-honored Moby-Dick. In the novel, Daggoo is one of the harpooneers on the Pequod, the ship captained by the tyrannical Ahab. In one of the Morgan-ghostwritten scenes for season three's "Quagmire," Scully likens Mulder to Ahab, and compares the agent's quixotic quest to Ahab's obsessive search for the great white whale. It's also in that episode that Scully's pet Pomeranian, Queequeg, who is introduced in "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose," is eaten by an alligator. Queequeg is another character in Moby-Dick — a harpooneer on the Pequod and good friend to the novel's narrator, Ishmael. And as we found out in the season-one episode "Beyond the Sea" (co-written by Morgan's brother Glen), Scully was often referred to as "Starbuck" by her father — Starbuck being the Pequod's chief mate. No surprise Scully feels an immediate connection to Daggoo beyond his sheer adorableness. 

Read more posts by Keith Uhlich

Filed Under: the x-files ,easter egg hunting ,easter eggs ,weremonster

It’s true, fellow fans of Stars Hollow: Gilmore Girls is coming back! The unsatisfying end of season seven won’t be the final word any longer. Netflix is reviving the heartwarming and quirky series about Lorelai, Rory, and Emily Gilmore. It’s been rumored for months, and the appearance of many cast members at the ATX Festival over the summer only made fans more hungry for small town antics, ridiculously fast-paced dialogue, and jokes about copious amounts of coffee. In short, the time is right. Then again, the time for more Gilmore Girls would never be wrong.

But what are the details? What do we know? Let’s break it down.

All we know officially from Netflix is that Gilmore Girls is coming back in 2016 with Amy Sherman-Palladino, Lauren Graham (Lorelai), and Alexis Bledel (Rory):

OY with the poodles, already! See you on set, Amy Sherman-Palladino, @thelaurengraham @alexisbledel. #GilmoreGirls pic.twitter.com/kM36J1JVgV

— Netflix US (@netflix) January 29, 2016

From Stars Hollow to Hartford to New Haven to Netflix. Welcome back, girls. An all new season of Gilmore Girls coming to Netflix in 2016.

A photo posted by Netflix US (@netflix) on Jan 29, 2016 at 2:00pm PST

Who’s coming back?

But of course, other cast members besides Graham and Bledel have taken to social media to share news about reprising their roles. This includes Scott Patterson (Luke), Keiko Agena (Lane), Sean Gunn (Kirk), Yanic Truesdale (Michel), Tanc Sade (Finn), David Sutcliffe (Christopher), and Aris Alvarado (Caesar):

Luke's Diner open for business! #LukeDanes pic.twitter.com/FA0Ui9jqDn

— Scott G. Patterson (@ScottGPatterson) January 30, 2016

Happy to be back and reconnect with my old pal Michel. Feeling blessed and excited! #GilmoreGirls pic.twitter.com/jJLNcjVKKv

— Yanic Truesdale (@YanicTruesdale) January 30, 2016

It's official. #GilmoreGirls is back. ❤️ Can't wait to share the journey with you. https://t.co/5igmC2OaVW

— KeikoAgena (@KeikoAgena) January 29, 2016

HEY FOLKS, IT'S OFFICIAL. Yes, we're shooting more Gilmore Girls for Netflix and yes, I'll be returning as Kirk.

— Sean Gunn (@seangunn) January 30, 2016

No, Sean’s account isn’t verified, but there’s this:

Okay. I’m in. #gilmoregirls A photo posted by Sean Gunn (@thejudgegunn) on Jan 30, 2016 at 8:54am PST

Yup Finn's back. https://t.co/ViscCJ61Q7

— tanc sade (@TancSade) February 1, 2016

Sade added he has to make sure dates work with his Roadies filming schedule.

@MooeyRae i think Dad will make an appearance.

— David Sutcliffe (@SutcliffeDavid) January 29, 2016

Excited to announce that Caesar is returning to Stars Hallow. #gilmoregirlsreunion#gilmoreguys https://t.co/4QXwSiblAE

— Aris Alvarado (@AR1STOCRAT) February 2, 2016

Kelly Bishop confirmed her return in an interview with TVLine and in the interview mentioned that Rose Abdoo (Gypsy) and Liza Weil (Paris) will be part of the revival. Sherman-Palladino’s husband Daniel Palladino is on board to write and direct with her.

Will there be new characters?

The Gilmores have undoubtedly met several new faces in the years since we last saw them. E! Online reported on some of them. There will be the Peruvian couple Berta and Alejandro, a grumpy man named Nat Compton, Lane’s 9-year-old twins Stevie and Kwan, hippies at a commune, a high-end men’s magazine editor named Jim, and more.

Who’s not coming back?

The cast of Gilmore Girls is sprawling with several regulars and tons of names who appeared in a handful of the 154 existing episodes. We know a couple of characters who won’t be returning though. Edward Hermann (Richard) sadly passed away in 2014. Melissa McCarthy (Sookie) says she wasn’t asked:

Thanks for the invite, but sadly no one asked me or Sookie to come back to Stars Hollow. Wish them all the best!! https://t.co/II2Atug4wx

— Melissa McCarthy (@melissamccarthy) February 2, 2016

How many episodes will there be?

Rumors about the revival said it would be a four-part miniseries comprised of 90-minute episodes titled “Winter,” “Spring,” “Summer,” and “Fall.” That’s true. Graham told TVLine she’s read everything but “Fall” and said that they’re “looong.” Sherman-Palladino said they’re four 90-minute movies; she was inspired by the Sherlock format. Netflix hasn’t said whether they plan to drop all four installments at once, but Sherman-Palladino prefers that they don’t.

Should we get our hopes up?

As with any story from the past you love and want to see more of, try to temper expectations. That’s easier said than done, believe me, I know. It’s especially hard to rein in excitement when you see quotes like this one from Graham: “I was completely satisfied with these scripts. It’s what I hoped it would be.” Or these comments from Bishop: “But these scripts are good. They’re really good. And bringing back all of those characters is so delicious. Like Gypsy (played by Scandal‘s Rose Abdoo); I always loved Gypsy. And Paris is a hoot. It’s unbelievable what Amy has written for Paris.”

Sure, they have skewed perspective. Nostalgia and being reunited with friends can turn any pair of glasses into rose-colored ones. But still. I’m optimistic.

What are your hopes for the continuation of Gilmore Girls? Share them with me in the comments. You can also come share your favorite Gilmore-isms with me on Twitter.

—

HT: TVLine
IMAGES: Warner Bros., Yas Kween, Perez Hilton, Gilmor Girls

Gather round, gather round, fellow X-Philes! Our wishes have been granted, and the gang’s all back for a wild, six-episode ride. I'm Rosemary, and I’m here to guide you through this sexual-tension-filled, government-covered-up, extraterrestrial hellscape, so hold on to your tin-foil hats.

PREVIOUSLY ON THE X-FILES

I’m assuming most of you guys aren’t newbs, but if you are, welcome! Here’s the rundown: Fox Mulder has been obsessed with the idea of alien abductions since his sister disappeared when he was a kid. That led him to a career in the FBI, where he searched for his sister while working unexplainable/paranormal cases in the X-Files. In 1993, they brought in a medical doctor named Dana Scully to debunk his theories. Instead, she picked up what he was laying down (in more ways than one) (jk but we wish) (#OTP) (crying r/n) and together, they did the good Lord’s work until the X-Files was closed in 2002.

Well, you're in for a real treat.

via

 

THIS WEEK'S CASE FILE

It’s been 14 years since they closed the X-Files. Scully is still working at Our Lady of Sorrows Catholic hospital when she gets a call from FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner. He needs to contact Mulder, and even though Scully and Mulder are clearly no longer together, she appears to be the only person who knows how to reach him. Mulder, however, ain’t to be flexed with. He’s fallen into both a deep depression and a YouTube rabbit hole of alien conspiracy videos, the camera on his laptop covered with tape. Skinner’s got a lead for them though, something right up Mulder’s alley. And the only two things Mulder can’t resist: alien bait and Scully.

Our heroes greet each other on a D.C. street where they’re met by Tad O’Malley, a right-wing, floating-head, Fox News-type conspiracy theorist and host of “Truth Squad with Tad O’Malley,” who invites them into his bulletproof limo and carts them off to Virginia to meet Sveta, an alien abductee who claims to have been impregnated by aliens a handful of times. But it’s never the aliens who take the babies away from her: it was men. Government men. She claims to have alien DNA, and luckily, we have a Once Abducted Medical Doctor sitting in the room who can test that theory against her own alien DNA.

Artist's Interpretation of Mulder's Depression Lifiting

via

But even without test results, Mulder’s in. And even if he wasn’t already in, Tad takes him to see an Alien Replica Vehicle that runs on “the energy of the universe” and can disappear on command, explaining that the government has had alien technology ever since Roswell nearly 70 years ago, they just didn’t use it. Or at least, they didn’t let the public know they were using it. We can see Mulder’s wheels a’turning as he develops an entirely new, completely insane theory.

Since Mulder’s been ignoring her, Scully shows up at his house, where he tries to explain what he has realized, but we mostly get a clunky, melodramatic scene where the two of them stand on the porch and scream all our favorite X-Files catchphrases at each other. Scully: “You want to believe!” Mulder: “The Truth Is Out There!” Scully: “You only believe you believe!” Mulder: “But aliens!”

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Sveta appears and Tad shows up just a few minutes later, so the crew convenes in the living room where Mulder explains his theory: that aliens crashed in Roswell in 1947 and an elite group of men covered it up, stole the alien technology, and have since been using it to slowly but surely instigate a global collapse in hopes of taking over the world. Tad jumps in here: It’’ll probably start on a Friday! No one will assume something so terrible can happen on the best day of the week. Scully’s face says, “Oh Jesus, now there’s two of you.” But her mouth says that’s fear-mongering, and it’s irresponsible to say it. Mulder counters that it’s irresponsible NOT to say it. Then Scully drops the bomb, albeit a little prematurely, that Sveta’s got exactly zero alien DNA up in her. So that settles that.

The next day, Scully finds out that Sveta does, in fact, have a smidge of alien DNA after all. When Scully tries to tune into Truth Squad, the show has been pulled off the air completely, and Tad is nowhere to be found. Also destroyed: the Alien Replica Vehicle and all people working on it. Also, Sveta. Sorry, Sveta! And so, after nearly a full hour of Scully trying to resist Mulder’s crazy, she’s sucked back in.

We end on the Cigarette Smoking Man a.k.a. Cancer Man a.k.a C.G.B. Spender who’s still smoking cigarettes straight through his stoma. Because of this, C.G.B. Spender will henceforth be referred to exclusively as D.N.G.A.F. Spender. “We have a problem,” he says.

Yes, they have, D.N.G.A.F. The X-Files are as open as that gaping hole in your throat AND WE ARE READY FOR THIS SHIZ.

via

BIGGEST COVERUP

Just, like, this entire new theory that all that time we thought ALIENS were trying to take over the planet, it was actually the 1%? It's both insane and mind-blowing, but we're already aboard this crazy train, so we might as well ride it till the end.

WORST KEPT SECRET

Every man that finds himself in the same room as Scully asks her to join him for champagne in his bulletproof limo, even when she's covered in the blood of Navajo children. 

MONSTER OF THE WEEK
This episode featured a handful of short flashbacks to the alien crash at Roswell in 1947, where we’re given a glimpse of our first alien that’s found crawling away from the crash site. And even though it shouldn't have been a surprised, I totally gasped.

New planet, who dis?

via

Runner up: D.N.G.A.F. Spender…because yikes.

THIS WEEK'S TOP RANKING AGENT

Us. This revival is proof that if you whine about something long enough, people will eventually give you what you want, if only to shut you up.

Runner up: Our Lord and Savior Dana Scully, whose ability to age in reverse is probably the biggest conspiracy on this show.

THIS WEEK'S LOSER-HUMAN HYBRID

Sorry Chris Carter, but seriously, wtf? The writing in this episode was at best cringe-worthy. I get that you’ve got to fit a lot of stuff into 60 minutes, but one of our favorite things about the olden X-Files was the way you infuriatingly held your cards close to your chest and kept us guessing. Yes, we wanted to see Skinner and the Smoking Man. Yes, we wanted to revisit Mulder's old office. Yes, we like the occasional Roswell flashback. Yes, we want to hear Mulder talk about Believing and the Truth. But did we need them all in this particular episode? No, babe. No. 

FROM THE BUREAU SURVAILLANCE FILES
“I only want to believe. Actual proof is strangely hard to come by.” WHO HURT YOU, MULDER?

O'Malley: “Conspiracy sells.”
Mulder: “It pays for bulletproof limousines.”

Sveta: “Who can I trust?”
Fox “Trust No One” Mulder: “You can trust me”

"This is fear-mongering claptrap isolationist techno-paranoia so bogus, and dangerous, and stupid that it borders on treason." – Thank you, Gillian Anderson, for your ability to convincingly pull off a Chris Carter Word Salad™.

UNSOLVED CASES

- Does a conspiracy theory that a group of One Percenters is behind the alien cover up mean that the entire first nine seasons and both movies were just a red herring? Is that even possible?
- Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t we last see D.N.G.A.F. Spender getting his head blown off?
- Will comedic relief Mulder of yore make an appearance? I blame the lack of his light-heartedness for some of the creaks and groans in this episode.
- When Sveta appeared in Mulder’s doorway, was Scully, like, super jealous or was I projecting?
- Did anyone do the legwork and find out if attaching ears to Navajo children who were born without them is an actual thing? Because I didn’t.

So what did y'all think? Are you pumped? Disappointed? Let me know what you thought about this week's episode in the comments. And just for fun, tell me your all-time favorite X-Files episode. Mine's "Bad Blood."

(Image: NBC)

Your favorite couples in television history--Carrie and Mr. Big from Sex and the City, Jim and Pam from The Office, Cory and Topanga from Boy Meets World--whatever happened to them when the world ended?

Were they all able to sort out the inevitable conflicts from their quirky personalities and different backgrounds? Were they able to settle on life goals as a couple? Were they able to find food? Could they defend their shelters from the undead? When the Harvest came to consume humanity, could they even agree in which direction to hopelessly flee?

Chris Scott fills us in at Medium on all of these couples, starting with Monica and Chandler from Friends:

After moving to the suburbs, Monica and Chandler welcomed their third child, Lucas. Chandler was laid off from his job, which, along with the stress of parenting 3 children, led to considerable tension between him and Monica. But after 6 months of couple’s counseling, Monica and Chandler repaired their marriage. And Chandler losing his job ended up being a blessing in disguise, allowing him to make a much needed career change.

Like most of the public, Monica and Chandler dismissed initial rumors about The Syndrome as just that — rumors. In the early days, that was easy enough to do. Propped up by obscure conspiracy websites and less than reliable talk radio personalities, reports of the mysterious and terrifying so-called pandemic, first appearing in Northern Canada, seemed to be little more than isolated incidents connected only by fear-mongers and wild imaginations. It wasn’t until a series of unusual deaths in Washington State that the mainstream media began treating The Syndrome with the seriousness we now know it warranted. Per Monica’s urging, Chandler began stockpiling canned food and essentials in their basement — which they would then be forced to abandon in the evacuation. Their last known whereabouts were at a quarantine center near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

-via Ed Driscoll

Now that the return of The X-Files is upon us, it’s the perfect time to revisit all nine seasons and 202 episodes* of the original series before we’re thrust back into the world of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully (and Walter Skinner and John Doggett and, yes, Monica Reyes). In the ’90s, there was no better place to get a dose of conspiracy paranoia and nutty sci-fi, not to mention butterflies in your stomach watching David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson’s tension build. At its heart, the series was about confronting the darkness within ourselves — you know, the crippling doubt of the unknown, the fear of what’s to come. It just used aliens and monsters to explore that in a way that decades later, still resonates with viewers.

As a refresher course for the series we all fell in love with, and then slowly fell out of love with in later seasons, only to love once again once nostalgia kicked in, I’ve ranked every episode. These rankings are based on numerous factors: enjoyability, chemistry of the leads, scariness of the monsters, and effectives of the jokes, to name a just few things (obviously technical factors are at play too). There are a lot of episodes of this show, so try your best to wade through through the downright awful ones (or just skip them, where I’ve suggested).

That said, it’s best to be forewarned that while the post-Mulder episodes of the series aren’t spectacular pieces of television, I find season eight incredibly underrated (and miles better than season seven, where David Duchovny seems as bored as all of us were at that point), and I actually like not only John Doggett, but Monica Reyes, too. Please don’t stop reading. Since every episode is available on Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, you, too, can revisit the series and decide for yourself. The rebooted X-Files premieres as a six-part mini-series starting January 24 on Fox.

* There were 202 episodes of The X-Files, but for the purposes of this list, I considered two-part episodes a single entry. This equals 182 entries.

182. "Fight Club" (Season 7, Episode 20)
Season 7 is the series' most self-referential season. Every episode feels like one meta joke after the other, until it all collapses on itself in one of the worst hours of television you'll ever experience. Kathy Griffin's attempt to pull off the role of two twins (the product of a sperm-bank donor to two different women) is probably the scariest thing to ever appear on The X-Files.

181. "First Person Shooter" (Season 7, Episode 13)
Cyberpunk heroes William Gibson and Tom Maddock wrote two episodes over the course of the series, which is very awesome in theory. Unfortunately, their second episode is a goddamn mess. Mulder and Scully go into a virtual-reality world, and it's just as late-'90s/early-'00s as it sounds. It's like a bad episode of Freakylinks. Actually, that’d probably just be a regular episode of Freakylinks.

180. “Jump the Shark” (Season 9, Episode 15)
I’ve softened on this episode over the years. When it first aired, I resented killing off the Lone Gunmen as some sort of misguided “screw you” to Fox for canceling the spinoff series. Upon rewatch, I actually find the episode pretty amusing and watchable for a random episode of The Lone Gunmen. Except this isn’t that show. It’s The X-Files, and to kill off three important characters like that on a show where none of the main characters ever die means it should be a big fucking deal. And an episode about shark cartilage and a lame “let’s kill ourselves to save a conference room full of people” episode is beyond rude. Also, you’ve got David Duchovny back for the series finale in four episodes — you don’t get to kill off the Lone Gunmen in an episode without Mulder.

179. “Schizogeny” (Season 5, Episode 9)
A girl's abuse at the hands of her father leads her to the ability to control trees. I repeat, this is an episode about KILLER TREES.

178. "Space" (Season 1, Episode 9)
This episode about an astronaut possibly possessed by an extraterrestrial spirit isn’t just bad. It’s also boring, cheaply made, invokes the Challenger disaster, and is reportedly Chris Carter's least-favorite episode.

177. "Shapes" (Season 1, Episode 19)
I’m not sure why it’s so hard for anyone to craft a good werewolf story. Aside from Ginger Snaps and An American Werewolf in London, most attempts are as depressing as this episode.

176. "Sein und Zeit" / “Closure” (Season 7, Episodes 10–11)
Duchovny does some of his best work in “Sein und Zeit,” where Mulder's mom commits suicide. It's a beautiful, heartfelt episode of television, where the emotional punch feels real. However, this two-part episode’s supposed wrap-up to the disappearance of Mulder's sister forgoes aliens and government conspiracies to say that she became Rainbow Brite or whatever. It's an incredibly disappointing conclusion to a seven-year story that was once engrossing.

175. "The Jersey Devil" (Season 1, Episode 5)
Mulder and Scully come across the monster that inspired the Jersey Devil myth. You're better off reading about the Jersey Devil myth on Wikipedia.

174. “Excelsis Dei” (Season 2, Episode 11)
The show tries tackling rape, only the culprit is a disembodied spirit. It somehow manages to be more exploitative than an average episode of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

173. "Agua Mala" (Season 6, Episode 13)
A Florida trailer parker and a hurricane monster lead to a pretty offensively bad episode. There's nothing redeeming in it, save for the fact that it's just bad, not offensive, like some of the worse X-Files outings.

172. “Sanguinarium” (Season 4, Episode 6)
A bunch of plastic-surgery victims are dead, and it’s all due to witchcraft. Season four is a really fantastic season of television; it’s a wonder how a clunker like this got through.

171. “Teso Dos Bichos” (Season 3, Episode 18)
Everything about this episode starring feral cats is poorly made. It’s best not to think about it.

170. “Teliko” (Season 4, Episode 3)
A show that deals with race in a nuanced way could’ve handled a script about black people having their skin turned white, but alas, this is not that show.

169. “Underneath” (Season 9, Episode 12)
A man Doggett arrested for murder 13 years earlier turns out to not be the killer -- he actually splits into two people and his other half commits the murders. This episode feels stitched together from a bunch of far superior X-Files episodes, and when it concludes with the innocent man’s death, it’s kind of mean and unsatisfying rather than heartbreaking as it was probably intended to be. Plus, Doggett dealing with a partner who’s corrupt should have made for a much better episode than this.

168. “Kill Switch” (Season 5, Episode 11)
A computer virus is killing people … or something. Nothing in '90s horror involving technology is ever good. This is the other episode written by the iconic cyberpunk duo that also wrote the equally awful “First Person Shooter” (Gibson and Maddox).

167. "Ghost in the Machine" (Season 1, Episode 7)
A computer starts killing humans! Never seen that one before.

166. “3” (Season 2, Episode 7)
This episode is such a disaster that it’s a wonder the series would ever return to the vampire well again. Fortunately, that other vampire episode, “Bad Blood,” is one of The X-Files’ best. But we’ll get to that soon enough.

165. "Badlaa" (Season 8, Episode 10)
Ah yes, the infamous "butt genie" episode. It's completely embarrassing and nonsensical, but it also manages to be a pretty entertaining hour of television. It's far from good, and the ending, where Scully is horrified that she had to shoot a child (the genie in disguise), doesn't feel earned — but it's not boring, which is one of the worst crimes an X-Files episode can commit.

164. “The Truth” (Season 9, Episodes 19–20)
There’s no getting around it: The X-Files finale is not good at all. If you thought Seinfeld ending with its characters on trial and in jail was bad, you haven’t seen this episode, where Mulder is put on trial for the murder of a Super Soldier. Which is, in fact, a farce, because obviously Super Soldiers don’t die. So instead of answering questions about nine seasons of conspiracy — let alone doing something interesting with David Duchovny’s sole appearance in the season nine — the show basically recaps every mythology episode but pretends they made a lick of sense. Kersh helping Mulder in the end makes even less sense, despite the fact that he was maybe on Mulder’s side for a brief moment at the beginning of the season. The series ends with the FBI on the hunt for Mulder and Scully while they lie in a motel bed, reminiscing about their past. He doesn’t even ask about the son of theirs she gave up for adoption. This is misery business and a horrible conclusion to one of television’s greatest series.

163. “Dæmonicus” (Season 9, Episode 3)
The first monster-of-the-week episode of season nine is even worse than the premiere (see: No. 161). While it has some gruesome moments and an awesome sequence where Doggett gets vomited on long enough for it to be a gag on Family Guy, the plot about a demonic possession is boring and drawn out.

162. “The Calusari” (Season 2, Episode 21)
How many evil-twin stories did this show manage to pull out of its ass in nine seasons?

161. “Nothing Important Happened Today” (Season 9, Episodes 1–2)
This episode officially starts the Doggett and Reyes era, but it’s so boring and all over the place that it does away with the goodwill we had for the characters in season eight. Doggett is a madman barking at his superiors like Mulder on Adderall. Reyes is saddled with a dumb sexual harassment plot with Cary Elwes. Oh, and Lucy Lawless shows up as a Super Soldier who’s mostly naked half the time, and drowning people the other half (what a weird way to kill people you can crush with your bare hands). Everyone’s allegiances shift so many times in this episode, you’ll get a migraine trying to figure out which side Kersh is actually on, or how Doggett manages to keep his job after continuing to ignore orders.

160. “Aubrey” (Season 2, Episode 12)
This episode starts out well enough, but the concept about genetically passed-down murderous traits ultimately falls apart in its final act.

159. "Young at Heart" (Season 1, Episode 16)
X-Files does its very best Benjamin Button! We’re supposed to care about all of these people retconned into Mulder’s life, including an archnemesis.

158. “Blood” (Season 2, Episode 3)
Another. Episode. About. Electronics. Killing. People. The only truly great thing about this episode is the ending, where the monster of the week sends Mulder a message on his cell phone that reads: “All done. Bye bye.”

157. "Trevor" (Season 6, Episode 17)
Mulder and Scully are barely in this prison-camp episode with a monster that can walk through walls. It's merely forgettable.

156. “Fresh Bones” (Season 2, Episode 15)
Haitian refugees and voodoo zombies? No thanks. The X-Files had a tendency to mine foreign cultures a little too much, and in ways that feel othering.

155. “Hell Money” (Season 3, Episode 19)
Speaking of inappropriately mining foreign cultures, here we have an episode of the Chinese mafia gambling with human body parts. At least Lucy Liu guest-stars in this episode, which gives it a few bright spots.

154. "Alpha" (Season 6, Episode 16)
You're better off watching Cujo if you want to watch a story about an evil dog.

153. “Kitsunegari” (Season 5, Episode 8)
A really unnecessary sequel to the excellent episode "Pusher," bringing back Robert Patrick Modell, the man who can control people with his mind. But this time, we’re supposed to imagine his sister is the real villain, despite the fact that we saw Modell murder a bunch of people in his first appearance. Just watch “Pusher” and forget about this one.

152. “Provenance” / “Providence” (Season 9, Episodes 9–10)
The mythology episodes in season nine are really bad. This one forgoes the Super Soldiers nonsense for a cult that wants to kill Scully’s baby, or Mulder, or both. Ultimately, they kidnap William and use him to turn on a spaceship so they can leave Earth. If you’re wondering why that needed to be two hours, it’s because 80 percent of the episode is the FBI lying to Scully, Doggett, and Reyes for no discernible reason other than the fact that everyone’s supposed to be “in on the “conspiracy, whatever the hell the conspiracy is at this point in the series, with only ten episodes left.

151. “Chinga” (Season 5, Episode 10)
Stephen King lends his writing skills to The X-Files! Sadly, we learn that Stephen King is much better at writing books than he is at writing television.

150. “Elegy” (Season 4, Episode 22)
The less said about this One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest ripoff, the better.

149. “Fearful Symmetry” (Season 2, Episode 18)
This is the much-derided episode about (don’t laugh) invisible elephants and other zoo animals.

148. "Signs and Wonders" (Season 7, Episode 10)
A mysterious church and Satanic rituals are basically X-Files Mad Libs, but at least the snakes are scary as hell.

147. "Fire" (Season 1, Episode 12)
David Duchovny even hates this episode, which cooks up a fire fear for Mulder and introduces a villain with pyrokinesis. The X-Files doesn’t really do well with introducing backstory in these early episodes.

146. “The Walk” (Season 3, Episode 7)
A quadriplegic killing people by astral projection. It’s not as offensive as it sounds, but it’s certainly not great either.

145. "Two Fathers"/"One Son" (Season 6, Episodes 11–12)
The promo for this two-parter promised “the answers you’ve been waiting for.” Nah. Mostly Jeffrey Spender finds out he’s Cigarette Smoking Man’s son (and possibly Mulder’s half-brother), then he gets shot in the head. As far as the mythology of the series, the Alien Rebels kill the entire Syndicate, so you’d think the government conspiracy is over, and we don’t have to worry about alien colonization anymore. You’d be wrong. The mythology manages to somehow drag on for three more seasons.

144. “Lord of the Flies” (Season 9, Episode 5)
The best parts of this episode are its pre-fame appearances from Jane Lynch and Aaron Paul. Otherwise, the plot — about a teen who can control insects only to realize that he’s half-insect just like his mom — is a lame one that relies on kids who mostly can’t act, carrying out a ludicrous story built around a Jackass parody. How 2001.

143. "Shadows" (Season 1, Episode 6)
Written after the writers were asked give Mulder and Scully more plotlines where they help people, this hokey supernatural episode comes off like a by-the-book procedural.

142. “The List” (Season 3, Episode 5)
A death-row inmate claims he’ll be reincarnated and kill five men. The attempt to flesh out the man’s story and actually give it weight pretty much falls flat, and so this episode is kind of dull as a result.

141. "Brand X" (Season 7, Episode 18)
Not one of the better episodes about killer bugs (and there were plenty).This one also tries to take on the big tobacco industry, but it fails to create a real metaphor for the harmful effects of smoking. Granted, the series mostly lives and dies on the chemistry between the leads and the creepiness of the monster of the week, but if you’re taking on a “smoking kills” storyline, have something new to say.

140. "Chimera" (Season 7, Episode 16)
The X-Files excels when it digs deep into fears of America's past — cities without modern technology, towns where frontier justice reigns supreme. That's why an episode like "Home" succeeds, where an episode like "Chimera" falls flat. The show never really found much to say about the suburbs, save for season six's "Arcadia." Also, the running joke where Scully is stuck on a stakeout isn't as funny or interesting as the show thinks it is.

139. "Miracle Man" (Season 1, Episode 18)
The X-Files would get better over time at mining religious themes to craft really creepy episodes, but this story about a faith healer misses the mark on too many levels and ultimately ends up feeling like a generic procedural.

138. “Firewalker” (Season 2, Episode 9)
This is a retread of season-one episodes like “Ice” and “Darkness Falls.” Skip it, and just rewatch those.

137. “The Host” (Season 2, Episode 2)
The episode itself isn’t too spectacular, but damn, the Flukeman is a creepy as hell monster.

136. “Sleepless” (Season 2, Episode 4)
Mulder meets Krycek and the shadowy man known only as X (who would become his new Deep Throat), plus you get a stellar performance from Tony Todd. It’s kind of a shame that black actors like Todd, Joe Morten (from “Redrum”), and Steven Williams (X) would play such amazing side characters on the series and never occupy lead roles.

135. “Soft Light” (Season 2, Episode 23)
The first episode written by Vince Gilligan is kind of a clunker, but at least you get killer black holes and a guest appearance from Tony Shalhoub.

134. "Rush" (Season 7, Episode 5)
The cast of characters here is a bunch teenagers who can barely act, while the plot centers around being able to move really fast. Miserably, the episode drags.

133. “Kaddish” (Season 4, Episode 15)
A Hasidic Jew is resurrected as a golem and kills the people who killed him. The special effects and storytelling are top-notch, despite an altogether lackluster whole.

132. “All Souls” (Season 5, Episode 17)
Scully investigates the death of handicapped girls while grappling with the loss of her daughter Emily. It's hardly a memorable episode, but it’s a great showcase for Gillian Anderson.

131. “Synchrony” (Season 4, Episode 19)
This is a lame time-travel episode that doesn’t stand up to the test of logic on a plot or character level.

130. "The Rain King" (Season 6, Episode 8)
In the script that earned Jeffrey Bell a spot on the X-Files writing staff, a con man claims he can control the weather. Bell would later become a showrunner on Angel, and churn out several amazing pieces of television, but this is not one of them.

129. "Milagro" (Season 6, Episode 18)
Chris Carter's penchant for monologues and voice-overs are out of control in this episode about a creepy writer who's obsessed with Scully.

128. "Invocation" (Season 8, Episode 5)
A kid goes missing for ten years and returns exactly how he was when he vanished, only now he's creepy. The concept is good, but the follow-through is less than exemplary, only made better by Scully and Doggett's interactions. In that respect, it's just like a regular mediocre X-Files episode; there's no evidence that the presence of Mulder would make it any better.

127. "Salvage" (Season 8, Episode 9)
A man turns to metal and seeks revenge on the people who turned him into a monster. He stops his rampage because of a "flicker of humanity." The monster of the week largely has nothing to do with whatever Doggett and Scully are running around town trying to figure out, which feels off.

126. “Hellbound” (Season 9, Episode 8)
I like Monica Reyes. However, there’s no denying that the episodes focused on her are the weakest ones of season nine. Doggett gets a classic like “John Doe,” and even two great season-eight episodes, like “The Gift” and “Via Negativa.” But Reyes gets episodes where she has “visions” and “feelings” that are tangentially related to cheesy, pseudo-religious arcs. This episode is grisly as hell, which is to be expected when you have a killer skinning people alive.  But the reasoning behind the deaths — the killer is hunting the reincarnated souls of his murderers — bogs the episode down in boring past-lives nonsense.

125. “Our Town” (Season 2, Episode 24)
An episode about a town of cannibals that, after some pretty gnarly scenes at a chicken-processing plant, is perhaps a pro-vegan episode.

124. “Unrequited” (Season 4, Episode 16)
An invisible assassin kills high-ranking military officers because the government is  covering up Vietnam POWs who are still being held. Oddly enough, the episode doesn’t really do much justice to veterans. Who’d have thunk?

123. “Empedocles” (Season 8, Episode 17)
Connecting the murder of Doggett’s son to such a lame X-File about an evil that hops from body to body is ... well, lame. The squabbling between Mulder, Doggett, and Reyes while a pregnant Scully has pizza-ordering woes is funny, so the episode works on a pure character level. Too bad the plot’s lackluster.

122. "Død Kalm" (Season 2, Episode 19)
This is the ghost-ship episode that attempts some pretty shoddy old-people makeup on Mulder and Scully.

121. “El Mundo Gira” (Season 4, Episode 11)
Ah, the requisite Chupacabra episode of a supernatural show. It’s not that good.

120. “2Shy” (Season 3, Episode 6)
Hey, did you know that internet dating can be dangerous? Thanks, X-Files!

119. "Born Again" (Season 1, Episode 22)
Soul-transference episodes are not a thing that this show excels at.

118. "Lazarus" (Season 1, Episode 15)
Slightly better than “Born Again,” but only because that episode’s basically a second chance at this one.

117. "Roland" (Season 1, Episode 23)
An autistic janitor gets possessed by his evil twin, Arthur. It’s as embarrassing as it sounds, but for the most part, it’s a chilling and effective hour.

116. “Scary Monsters” (Season 9, Episode 14)
Making the scared kid with the overactive imagination the villain is a nice twist, but having Doggett’s lack of imagination be the reason he solves the case is an even funnier one.

115. "The Beginning" (Season 6, Episode 1)
What a disappointment this episode is, coming after the season-five finale and the first movie. After everything that's happened, Scully remains a skeptic, while the show itself is still spinning its wheels when it comes to any sort of conclusion for the overall mythology. Agent Jeffrey Spender ends up being important to the series later (he’s Mulder’s half-brother), but from this point forward (save Mulder's disappearance), it's mostly about the stand-alone episodes.

114. "The Sixth Extinction"/"The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati" (Season 7, Episodes 1–2)
Seven seasons in, more convoluted-mythology episodes are the last thing you want to see — especially when they're as overwrought as this one. While it does feature some beautiful moments between Mulder and Scully, this two-parter mostly feels unimpressive. Mulder's "illness" never really goes anywhere beyond a cheap cliff-hanger.

113. “4-D” (Season 9, Episode 4)
Reyes’s throat gets slashed and Doggett is shot in the neck in what Reyes believes is a parallel universe. The killer is stopped and everything goes back to how it was, but the reasoning behind the creation of these universes is never explained. It’s a cool concept that’s mostly effective, but the follow-through leaves a lot to be desired.

112. "Surekill" (Season 8, Episode 8)
This Of Mice and Men story about a brother controlling his slower brother is pretty by-the-numbers. In moments, it inches toward a noirish atmosphere, but it never quite gets there.

111. "Orison" (Season 7, Episode 7)
Eugene Tooms is really the only villain on this show who’s managed to have a sequel episode that isn't a mess. Just like Robert Patrick Modell's return in "Kitsunegari," Donnie Pfaster's return here offers no further insights into a villain from an incredibly scary one-off. Pfaster seems only to have returned for Scully to kill him in the end, and to question whether she's "losing control." She's not.

110. "Dreamland" (Season 6, Episodes 4–5)
Mulder swaps bodies with Michael McKean in a fun yet bloated episode that's a pale imitation of the Eddie Van Blundht business at the end of the superior "Small Potatoes."

109. “Tunguska” / “Terma” (Season 4, Episodes 8–9)
Mulder goes to Russia with Krycek, while Scully defends Mulder in a congressional hearing. Separating the two doesn’t do wonders for this mythology episode.

108. "S.R. 819" (Season 6, Episode 9)
Skinner is poisoned, dies, and gets resurrected. This is never the show where any main character legitimately dies, so it's pretty mundane, as far as suspense goes. But making Krycek the man behind Skinner’s poisoning at least made things interesting.

107. “Trust No 1” (Season 9, Episode 6)
The weird thing about this episode is that it plays better in 2015 than it did in 2001. The NSA tracking Scully’s every move might have seemed ludicrous when it first aired, but now it’s all too real. That aspect of the episode, along with the overall plot of a Super Soldier plant in the NSA trying to murder Mulder, works. What doesn’t work is … pretty much everything else. Much like the Angel episode “The Girl in Question” — where the plot revolves around Buffy without Sarah Michelle Gellar even being present — this episode tries to pull off a Mulder-centric plot without David Duchovny in tow. It mostly works, until you have a body double running through a quarry and leading Scully to a bunch of red rocks that can kill Super Soldiers. None of this Super Soldier business makes any damn sense and at this point; it’s incredibly boring, to boot. As much as I love Mulder and Scully, with Duchovny gone, the show really should’ve been moving on to anything else.

106. "Biogenesis" (Season 6, Episode 22)
Mulder becomes ill from some mysterious artifact, and a new component to the mythology is introduced (enough already), but Mulder and Scully mostly wander around accomplishing nothing. Everyone else's allegiances change, as usual, because that's the only thing keeping these conspiracy episodes going. The only truly awesome moment is when Scully goes to the Ivory Coast and finds a huge-ass alien ship buried on the beach.

105. "En Ami" (Season 7, Episode 15)
That Scully could be this naïve in falling under the Cigarette Smoking Man's spell this far into the series is laughable, but if you ignore logic, this is a pretty good episode that lets Scully confront her own cancer again, as well as her desire to help others.

104. “Patient X” / “The Red and the Black” (Season 5, Episodes 13–14)
A jam-packed episode gets bogged down by Mulder's sudden disbelief in aliens, when we're all perfectly aware that aliens exist on the show. A crisis of faith is always a great move for a hero, but this borders on asinine. The idea of an all-out alien war is introduced into the series as well, but the mythology episodes were pretty much running into a wall by season five.

103. "Terms of Endearment" (Season 6, Episode 7)
Bruce Campbell shows up as the father of a demon baby in this entertaining but not very memorable Rosemary's Baby riff.

102. “Mind’s Eye” (Season 5, Episode 16)
Lili Taylor is a blind woman who can see her father's murders. It's better than The Eye, that 2008 Jessica Alba movie with the same plot, I guess.

101. “Travelers” (Season 5, Episode 15)
This is a period episode surrounding Mulder's dad's involvement in the series’ conspiracy. It definitely works as an episode, but it's far less exciting than "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man," which it tries to rival.

100. “The Field Where I Died” (Season 4, Episode 5)
This Heaven’s Gate–esque cult episode is pretty good and affecting, but it never crosses over into excellent. The past-life stuff is interesting, and Duchovny is great at portraying Mulder’s obsession with it, but the ending grows predictable by trying too hard to break your heart.

99. “Redux” (Season 5, Episodes 1–2)
This episode is two hours, but it doesn't need to be. Scully's cancer gets cured, and the Cigarette Smoking Man “dies,” but not really because, like I just told you, he’s still alive 11 episodes later. “Redux” is a great name for this episode because the same mythology engine keeps getting rebooted and rebooted.

98. "Medusa" (Season 8, Episode 12)
Not being a fan of Boston, I was already on Scully and Doggett's side when they came up against whatever task force was assigned to cover up a potential biochemical threat in the subway system just so a bunch of angry people wouldn't have their rush-hour service interrupted. First of all, try relying on the L train if you really want something to whine about. Second, the episode creates some good atmosphere by thrusting Doggett into the subway's underground tunnels, with Scully only catching glimpses of what's happening on a television screen. But let’s be honest, this episode loses points in the eyes of city-dwellers for pretending that any subway system is as clean and somehow rat-free as this one.

97. "The Amazing Maleeni" (Season 7, Episode 8)
This episode is a classic for the final scene, where Scully pulls off a magic trick and twists her hands around 360 degrees. The rest of the episode is a quirky twist on a bank-robbery scheme that thrives on Mulder and Scully's top-notch banter.

96. "Hungry" (Season 7, Episode 3)
Having most of the episode be from the killer's perspective is an interesting move that makes you start to actually feel bad for Rob Roberts's character — before you remember he's a murderer. The episode's writer, Vince Gilligan, would later use the same technique to make you feel for Walter White on Breaking Bad.

95. "All Things" (Season 7, Episode 17)
Written and directed by Gillian Anderson, this was also the first X-Files episode directed by a woman — and it shows. Scully’s conflicting emotions as she attempts to save the life of a college professor she once had an affair with feel very real and palpable. Anderson clearly knows her character so well, and the episode feels small and intimate as a result. When Scully finally reaches closure from the affair, it goes a long way in showing how much she had grown over seven seasons.

94. "Patience" (Season 8, Episode 3)
Doggett's first X-File involves a half-human, half-bat creature that preys on the relatives of the man who caught him. Thrusting Scully into the role of the believer and Doggett as the skeptic is a breath of fresh air, but the case itself is by-the-numbers. However, this episode is all about establishing Scully and Doggett's chemistry, which is a lot stronger than fans might remember. Back then, they still held out hope that Mulder would return and rescue their favorite show.

93. “Three Words” (Season 8, Episode 16)
Once again, the dynamic in the series changes. Now Doggett, Mulder, and Scully are thrown into the alien conspiracy, and Mulder obviously doesn’t want to trust Doggett. Any episode with the Lone Gunmen is fun enough, but seeing Doggett running to save Mulder really makes you glad that this big, crazy FBI family is back together.

92. “Wetwired” (Season 3, Episode 23)
This is one of the stronger episodes of the series, and deals with technology controlling people and creating carnage along the way.

91. “F. Emasculata” (Season 2, Episode 22)
An exceptionally dark episode that puts Scully inside a prison with a rapidly spreading disease while Mulder chases after escaped convicts. This is by-the-numbers X-Files, but done extremely well.

90. “Little Green Men” (Season 2, Episode 1)
This was the first episode of the series to show a live extraterrestrial. This is also the first instance of the agents trying to get an X-File reopened after it’s been closed (this happens nearly every other week from here on out), so it does a lot to continue to drive Mulder’s devotion to the paranormal, and Scully’s devotion to him.

89. “Christmas Carol” / “Emily” (Season 5, Episodes 6–7)
Here’s the thing about Emily. The idea of Scully being determined to protect her dead sister’s daughter, who turns out to be her own daughter, is a fascinating one. But the story, boiled down into two episodes, never really amounts to anything but an idea. There’s also the fact that there’s scant mention of Emily when Scully has her miracle pregnancy three seasons later, but that’s not this episode’s fault.

88. “Quagmire” (Season 3, Episode 22)
Of course this show did a Loch Ness monster episode. But what’s surprising is how the episode manages to actually be about Mulder and Scully’s relationship, using the monster as a metaphor. Episodes like this are beautiful treasures.

87. “Nisei” / “731” (Season 3, Episodes 9–10)
You can’t really get better than a mail-order alien autopsy video, Scully meeting with abductees, and Mulder jumping on a goddamn train in a mythology episode.

86. “Piper Maru” / “Apocrypha” (Season 3, Episodes 15–16)
The first appearance of the black oil is a doozy of a mythology episode that focuses on Scully’s hunt for her sister’s killer. She’s left without justice in the end, however, because that’s how all of these conspiracy episodes tend to work. This episode is also a joy because of Krycek’s return and subsequent entrapment in an abandoned missile silo. He’s the Wile E. Coyote of The X-Files.

85. “Alone” (Season 8, Episode 19)
Leyla Harison joins The X-Files as Doggett’s new partner (for one episode), serving as an opportunity for the writers to playfully satirize their fans. Obsessed with the X-Files but completely unequipped to be in the field, Harrison gets herself and Doggett held prisoner by a horrible CGI reptile monster. That aside, this episode is pretty funny and gives almost everyone something to do that’s in their wheelhouse. Mulder even completely comes around on Doggett in this episode, not only saving him, but welcoming him into the fold.

84. "The End" (Season 5, Episode 20)
The image of Mulder's office burning has stayed with me since I first watched this one as a teenager, but the episode itself isn't as much of a classic. It's sort of the death knell of the idea that the mythology episodes would ever reach any sort of satisfying conclusion. There would be glimmers of life in subsequent episodes, sure, but you basically just have to be along for the ride.

83. "Millennium" (Season 7, Episode 4)
This dark and creepy episode serves as closure to the canceled horror series Millennium. The whole zombie thing comes off as mostly uninspired, but this episode shines because it features the first actual kiss between Mulder and Scully.

82. “William” (Season 9, Episode 16)
This episode is all over the place, but in the end, it ultimately works. A horribly scarred Jeffrey Spender returns, pretending to be Mulder in order to inject Scully’s son with the iron needed to take away his special abilities. The fact that anyone would believe Spender to be Mulder, even with a DNA test, is, frankly, nonsensical. But the conclusion that Scully has to give William up for adoption in order to keep him from being pursued by men who want to hurt him is appropriately heartbreaking.

81. "Theef" (Season 7, Episode 14)
A doctor's father-in-law is brutally murdered, and the word theef is written on the wall in blood. This leads to a straight-up horror show of an episode that excels in the way only "scary" episodes of The X-Files can.

80. "Within"/"Without" (Season 8, Episodes 1–2)
Doggett's introduction to the show is actually quite seamless. The series is "rebooted," in a sense that the new mythology arc is hunting for the missing Mulder. The new man in charge, Kersh, is kind of an over-the-top asshole, but it works to put some fire in the investigation. By episode's end, Doggett is assigned to the X-Files, while Mulder is naked (looking fine, I might add) on an alien ship full of Bounty Hunters.

79. "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" (Season 6, Episode 6)
Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin show up as a pair of lovers who committed a murder-suicide pact in the ’70s and have been haunting their home ever since. This episode should be mentioned more in the canon of great television Christmas episodes because it's easily one of season six’s most entertaining moments.

78. "Three of a Kind" (Season 6, Episode 20)
Mulder doesn't appear in the episode, so it's Scully’s turn to team up with the Lone Gunmen in a kind of unnecessary yet really funny sequel to the Gunmen origin episode "Unusual Suspects." The scene where a drugged Scully asks a room full of men to light her cigarette is one of the funniest scenes Anderson has ever played.

77. “Syzygy” (Season 3, Episode 13)
Two teenage girls kill fellow high-schoolers, thanks to a rare planetary alignment. What’s oddly noteworthy is that this episode aired the same year the teen slasher Scream was released.

76. "Conduit" (Season 1, Episode 4)
This episode goes a long way to show exactly how obsessed with finding his sister Mulder is, not to mention clueing in Scully on his quest. While the Samantha search would ultimately have an unsatisfying payoff, the setup is solid.

75. "The Goldberg Variation" (Season 7, Episode 6)
This twist on the "monster of the week" episode is funny on its own, but Willie Garson is absolutely fantastic in the role of a hapless doof with incredible luck who runs afoul of the mob. There's also an appearance by a young Shia LaBeouf!

74. “Red Museum” (Season 2, Episode 10)
This was a pretty good monster-of-the-week episode that perhaps would’ve been better if network squabbling between Fox and CBS hadn’t kept it from being a crossover with David E. Kelley’s Picket Fences.

73. "Gender Bender" (Season 1, Episode 14)
Nicholas Lea’s first appearance in the series isn’t as Alex Krycek, but as the would-be-victim of a gender-bending shape-shifter. Exploring sexual themes is rarely something The X-Files tackles — religion, government paranoia, and mysticism are usually its go-tos — but this is one of its better episodes, where the social commentary of sexual repression surprisingly still packs a modern punch. It’s an often-maligned episode, but it’s one of the earliest indications of how spooky and atmospheric The X-Files was capable of being.

72. “Unruhe” (Season 4, Episode 4)
This is one of the many episodes that relies on Scully being kidnapped, but the plot involving psychic photographs and a man who abducts and lobotomizes women is dark and terrifying.

71. “Essence” / “Existence” (Season 8, Episodes 20–21)
This episode is full of insanity, from the fact that Scully somehow has enough female friends that her mom can cobble together a baby shower, to Billy Miles chasing the agents across the Eastern Seaboard. The whole thing is basically a never-ending chase scene, with alien replicants (who are now revealed to be Super Soldiers, because things weren’t convoluted enough) in pursuit of Scully’s baby. The episode makes little to no sense once we get to the end, but Scully has her baby, Doggett and Reyes are officially partners, and it’s certainly a fun thrill-ride that perfectly caps off a fantastic season with the mythology arc’s last sputters of life. The most important part of the episode, obviously, is that big kiss between Mulder and Scully. A final scene eight seasons in making, how satisfying.

70. “Release” (Season 9, Episode 17)
The nonsense about an evil force killing Doggett’s son (see: “Empedocles”) is completely ignored in this episode, which finally offers an explanation. It’s not a neat conclusion, by any means, but it’s a logical one that serves to finally let Doggett lay his son’s memories to rest.

69. “Anasazi” (Season 2, Episode 25)
If you actually think Mulder gets killed off at the end of the episode, you’re about as smart as the writers think you are. However, this is a pretty great mythology episode.

68. "Beyond the Sea" (Season 1, Episode 13)
Scully gets to confront her father’s death in an unusually emotional episode for the series’ first season. This was the first sign that Gillian Anderson was destined for some truly amazing work on this show.

67. “War of the Coprophages” (Season 3, Episode 12)
I promise you, the killer-cockroaches episode is not as bad as you might have heard. In fact, it’s actually pretty damn entertaining.

66. “Improbable” (Season 9, Episode 13)
This Scully and Reyes episode is goddamn hysterical. The hunt for a killer driven by numerology is just an excuse for Burt Reynolds to show up singing in Italian, playing Checkers, and dancing around the exasperated FBI agents while they’re trapped in a parking garage with the killer. The bonkers musical sequence at the end is the icing on the cake.

65. “Talitha Cumi” (Season 3, Episode 24)
When Mulder's mom has a stroke, he hunts for a mysterious healer. As such, this episode is a fantastic showcase for Duchovny.

64. “Zero Sum” (Season 4, Episode 21)
Skinner puts a bunch of people’s lives at stake to save Scully, which doesn’t at all fit his character, but it’s a great episode, so let’s try to ignore all of that.

63. “Demons” (Season 4, Episode 23)
Mulder undergoes therapy to get pieces of his past memories, but a post-hypnosis blackout leaves him in a hotel room with two dead bodies and no memory of how he got there. This is a fun, twisted episode that doubles as a dark exploration of who Mulder is as character.

62. “Vienen” (Season 8, Episode 18)
The black oil is back for one last hurrah, and this time, Doggett and Mulder are trapped on an oil rig with it. Blowing up the oil rig and stopping the offshore drilling of the alien substance is done in a spectacular fashion, with both FBI agents leaping to safety in a fiery climax.

61. "Fallen Angel" (Season 1, Episode 10)
The introduction of Max Fenig, a frequent UFO abductee who will become important to Mulder, is a doozy of a conspiracy episode. It drags Mulder and Scully into a mystery involving a UFO crash that the Air Force is covering up. This is one of the first indications that the conspiracy is far-reaching, with every part of the government involved.

60. “Gethsemane” (Season 4, Episode 24)
Pretending that Mulder might actually die after multiple instances of “Did Mulder die?” cliff-hangers is such a wheel-spinning moment that it’s one of the first signs that the mythology episodes had no clear endgame in sight. Despite that, it's a great episode of television.

59. “Leonard Betts” (Season 4, Episode 12)
A cancer-eating mutant known as Leonard Betts is scary enough as a monster, but when he targets Scully, it’s the first indication that she’s infected with cancer. It’s the kind of episode that this show does best: a stellar monster of the week that morphs into an unexpected emotional arc.

58. “John Doe” (Season 9, Episode 7)
When season nine is still worried about Mulder’s disappearance and Super Soldiers, it’s a mess. But when it focuses on what the season should be about — the new agents — it can actually be fantastic. Doggett, already the center of two great episodes (“Via Negativa” and “The Gift”), is the subject of an X-File once again. This time, he wakes up in Mexico without his memory while his partners try to find out where he is. Doggett regaining his memory and having to relive his son’s death is a beautiful and powerful conclusion.

57. “Oubliette” (Season 3, Episode 8)
In this episode, which dials up the creepy, a kidnapped girl shares a psychic connection with a fast-food-chain employee who was kidnapped by the same man years earlier. This installment’s strength lies in the older woman’s sacrifice to save the girl from the same fate she suffered. It breaks Mulder, as his strong connection to kidnapping cases drives his very being.

56. “Tempus Fugit”/”Max” (Season 4, Episodes 17–18)
The tragic alien abductee Max Fenig returns in this episode, which takes much longer than it needs to, but it’s a worthy successor to “Fallen Angel,” and features the show’s first abduction by aliens.

55. “The Blessing Way” / “Paper Clip” (Season 3, Episodes 1–2)
Mully escapes certain death, Skinner has a showdown with the Cigarette Smoking Man, and Scully is an all-out badass in this awesome season-three opener. This season has the series’ best mythology episodes, back when the villains were still scary and the conspiracy seemed like it was building to something sublime.

54. "Drive" (Season 6, Episode 2)
This episode is a part of television history, because it brought Vince Gilligan and Bryan Cranston together for the first time and led to Cranston's casting in Breaking Bad. But more than that, it's also an incredibly thrilling episode, starring Cranston as man who'll die if he doesn't keep moving at a certain speed. It's like Speed done with a human, and it's more brilliant than it sounds, largely because of Cranston's performance.

53. “Never Again” (Season 4, Episode 13)
A man’s life is being controlled by his talking tattoo named Betty, voice by Jodie Foster, who rears her jealous head when Scully begins investigating him. This episode was originally set to be directed by Quentin Tarantino, but a DGA dispute kept him from being able to. The episode is just as fine without his vision, however; it’s plenty twisted and funny enough.

52. "Roadrunners" (Season 8, Episode 4)
This is a hard episode to love because it feels like it's punishing Scully for not fully embracing Doggett as her new partner. But it's also a hella creepy episode about a cult that worships a big-ass slug and inserts it into the bodies of hitchhikers. A stranded Scully trying to escape the cult while Doggett hunts for her cements these two as partners you want to keep watching, which contributes to my theory that season eight is a lot better than people want to give it credit for. Plus, the body horror in this episode is some of the series' best (and grossest) work.

51. “The Pine Bluff Variant” (Season 5, Episode 18)
Mulder goes undercover with a group of bioterrorists and lies to Scully about it because he’s kind of an asshole, but we still love him anyway.

50. "The Unnatural" (Season 6, Episode 19)
This one can seem a little hokey, but it’s actually a pretty affecting episode about a friendship between a human and an alien baseball player posing as a black man in the ‘40s. It gets bogged down in some ridiculous notions about race in America and how we’re “all the same,” or whatever it is David Duchovny thought he was was getting at when he wrote and directed this episode. And to be honest, Jesse L. Martin and Frederic Lane seemed like they were in love with each other the entire episode (that would’ve taken this story to much better heights), so it was their chemistry that sold the whole thing. The episode could’ve taken a few more turns that weren’t by-the-numbers for a “white person and POC become friends during times of racism” story, but as-is, it’s a perfectly enjoyable piece of television that could’ve reached a bit higher to truly be great.

49. “Grotesque” (Season 3, Episode 14)
Mulder's old mentor turns out to be evil and tries to frame him for murder. The main thing this episode has going for it is that it succeeds where “Young at Heart” (a similar episode about a nemesis from Mulder’s past) failed.

48. “Herrenvolk” (Season 4, Episode 1)
It’s a huge strength of the series that this episode features the death of X, but manages to make it as shocking and important as Deep Throat’s death three seasons earlier. It’s a great kickoff for season four.

47. "Deep Throat" (Season 1, Episode 2)
Same as the pilot, as most second episodes of a series are, but this time, we get introduced to Deep Throat and give Mulder a man on the inside. The series only promises to get better from here, and it definitely does.

46. “Avatar” (Season 3, Episode 21)
Don’t you just hate when you’re accused of murdering a prostitute? Skinner sure does. This deep dive into Skinner’s life is much-needed, plus a scary episode, to boot.

45. "Per Manum" (Season 8, Episode 13)
Introducing Mulder as the potential father for Scully's baby finally kicks the season's mystery into high gear. Gillian Anderson is fantastic as a woman determined to protect her child, find her partner, and also save another pregnant woman who might be killed by shadowy doctors. The bond between Scully and Doggett is finally solidified when he learns the truth about her pregnancy and does everything he can to save her in an intense final-act showdown.

44. "Squeeze" (Season 1, Episode 3)
The first monster-of-the-week episode truly sets the bar for all future stand-alone episodes. Eugene Tooms is a creepy, horrifying villain, and his nesting — along with his elongating himself through an air vent — still haunts nightmares more than two decades later.

43. “This Is Not Happening” / “Deadalive” (Season 8, Episodes 14–15)
Alien spaceships are dropping abductees’ near-dead bodies from the sky, where they act as incubators for aliens. When Mulder finally returns after his abduction, he’s presumed dead — until Skinner has his body exhumed. From there, it’s a race against the clock to keep Mulder from turning into an alien. The climax of Mulder’s disappearance story line is as thrilling as the mystery’s been, and it also opens a new angle to the alien conspiracy. As tired as the conspiracy has become at this point, Mulder’s return is enough to keep the mythology engine moving. Bonus points for being the episode that introduces Special Agent Monica Reyes, because I am probably the only fan of this character that exists.

42. "Je Souhaite" (Season 7, Episode 21)
This kind of historical-fiction episode is something I love. The idea that a genie was behind Mussolini and Nixon's rises to power is hilarious, and equating them with a bunch of down-and-out hicks who want things like a really big boat and the power to turn invisible is an awesome send-up of the clichéd “genie grants you three wishes” story. Even the ending, which you can see coming from a mile away, manages to be satisfying.

41. "Redrum" (Season 8, Episode 6)
Scully and Doggett are only bit players in this episode, which borrows heavily from The Twilight Zone to tell the story of a man accused of his wife's murder, who keeps traveling backwards in time until he can right one wrong that set him on this tragic course. The concept could've fallen flat on its face, but Joe Morton (Papa Pope from Scandal and Robert Patrick's co-star in Terminator 2: Judgment Day) is a phenomenal actor, and sells every bit of it. This is an episode that deserves more recognition among the classic X-Files episodes that step outside the procedural box and try something different.

40. "Requiem" (Season 7, Episode 22)
Mulder gets abducted! Scully is mysteriously pregnant! Krycek is back — and he shoves Cigarette Smoking Man down a flight of stairs! The cliff-hangers in this episode are fantastic, and so is the rest of the spooky, chock-full-of-aliens hour. If this had been the series finale of The X-Files, it would've left fans hanging, but damn, what a final episode it would be. Unfortunately, Duchovny split as a main character after this episode and forever upended the dynamic of the show.

39. "Tithonus" (Season 6, Episode 10)
Scully takes the reins in a fantastic Final Destination–esque episode where a crime-scene photographer can see people's deaths before they happen.

38. “Revelations” (Season 3, Episode 11)
Just trust me when I say that an episode about Stigmata is actually one of the better episodes of this series.

37. “Audrey Pauley” (Season 9, Episode 11)
Reyes ends up in a car accident, and Doggett doesn’t want to take her off life support while she struggles to send him a sign from the limbo world she’s trapped in. This is a heartfelt episode that continues to build the emotional bond between Doggett and Reyes. If the series continued on with more episodes like this one, “4-D,” and “John Doe,” it might have worked out its kinks in order to take them to the heights that Mulder and Scully reached in seasons two through four.

36. “Irresistible” (Season 2, Episode 13)
Donny Pfaster, a death fetishist, is kidnapping women, and he has his eyes set on Scully. Aside from this being another “Scully in peril” episode, the scares here are some of the series’ finest, thanks in large part to Pfaster as the truly terrifying villain. Like I said before, though, skip the sequel episode, “Orison.”

35. "Arcadia" (Season 6, Episode 15)
This is a fan-service episode that cooks up a plot for Mulder and Scully to go undercover as a suburban couple. Shipping fantasies aside, the mystery is obvious from the cold open and never really goes anywhere unexpected. But years before Desperate Housewives hit the air, this satire on the insidious nature of the suburbs played pretty well.

34. “One Breath” (Season 2, Episode 8)
Scully is in a coma following her kidnapping by Duane Barry. Mulder tries to figure out what happened to her, believing the Cigarette Smoking Man to somehow be behind it. Meanwhile, a mysterious nurse speaks to Scully while she’s in her coma. The mysticism in this episode all hangs on the relentless lengths Mulder goes to to find out what happened to his partner.

33. "E.B.E." (Season 1, Episode 17)
Our first introduction to Deep Throat’s motivations is a fun, engrossing conspiracy episode that also introduces us to the Lone Gunmen. The early days of Mulder’s obsession with the paranormal are still pretty fun to watch, even years later.

32. “D.P.O.” (Season 3, Episode 3)
Giovanni Ribisi can control lightning. I think that’s all you need to know.

31. "Eve" (Season 1, Episode 11)
The most important thing about this episode — to my generation, at least — is probably that it inspired the name of the band Eve 6. But this creepy installment about clones committing grisly murders is a really well-done monster-of-the-week ep, too.

30. "Folie à Deux" (Season 5, Episode 19)
Folie à deux is a term meaning “madness shared by two people.” When a man believes his boss to be a monster and takes his office hostage, Mulder and Scully step in. The man is killed, but Mulder believes the boss is a monster, too, and gets locked up in a psych ward. Scully’s determination to save him is why you love watching these two fight for one another.

29. "Darkness Falls" (Season 1, Episode 20)
I have a special place in my heart for this episode because it’s the first-ever episode of The X-Files I saw, and it gave me nightmares for weeks. It’s mostly a redux of “Ice,” but the forest setting and the visuals of green bugs feasting on victims shows what the series can do in a nature setting, as the superior “Field Trip” would build upon.

28. "Pilot" (Season 1, Episode 1)
The very first episode of The X-Files is one of its best. It introduced the characters of Mulder and Scully and thrust us into its '90s-paranoia dialed up to 11 at the same time. It sets the tone for the entire series well, even despite all the twists and turns it would take throughout the years.

27. "X-Cops" (Season 7, Episode 12)
The stereotypes in this episode are a bit much, but back in 2000, when everyone was watching Cops, this episode was pitch-perfect. I wonder how anyone who didn't grow up watching Cops would view this episode now, but for anyone in my generation (late '80s) or older, this is satire at its best.

26. "Die Hand Die Verletzt" (Season 2, Episode 14)
The series’ best meditation on faith and Satanism pits Mulder and Scully against the devil-worshipping PTA at an East Coast high school.

25. "Hollywood A.D." (Season 7, Episode 19)
Scully running in heels in the background of “Hollywood A.D.” may be one of The X-Files’ greatest moments. It battles for the top spot, obviously, with the glorious three-way split-screen bubble bath between Scully, Mulder, and Skinner. This episode doesn't always make sense, but it's hella funny.

24. “Unusual Suspects” (Season 5, Episode 3)
The Lone Gunmen’s origin episode was devised, oddly enough, because Duchovny and Anderson were still busy filming the X-Files movie when production began on season five. What resulted is a hilarious, paranoia-drenched episode about the series’ greatest supporting characters.

23. "Tooms" (Season 1, Episode 21)
Tooms is the only monster of the week whose return manages to surpass his original outing, upping the stakes by framing Mulder for assault. The climax, set in a mall where Tooms has built his latest nest, is one of the series’ greatest setpieces.

22. "Field Trip" (Season 6, Episode 21)
An amazing mindfuck where it's all a dream, thanks to hallucinogenic mushrooms. When you ask people about their favorite X-Files episodes, they're always certain to mention "the one with the killer shrooms."

21. "Via Negativa" (Season 8, Episode 7)
The X-Files does A Nightmare on Elm Street. Dripping with atmosphere and dominated by Doggett, this monster of the week is further proof that season eight is better than people give it credit for. The creeping fear that Doggett's trapped in a nightmare and might end up murdering Scully is palpable in Robert Patrick's performance. This episode knocks it out of the park.

20. "Detour" (Season 5, Episode 4)
Mulder and Scully are stuck in a car with two random FBI agents, en route to a “team-building” seminar. They end up running into a mysterious forest monster and delivering a well-done monster-of-the-week episode.

19. "Duane Barry" / "Ascension" (Season 2, Episodes 5–6)
In the episode, which sends us down the “mysterious Scully health issues” rabbit hole, Scully is kidnapped to service Gillian Anderson’s real-life pregnancy. This installment has a lot in common with “Irresistible” and other Scully-kidnapping episodes, but none is as thrilling as this one.

18. "The Erlenmeyer Flask" (Season 1, Episode 24)
This is an amazing end to a spectacular debut season. Scully finally getting her hands on proof of extraterrestrials but having to trade it to save Mulder’s life is the mission statement of this show in a nutshell. Deep Throat’s death also feels like a new and important moment, before setbacks like this would become part of the show’s rhythm.

17. "Humbug" (Season 2, Episode 20)
How could anyone ever have watched American Horror Story: Freak Show after seeing this master class on how to tell a hilarious, creepy, and dark story about circus freaks?

16. "The Gift" (Season 8, Episode 11)
Ignore the retcon that Mulder would ever hide a brain disease from Scully, and this is a perfect episode of The X-Files. Using Doggett's still-murky allegiance to Scully and Skinner to great effect, he investigates a town that Mulder kept visiting in secret. Turns out there’s a soul-eater there who consumes human diseases, which the town uses to its own benefit. Mulder tried freeing the soul-eater from his captivity, just as Doggett attempts to do before he's shot and killed. When the soul-eater consumes Doggett's death, it's able to save him and finally free itself. This an incredibly affecting episode that will make anyone a John Doggett fan, unless you have a heart of stone.

15. "Monday" (Season 6, Episode 14)
Mulder keeps getting blown up in a bank robbery gone awry in this Groundhog Day–inspired episode. While the concept is one you've seen before on TV, the acting, script, and mystery behind the repeated Monday are all strong enough to make this a bona fide classic X-Files episode.

14. "Ice" (Season 1, Episode 8)
Inspired by John Carpenter's The Thing, this episode isolates Mulder and Scully with a small team of doctors as they investigate a mass murder-suicide of physicists in Alaska. The paranoia present in every episode of The X-Files is driven to all-time heights in this installment, where Mulder and Scully are at the brink of insanity.

13. "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man" (Season 4, Episode 7)
This excellent flashback episode might not even be true, given the unreliability of its narrator. But diving into the Cigarette Smoking Man’s background and showing how he’s been at the center of conspiracy after conspiracy in America really expands the series’ mythology, and shows the far-reaching grip of the forces Mulder and Scully are up against.

12. "Small Potatoes" (Season 4, Episode 20)
Eddie Van Blundht (the h is silent) is the character at the center of this episode. He’s a shape-shifter who tricks the women in a small town into thinking he’s their husbands or their ultimate fantasy (Luke Skywalker, for one woman). This smart script by Vince Gilligan is one of the series’ funniest.

11. "Paper Hearts" (Season 4, Episode 10)
So “Closure” is awful because it actually wants us to buy its lame wrap-up to the Samantha Mulder abduction. But this episode, where Mulder believes that a serial killer might be responsible for his sister’s death, is a beautifully rendered piece of television. The episode leaves Mulder unsure of whether his sister was actually this man’s victim, which ultimately turns out not to be true (if it had been the real conclusion to Samantha’s abduction, it would be the series’ greatest arc). As it stands, it’s still one of the series’ best.

10. "Triangle" (Season 6, Episode 3)
Long takes, à la Alfred Hitchcock's Rope, are used in an episode where Mulder is trapped on a luxury liner invaded by Nazis in 1939. Scully and the Lone Gunmen rush to save him with the help of Skinner. Written and directed by Chris Carter, this episode was marketed as a television event — and it's actually as good as we were led to believe. The series would go on to have more near-excellent episodes after this one, but this is the last time The X-Files would reach glorious, iconic heights.

9. “Sunshine Days” (Season 9, Episode 18)
Doggett: “Why is everyone still watching a 30-year-old TV show?”

Reyes: “Because they’re the family everyone wishes they had.”

Mulder lost his sister, father, and mother. Scully lost her sister and her child. Doggett lost his son. Reyes has always had paranormal connections to loss. Ultimately, The X-Files is a show about finding whatever you believe your family is. The series’ mission statement is never as beautifully summed up as in this episode written and directed by Vince Gilligan, where Michael Emerson (Lost’s Ben Linus) plays a man who turns his home into the Brady Bunch house because he’s never truly had a family. When his doctor finally claims him as a son, it’s hard not to feel all of that emotional weight. Scully also receives irrefutable truth that the paranormal exists, and Reyes and Doggett clasp hands, realizing their family is now one another. If the series had ended on this episode, canceled before it could reach a “proper” conclusion, it would have been one the best series finales in television. As it stands, this penultimate episode of the The X-Files is simply just one of the series’ finest big-picture moments.

 8. "Pusher" (Season 3, Episode 17)
Scully saying to Mulder "Please explain to me the scientific nature of the whammy" is probably the best line in the series. Robert Patrick Modell, a man who can control people with his mind (or “put the whammy” on them, as Mulder describes), is sort of an early version of Kilgrave from Jessica Jones. The final showdown between Mulder and Modell, playing a game of Russian roulette, is one of the most tense scenes ever attempted by the series.

7. "The Post-Modern Prometheus" (Season 5, Episode 5)
This episode is a classic, not only for its quality but for its piece in television history. Two roles in the episode were designed for pop-culture icons: Roseanne and Cher. Roseanne was unavailable for filming, and Cher turned down a cameo where she’d merely be singing at the end (she wanted to act in the episode), only to regret it when she saw how beautiful the episode was. It’s easy enough to pull off a Frankenstein’s-monster episode in this day and age, but to do it with such artful cinematography (the episode is entirely in black-and-white) is where The X-Files put its own spin on a classic story.

6. "Memento Mori" (Season 4, Episode 14)
Scully seeks cancer treatment, while Mulder nearly goes insane trying to find out what happened to his partner when she was kidnapped. This episode rightfully earned an Emmy nomination and won Gillian Anderson a lead-actress Emmy.

5. "Colony" / "End Game" (Season 2, Episodes 16–17)
When the mythology episodes are bad, they’re really bad. But when they’re excellent, they’re as transcendent as this two-parter that pits Mulder and Scully against the Bounty Hunter. Scarier than those Super Soldiers could ever be, the Bounty Hunter morphs into Mulder. Scully realizes she’s in danger when she hears the real Mulder’s voice on the telephone, at which point there’s no way you won’t get chills.

4. "Jose Chung's From Outer Space" (Season 3, Episode 20)
Much has been written about this episode, to the point where there’s nothing much to add. Except this: What makes it so brilliant is actually what keeps it from being the all-time-best episode. This is the series at its most meta, poking fun at the genre and The X-Files as a whole. But for a show that changed the genre game (and television in general), it just doesn’t seem right to give the very top spot to an episode that satirizes itself.

3. "Home" (Season 4, Episode 2)
Hands down, this is the scariest episode of The X-Files. So twisted and demented that Fox has never reaired it, this episode about a bunch of inbred killers banging their paraplegic mother whom they keep squirreled away underneath a bed in her room is one of the most sickening things that’s ever aired on television.

2. "Bad Blood" (Season 5, Episode 12)
On the flip side, this is the funniest episode of The X-Files. The setup is simple: Mulder drives a wooden stake through the heart of a teenager he believes to be a vampire. But he might actually be human. How Mulder arrived at that conclusion is brilliantly told through Mulder and Scully’s own differing perspectives. No episode has ever gotten to the core of how much the two love each other, despite their differences, than this one.

1. "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" (Season 3, Episode 4)
The X-Files could be thrilling, scary, heartbreaking, and funny. This episode takes every element that made the series so iconic and throws them all into one heartbreaking installment. A man who can see the future aids Mulder and Scully in stopping the murders of psychics and fortune-tellers. It took Scully years to finally come around on the supernatural, but in that moment where she finds Clyde Bruckman dead, she takes his hand, and you can see it in her eyes that she’s finally ready to take this journey into the paranormal with Mulder. This isn’t just the best episode of The X-Files, it’s one of the best episodes of television ever.

Read more posts by Ira Madison III

Filed Under: vulture lists ,tv ,the truth is out there ,the x-files

Throughout nine seasons of The X-Files, the series' mythology was more than a little confusing. Did alien life on this planet begin with Roswell? Were aliens already here? What's up with Scully's cancer — and what really happened to Mulder's baby?

We don't know how many of those details will factor into the resurrected version of the show when it premieres on Fox this Sunday, January 24, but it never hurts to be prepared. In order to refresh you on what exactly went down during the first run, here is a chronological timeline of every important alien abduction, Black Oil possession, and government double-cross that contributes to the overall mythology of The X-Files.

The Ice Age

2.4 million years ago, alien life forms are present during the early evolution of human life. The Ice Age causes them to flee the planet, but they leave deposits of the Black Oil virus for when they return to eventually colonize Earth.

35,000 BC

North Texas

Two cavemen fight an extraterrestrial. One of them is infected with Black Oil.

1947

Roswell, New Mexico

An alien spacecraft crash lands.

Roswell, New Mexico

An alien poses as a Negro League baseball player, Josh Exley, in order to stay on Earth and enjoy life. An Alien Bounty Hunter kills him for abandoning his people. (Episode: “The Unnatural”)

Early 1950s

Maryland

Bill Mulder and Arthur Dales encounter a man, Skur, with an alien parasite. Bill helps him escape from the government in one of the first X-Files. (“Travelers”)

1953

Washington, D.C.

Bill Mulder and Cigarette Smoking Man interview a crewman from submarine Zeus Faber who encountered the Black Oil before it escaped into the Pacific Ocean.

Late 1950s

Washington, D.C.

The Syndicate hands over family members to the alien Colonists to avoid being killed when Colonization happens. They are given an alien fetus to experiment on, and create alien-human hybrids to survive during Colonization. (“One Son”)

1973

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

8-year-old Samantha Mulder is abducted when her brother, Fox Mulder, is 12.

1979

April Air Force Base

Samantha lives with Cigarette Smoking Man and his son Jeffrey Spender, and is experimented on. She vanishes from a hospital without a trace.

1985

Pulaski, Virginia

Duane Barry is abducted by aliens.

1992

Washington, D.C.

Special Agent Dana Scully is assigned to work with Special Agent Fox Mulder on the X-Files. ("Pilot")

First appearance of C.G.B. Spender, the Cigarette Smoking Man. ("Pilot")

Bellefleur, Oregon

Mulder and Scully investigate alien abductees; a body is found with a metal implant. ("Deep Throat")

1993

Washington, D.C.

Mulder meets Deep Throat, his FBI informant. ("Deep Throat")

Southwestern Idaho

Test pilot Colonel Robert Budahas goes missing, is returned with his memory wiped. ("Deep Throat")

Sioux City, Iowa

Mulder investigates the abduction of Ruby Morris, which reminds him of his sister's abduction. (“Conduit”)

Mulder sees an alien spacecraft at the military base; his memory is wiped. ("Conduit")

Townsend, Wisconsin

UFO crash. An invisible figure kills a deputy sheriff; the Air Force cleans it up. ("Fallen Angel")

Max Fenig, an alien abductee, is abducted again. ("Fallen Angel")

1994

Iraq/Palestine Border

An Iraqi fighter pilot shoots down a UFO. ("E.B.E.")

Mattawa, Washington

Frank Druce transports an EBE (extraterrestrial biological entity) to a power plant, where it's killed. ("E.B.E.")

Deep Throat tells Mulder that after Roswell, an agreement was made between countries to kill all EBEs. ("E.B.E.")

Washington, D.C.

Mulder introduces Scully to the Lone Gunmen. ("E.B.E.")

Gaithersburg, Maryland

Dr. Terrance Berube is murdered by Crew Cut Man, a Man in Black assassin. Dr. Berube was performing experiments on men with extraterrestrial viruses.

Fort Marlene, Maryland

Scully finds an alien fetus in liquid nitrogen. She trades it with Crew Cut Man for Mulder's life. Crew Cut Man murders Deep Throat. ("The Erlenmeyer Flask")

Arecibo, Puerto Rico

Mulder sees an extraterrestrial while investigating a defunct NASA program, High Resolution Microwave Survey, designed to contact extraterrestrial life. (“Little Green Men”)

Sayreville, New Jersey

Mulder’s new FBI informant, X, mysteriously contacts him. (“The Host”)

Virginia

Scully is kidnapped by Duane Barry. (“Duane Barry”)

Washington, D.C.

Scully returns weeks after her abduction, comatose, in a hospital. (“One Breath”)

Delta Glen, Wisconsin

Cows and teenagers are injected with alien DNA; the Crew Cut Man shows up and murders some of the teenagers. Crew Cut Man is killed by Sheriff Mazeroski. (“Red Museum”)

1995

Beaufort Sea

The Alien Bounty Hunter crash-lands. (“Colony”)

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Samantha apparently returns home, claims she was returned at the age of 9 with no memories, but recently recovered them through hypnosis. (“Colony”)

Syracuse, New York

Alien Bounty Hunter murders doctors who are clones. (“Colony”)

Syracuse, New York

Samantha is revealed to be one of many clones. They are killed by the Alien Bounty Hunter. (“End Game”)

Two Grey Hills, New Mexico

An alien corpse is found in a boxcar. (“Anasazi”)

Washington, D.C.

Mulder is given an encrypted tape with evidence of extraterrestrial life. The Syndicate wants possession of the tape. (“Anasazi”)

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Bill Mulder tries telling his son about the encrypted tape, but he’s murdered by Alex Krycek. (“Anasazi”)

Washington, D.C.

Scully finds a metal implant in the back of her neck. (“The Blessing Way”)

Washington, D.C.

Well-Manicured Man tells Scully the Syndicate wants to kill her. Melissa, her sister, is mistakenly shot and killed. (“The Blessing Way”)

Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts

Mulder finds out his father let Samantha be abducted in order to appease the Syndicate. (“Paper Clip”)

Washington, D.C.

Krycek beats up Assistant Director Walter Skinner and takes the tape. Cigarette Smoking Man lies to the Syndicate that the tape has been destroyed. (“Paper Clip”)

Knoxville, Tennessee

A group of Japanese scientists film themselves as they perform an alien autopsy before they’re murdered. (“Nisei”)

Washington, D.C.

Scully realizes that a Japanese scientist from the autopsy video experimented on her during her abduction. (“Nisei”)

Quinnimont, Massachusetts

Alien-human hybrids are shot and buried in a grave. (“731”)

Ohio

Mulder is saved from Red Haired Man, an assassin, by X. X pulls Mulder from a train car before it explodes, destroying evidence of an alien-human hybrid. (“731”)

1996

Pacific Ocean

Piper Maru, a French salvage vessel, discovers the Black Oil in a sunken World War II fighter plane. (“Piper Maru”)

Black Crow, North Dakota

Krycek, infected by the Oil, visits an abandoned missile silo. The Black Oil seeps into the ship, and Krycek is trapped in the silo.

Arlington, Virginia

After a shooting in a diner, a man who is revealed to be Jeremiah Smith heals the gunman and his victims. (“Talitha Cumi”)

Washington, D.C.

The Alien Bounty Hunter hunts down Jeremiah Smith and kills X. Cigarette Smoking Man has the Bounty Hunter heal Mulder’s mom, who suffered a stroke. (“Herrenvolk”)

X writes “SRSG” in blood, which leads Mulder to his next contact, special representative to the secretary-general of the United Nations, Marita Covarrubias. She works for the Syndicate. (“Herrenvolk”)

Honolulu, Hawaii

Customs officers are infected by the Black Oil, traveling via a carrier from Russia. (“Tunguska”)

Krasnoyarsk, Russia

Mulder is infected with the Black Oil. (“Tunguska”)

Boca Raton, Florida

Rocks containing the Black Oil are destroyed by a KGB assassin, who also kills Syndicate doctors working on a vaccine. (“Terma”)

1997

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Scully’s interactions with Leonard Betts, a cancer-eating mutant, lead her to the realization that she has cancer. (“Leonard Betts”)

Washington, D.C.

Scully is diagnosed with a cancerous tumor, the result of experiments on abducted women. Skinner makes a deal with Cigarette Smoking Man to save her. (“Memento Mori”)

Upstate New York

Max Fenig is abducted from a plane. As he’s returned, a military craft shoots down the plane and the UFO. (“Tempus Fugit”)

Great Sacandaga Lake, New York

Mulder finds a spacecraft and an alien body submerged in the lake. (“Tempus Fugit”)

New York to Washington, D.C.

Mulder is abducted from a plane for nine minutes, and an alien device in his possession is stolen. (“Max”)

Vienna, Virginia

A woman is killed by a swarm of bees. Skinner covers up the death as part of his bargain to save Scully. (“Zero Sum”)

Columbia, South Carolina

Skinner tells Marita Covarrubias that the bees are being used as carriers for a Syndicate experiment. (“Zero Sum”)

Providence, Rhode Island

Mulder recovers memories that the Cigarette Smoking Man is in part responsible for his sister’s disappearance, and also was involved with his mother. (“Demons”)

St. Elias Mountains, Canada

An expedition team discovers a frozen alien body. (“Gethsemane”)

Washington, D.C.

Mulder fakes his death to discover who he and Scully can trust in the FBI. (“Redux”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man is shot and killed by Section Chief Scott Blevins, though no body is recovered. (“Redux II”)

Washington, D.C.

A fake Samantha meets with Mulder in order to get him to join the Syndicate’s side. (“Redux II”)

San Diego, California

A woman, Roberta Sim, apparently commits suicide. She’s discovered to have been raising Scully’s biological child, a girl named Emily. (“Christmas Carol”)

San Diego, California

Dr. Calderon, Emily’s doctor, is killed, and an alien clone continues treatment on Emily. (“Emily”)

San Diego, California

Emily, believed to be an alien-human hybrid, dies. Her body is not found in her coffin. (“Emily”)

1998

Kazakhstan, Asia

An alien abductee is killed by an Alien Bounty Hunter. (“Patient X”)

Washington, D.C.

The Syndicate is surprised by the early colonization by the aliens. (“Patient X”)

Ruskin Dam, British Columbia

Cassandra Spender goes missing as aliens confront abductees. (“The Red and the Black”)

West Virginia

The military catches a Rebel alien fighter from a crashed spacecraft. (“The Red and the Black”)

Washington, D.C.

The Syndicate is unsure whether or not to align with the Rebel aliens, who are fighting the Colonists. They procure a Black Oil vaccine from Russia. (“The Red and the Black”)

Wiekamp Air Force Base

A Rebel kills an Alien Bounty Hunter and saves the Rebel captured by the military. (“The Red and the Black”)

Washington, D.C.

Agent Jeffrey Spender is revealed to be Cigarette Smoking Man’s son. (“The Red and the Black”)

Vancouver, British Columbia

An assassination attempt on Gibson Praise, a telepath, is foiled when he dodges a Syndicate sniper's bullet. (“The End”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man reveals to Spender that he is his father. (“The End”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man takes Samantha’s file from the X-Files. (“The End”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man burns down the X-Files. (“The End”)

Texas

Scully is stung by one of the bees and infected. (Fight the Future)

Antarctica

Mulder gets a vaccine for Scully as an alien spacecraft flies from the ice. (Fight the Future)

Washington, D.C.

Jeffrey Spender and Diana Fowley are assigned to the X-Files, replacing Mulder and Scully. (“The Beginning”)

Scully discovers alien DNA is in all human DNA. (“The Beginning”)

Washington, D.C.

Skinner is infected with debilitating nanotechnology. Krycek saves his life but maintains control of Skinner’s infection. (“S.R. 819”)

1999

Washington, D.C.

An alien Rebel kills a Syndicate member and takes his place in order to convince the Syndicate to join the Rebels. (“Two Fathers”)

Cassandra Spender is revealed to be an alien-human hybrid whose existence could trigger colonization of Earth. (“Two Fathers”)

El Rico Air Force Base, Washington, D.C.

Cassandra Spender and the Syndicate and their families are killed by alien Rebels in order to stop the impending Colonization. (“One Son”)

Washington, D.C.

Spender tells assistant director Alvin Kersh that Mulder and Scully could’ve prevented the Syndicate’s deaths, and tells him to reassign them to the X-Files. Cigarette Smoking Man, angry with his son, shoots him in the head. (“One Son”)

Côte d'Ivoire

A metallic object with biblical inscriptions is discovered. (“Biogenesis”)

Côte d'Ivoire

Scully investigates a half-buried spaceship and discovers writings that have information on human genetics. (“The Sixth Extinction”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man reveals to Mulder he is his father. (“The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati”)

Cigarette Smoking Man believes Mulder has become an alien-human hybrid and tries to harvest his DNA to be the only person to survive the oncoming invasion. (“The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati”)

2000

Washington, D.C.

Mulder learns his sister was taken by “walk-ins,” who save children’s souls before they are doomed to lead unhappy lives. (“Closure”)

Washington, D.C.

Cigarette Smoking Man, dying of cancer, gets Scully to help him find the cure to all of mankind’s diseases. CSM throws the cure into a lake. (“En Ami”)

Oregon

Mulder is abducted by aliens. (“Requiem”)

Washington, D.C.

Despite being barren, Scully confides in Skinner that she is pregnant. (“Requiem”)

Washington, D.C.

Agent John Doggett joins an FBI task force to find Mulder. (“Within”)

Arizona Desert

Gibson Praise is saved from an Alien Bounty Hunter. (“Without”)

Washington, D.C.

Kersh assigns Doggett to the X-Files as a punishment for not finding Mulder. (“Without”)

2001

Squamash, Pennsylvania

Doggett discovers that Mulder, dying after being exposed to an alien artifact, sought a cure from a soul-sucker. (“The Gift”)

Washington, D.C.

Via flashback, we discover Scully asked Mulder to be a sperm donor after her abduction. (“Per Manum”)

Washington D.C.

Scully discovers alien fetuses in jars at Zeus Genetics. (“Per Manum”)

Montana

Agent Monica Reyes joins the search for Mulder. (“This is Not Happening”)

Mulder’s body is recovered, but before Scully can have Jeremiah Smith heal Mulder, Smith is abducted by aliens. (“This is Not Happening”)

Washington, D.C.

Billy Miles, an alien abductee, awakens after being recovered and morphs into an alien-human hybrid. (“Deadalive”)

Washington, D.C.

Krycek tries forcing Skinner to kill Scully’s unborn child. (“DeadAlive”)

Washington, D.C.

Mulder’s body is exhumed and shows vital signs. He’s taken off life support, which stops the alien virus from making him a hybrid, and he returns to normal. (“Deadalive”)

Washington, D.C.

Agent Knowle Rohrer gives Dogett a “tip” in order to set Mulder up to be killed by black ops as he searches for information on Colonization. (“Three Words”)

Gulf of Mexico

Mulder and Doggett blow up a rig with the last remaining traces of Black Oil. (“Vienen”)

Washington, D.C.

Zeus Genetics is burned down by Billy Miles. (“Essence”)

Washington, D.C.

Billy Miles is revealed to be an indestructible Super Soldier, a military project. (“Existence”)

Upstate New York

Scully gives birth surrounded by Super Soldiers, who depart once her son William is born. (“Existence”)

Washington, D.C.

Doggett learns Rohrer is a Super Soldier, just like Shannon McMahon, a woman from his past. (“Nothing Important Happened Today”)

Washington, D.C.

William moves the mobile in his baby crib with his mind. (“Nothing Important Happened Today”)

2002

Washington, D.C.

A Super Soldier tries bringing Mulder out of hiding, but Mulder leads Scully to magnetite that kills Super Soldiers. (“Trust No 1”)

Calgary, Canada

An alien cult kidnaps William in order to power a spaceship. The cultists are killed. (“Providence”)

Washington, D.C.

The Lone Gunmen sacrifice themselves to stop a biochemical weapon from being used. (“Jump the Shark”)

Washington, D.C.

Jeffrey Spender poses as Mulder to get close to Scully’s baby and injects him with magnetite to take away his abilities. Scully gives her baby up for adoption to protect him. (“William”)

Mount Weather Military Base, Appalachian Mountains

Mulder is put on trial for the death of Rohrer, a Super Solider. He is sentenced to death, despite his attempts to expose the government conspiracy during his trial. Skinner, Doggett, Reyes, and Kersh help him escape with Scully. (“The Truth”)

Washington, D.C.

In exchange for his help locating a missing FBI agent, Mulder’s slate is wiped clean by the FBI, and he no longer has to remain in hiding. ("I Want to Believe")

Read more posts by Ira Madison III

Filed Under: the x-files ,mythology ,the truth is here ,tv ,chris carter ,david duchovny ,gillian anderson

For those of us who wanted to believe in a happy ending for the very special agents of The X-Files, the advance chatter around the show's upcoming return has already included one giant buzzkill of a revelation: Sometime between the end-credits scene from the last X-Files movie and the opening moment of the new series, Mulder and Scully broke up.

Chris Carter confirmed the Sculder split in August 2015, prompting a great deal of wailing from the X-Files fanbase, who never expected to still be riding the emotional roller coaster of this fictional relationship after 25 years, nine seasons, and two movies.

But while we're all more or less universally rooting for Mulder and Scully to end up together now, the possibility of a romance between the two hasn't always been so popular. Actually, it was downright controversial — and it made for endless, highly emotional conflicts within the X-Files Usenet newsgroups that thrived on the internet in the 1990s. For as long as the show was on the air, even after the Mulder-Scully relationship had taken multiple turns for the non-platonic, debates raged on the message boards between two teams: the hopeful shippers who believed in love, and the horrified noromos who were sure it would ruin everything.

So before we settle in to watch Mulder and Scully reunite — in every way, if we're lucky — we're revisiting the moments from their original relationship arc that drove fans wild, along with some choice reactions from the bowels of Web 1.0.

1. Season One: Scully strips down in the pilot.

After investigating their very first case — an alien abduction — Scully finds a pair of suspicious marks on her body that mirror those found on the victims, and she presents her underwear-clad behind for Mulder's inspection. When they turn out to be just mosquito bites, she hugs him with relief. If people weren't wondering yet whether these two might eventually end up seminude together, they were certainly thinking about it after this.

While nobody jumped to any immediate conclusions at the time about their meant-to-be status, one shipper looked back on their instant trust as having obvious romantic promise: "Watching her reaction to his response that they were merely mosquito bites ... oh heavens!"

2. Season Three: Bickering in "Syzygy."

By now, fans had definitely noticed the agents' chemistry and were clamoring for some Mulder-Scully lovin'. In response, Chris Carter (who'd stated for the record early on that there would never, ever, ever be a romance between them) made an episode just to highlight their many incompatibilities. It was meant to discourage the show's shippers.  

It, uh, didn't work.

"If S&M *didn't* want each other, they might have fallen into each other's arms in this ep because they were both doing things that they normally wouldn't want to do (i.e., drinking, smoking, fighting with each other)," wrote a newgroup poster. "*However*, what they did do was fight, which, if they were kind of acting the opposite to their true feelings, maybe it indicates how much they really care for each other."

3. Season Four: Scully's "Memento Mori" cancer scare brings the agents closer together.

The slow burn of Sculder was extra fiery all the way through this episode, as Mulder's reaction to Scully's alien-induced cancer made it abundantly clear how much he cared for her. It also ended with a forehead kiss and a full-body hug, the most intense display of physical affection between the agents yet.

On the newsgroups, the noromos could no longer ignore which way the wind was blowing. They were not pleased. Some looked for reassurance:

"Can someone please tell me if there is any truth to the rumour that Scully and Mulder are going to have an on screen affair? This is scary stuff, coz i reackon it will ruin the show!"

And some just lost their damn minds:

"The day Scully and Mulder kiss, or Scully has an on the screen romance or bedroom scene, is the day I stop watching X-files forever, burn every piece of x-files memorabilia I have, assassinate Christ Carter, bomb Fox studios, and drop a nuke on Vancouver. If we want love, we can watch crap like Melrose Place or 90210."

4. Season Four: "Small Potatoes," in which Scully nearly makes out with a Mulder impersonator.

That's not actually Mulder going in for a kiss (the man is a shape-shifter, and the real Mulder bursts through the door just as they're about to lock lips) — but Scully doesn't know that.

Not only does she seem awfully receptive to smooching her partner, but this scene also gave reluctant shippers a safe space in which to imagine an X-Files romance without having to commit … and they liked it. They really, really liked it!

"I have to admit I've been sitting on that 'should they or shouldn't they' fence for a long time now but last nights episode pushed me over the edge. For the first time I think that putting these two together (more than they already are - they already have a dynamic bond that is undeniable) would only enhance the characterizations of our heroes. "

5. Season Five: Mulder says "You're my one in... 5 billion" in "Folie a Deux."

Clutch your heart and hit your hallelujah, because Mulder just basically told Scully that she's his soul mate. Confined to a hospital bed by doctors who don't believe that he's being stalked by a giant bug monster, Mulder pleads, "Scully, you have to believe me. Nobody else on this whole damn planet does or ever will. You're my one in … 5 billion."

The excitement over this moment ultimately gave way to disappointment over a near-miss kiss in the first X-Files movie, which was released a month or so later. But for the moment, exuberant shippers declared victory:

"We reeeaaaalllly need an anthem right about now.  As far as I am concerned, this battle's as good as won.  At least they are acknowledging that they HAVE a relationship, even if it's not the one we want."

6. Season Six: Mulder and Scully play ball in "The Unnatural."

At this point, an X-Files romance was looking pretty much inevitable — but they were still taking their sweet time with it, teasing fans with adorable cuddly moments like this one, which was the last scene in the "alien baseball player" episode written by David Duchovny himself.

"Have we gotten a glimpse into how the actor himself would like the 'romance' to play out," a shipper mused. "Please, say it *is* so!"

7. Season Seven: Millennium, and beyond (at last, they kiss!).

Here it is, your moment of Zen: On November 28, 1999, Mulder and Scully touched mouths, romantic-like, in celebration of the new millennium, and the will-they-or-won't-they debate was as good as done ... although some noromos, bless 'em, still clung to hope:

"After the big old kiss in Millennium, the interaction between M&S is unchanged. The status quo is preserved for noromos, but for shippers this must surely be a striking blow to their notion of the ship. … Mulder wouldn't be able to do what he does with an authoritative significant other like Scully, let alone tolerate a significant other like her. They are clearly not meant for each other."

Except that they were, of course.

While Mulder and Scully continued to have their ups and downs from seasons seven through nine — what with Mulder fathering a child with Scully, being abducted by aliens, and uncovering an extraterrestrial plot to colonize Earth — their romantic relationship became an established fact. And it was no surprise that when the show ended, the agents ended up together: just two fugitives spooning on a motel bed, tentatively making hopeful plans for the future.

Which makes it all the more devastating to learn that, after all that, they couldn't make it work. But with six new episodes to go, there's hope yet that they might find their way back to each other — a hope best articulated by one newsgroup poster who started out anti-romance but experienced an epiphany as things heated up in 1998.

"Part of what makes them Mulder and Scully is the dance they do around the issue of romance.  How they fight that passion while displaying so much passion in other areas, while together. It's blatantly obvious, especially after the film, that their relationship is going to steadily become more intense and physical eventually. I want that. I want to see them exhaust ever [sic] ounce of strength they have remaining platonic until it almost kills them both, and the last episode of the show, I want to watch them walk off together, bathed in afterglow.  I want them to be happy.  I want to know more people, even fictional ones, can find true love for the rest of their lives, regardless of their outrageous or banal circumstances.

I want to believe."

As do we all. But in separating Mulder and Scully before the new series debuts, The X-Files may be giving fans a chance to relive all that excitement, anguish, and hope for a second time.

*A previous version of this piece said that Mulder said "I love you" in season five's "Folie a Deux." That actually happened in season six's "Triangle."

Read more posts by Kat Rosenfield

Filed Under: sculder ,the x-files ,fox mulder ,dana scully

Former FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) looks haggard in the new season of The X-Files — and can you blame him? He and his ex-partner Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) have been consumed by a hydra-headed conspiracy ever since Chris Carter’s sci-fi potboiler debuted back in 1993; that was 46 years after the Roswell crash, 30 years after JFK’s murder, the year of the first World Trade Center bombing, and two years before Oklahoma City, in case anybody cares to place it on the paranoia timeline. The duo’s investigations into the secret lives of monsters, some of them all too human, flushed a virulent strain of conspiratorial Americana from the murky swamps of Usenet and zine culture and gave it a mainstream platform. Alas, even after nine fitfully brilliant seasons, our heroes still couldn’t dig to the bottom of the grand unifying “mythology” of the series, much less beat back the Smoking Man with help from the Lone Gunmen and stop the men in suits who were trying to implant abductees with alien embryos so that the black oil could enable the bees with the DNA to hoard magnetite or whatever the hell. The Truth remained stubbornly Out There; meanwhile, the show’s innovations and embellishments were absorbed by the pop-­culture gene pool so completely that you can legitimately ask if this new six-episode mini-season of The X-Files is really and truly necessary.

The answer is an enthusiastic maybe. Fox declined to make more than one episode available for review. Did it not trust critics to protect plot twists or the torrent generation to resist the urge to distribute it all over the internet? (The pilot has been circulating since the New York Comic Con last October.) I hope so, because the debut episode is so curiously lackluster that even die-hard fans might fear the worst. It opens with a flashback to the Roswell crash, intercut with an extended monologue by Mulder summarizing the premise of the old series and alluding to a few of its major events; then he brings us forward to 2016, where Tad O’Malley, a Fox News–type pot-stirrer played by Joel McHale, asks the team to interview a terrified young woman (The Americans’ Annet Mahendru) who claims to have been abducted by UFOs and implanted with alien DNA. You’ve seen this sort of thing before, of course, along with Roswell-related shenanigans, and they are not the only elements Carter, who wrote and directed the first episode, has up his sleeve. Still, it’s unfortunate that he’s decided to lead with more “mythology” plotting rather than the generally more cohesive, equally exciting, and funnier “Monster of the Week” episodes (we will reportedly get a few of those, too), and that he’s once again trying to add new strands to the web he’s already woven instead of untangling or removing ones to give us a clearer picture.

Between the mandatory furtive meetings in parking garages and murky side streets, Mulder’s morose babbling, and O’Malley’s Mr. Smith Goes to the Twilight Zone monologuing, the premiere is a veritable Dumpster of sub-Reddit subjects: Area 51, eavesdropping “dirtboxes,” Faraday cages, petrochemical conspiracies, toroidal energy, ununpentium (a.k.a. Element 115), the Venus Scenario, the Fifth Extinction, 9/11 as a false-flag operation, the Patriot Act, and fema “camps.” It’s all tied together through a scheme that O’Malley describes as “a venal conspiracy of men against humanity” and Scully dismisses as “fear-mongering isolationist claptrap paranoia” until she learns a few more details, does an about-face, and joins Mulder on his quest to prove … well, what, exactly? It’s impossible to say right now, and it may always be impossible to say, because this is The X-Files, where, as Mulder tells Scully, you want to believe, but “actual proof has been strangely hard to come by.” Now Mulder tells her that he’s digging into a metaconspiracy, unveiling the puppet masters behind the puppet masters, the guys behind the guys behind the guys. “What if everything we’ve been led to believe is a lie?” he asks her.

Good question, but the show had better not be cavalier in answering it, otherwise the audience might feel as if it’s wasted nine seasons (minus the monster episodes) on mainstream science fiction’s most protracted game of three-card monte. It’s wise not to give away too much more about the latest iteration of the show’s Über-conspiracy; suffice to say that it feels like a setup for a doubling-back fake-out non-twist, in the manner of Carter’s most brazen pirouettes from the ’90s. The writing is alarmingly clunky, less a coherent story than a pastiche of beloved catchphrases, iconic images, and exposition dumps, as well as blatantly gif-ready moments (including McHale’s phrasing the question “Testing yourself for alien DNA?” so that it sounds like a pickup line, and an argument between Mulder and Mitch Pileggi’s Skinner that feels like raw material for a homoerotic fan video, probably scored to “Let’s Get It On”). Updating the story to the present moment results in some unexpectedly charming images, though, such as a close-up of Scully’s iPhone heralding an incoming call from “Mulder,” and the net effect is less exuberant than poignant. Duchovny, Anderson, and Pileggi have aged so well that you may suspect them of paying for alien DNA injections, and yet, as in the legacy-movie sequels Creed and The Force Awakens, which derive much of their emotional power from casting veteran actors whose age is embraced rather than downplayed, the mere sight of characters we’ve been obsessing over for decades invests even the sunniest moments with a chill. These heroes are tireless warriors advocating for the revelation of a truth that, for various reasons, may never be fully clarified, much less completely revealed. It’s all very noble but not much fun. Bring on the monsters. No — the rubber ones.

*****
The X-Files. Fox. Sundays. 10 p.m. 

*This article appears in the January 11, 2016 issue of New York Magazine.

Read more posts by Matt Zoller Seitz

Filed Under: the x-files ,david duchovny ,gillian anderson ,fox ,tv ,new york magazine ,tv review

In the final round of Jeopardy yesterday, the three contestants went in with winnings ranging from $13,800 to $6,000. In the category of state capitals, the answer was:

A 1957 event led to the creation of a national historic site in this city, signed into law by a president whose library is now there too.

The correct question was "What is Little Rock, Arkansas?" That's where the William J. Clinton Presidential Library & Museum is located.

All three contestants answered wrong. All three wagered all of their money. So all three lost.

(Video Link)

Alex Trebek handled the unusual result with perfect aplomb. He explained that the next day's show would begin with three new contestants.

-via Adam Baldwin

Though most current Netflix subscribers got the news last fall that the price of their standard monthly streaming plan would be going up by $1 in a year, there were others that had been grandfathered in and were already paying less for that subscription. Netflix is now reminding those folks that they’ll be facing a $2 price hike soon.

Back in October, Netflix raised the price of the standard subscription — which includes high-definition streaming on one screen — from $8.99 to $9.99 for new subscribers, with current members staying at the same price for about a year. But there were those that had been grandfathered in and were allowed to keep paying just $7.99 for that service.

They’re now facing a $2 price hike, after Netflix said in its fourth-quarter letter to investors that it will release a substantial number of those subscribers from their grandfather clause. The company didn’t specify when exactly that will happen, but said it will be ongoing through the second and third quarters, reports MarketWatch.

CEO and co-founder Reed Hastings doesn’t seem concerned that subscribers will drop the service when the price goes up later this year.

“It’s pretty simple, we’ll let them know that on a certain date, the price will go up. It’s pretty straightforward,” Hastings said Tuesday.

Netflix subscribers will soon have to weigh the cost of their service [MarketWatch]