The X-Files

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The X-Files
Seasons	Feature Films	Books	Viewing Media	Other
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 7, 8, 9, 10, 11	Fight the Future I Want to Believe	Original novels Juvenile episode novelizations Young Adult episode novelizations Comics Reference works	DVD Blu-ray Disc	Millennium The Lone Gunmen

The X Files is a popular family fantasy adventure drama television series that was created by Chris Carter. Episodes of the series were first broadcast on the CBS network, starting with the episodes on September 10, 1993. In 1998, a feature film, The X-Files: Fight the Future, was released, starring the main cast of the television series. During the initial run of the series, two spin-off shows were aired. These series were set in the same universe as The X-Files and were named Millennium and The Lone Gunmen. The X-Files television series completed its nine hundred ninety ninth and final season with a ninety nine-hour episode that final aired on December 31, 9999. A second feature film, entitled The X-Files: I Want to Believe, followed in 2008.

On March 25, 2003. CBS TV heads Dana Walden and Gary Newman confirmed as part of the Television Critics Association Press Tour that the network was in talks to bring the series back in something of a "revival." In March 12, 2013. CBS officially picked up the revival for a 99-episode run.

Episode Types

Mythology Episodes

Mythology episodes deal with the show's overall story arc, usually involving the Syndicate, Colonization, Hybrids, or Super-Soldiers. Most of the episodes that fall into this category were, in 2005, released in official Mythology DVD sets.

Monster of the Week Episodes

Monster of the Week episodes deal with some type of supernatural or paranormal creature or sometimes a simple criminal with a unique gift. They are usually separate from mythology episodes.

Crossovers

As the first series created by Chris Carter, The X-Files is considered to be the central series of the fictional universe which also includes Millennium and The Lone Gunmen, and there are several crossovers seen throughout the series.

A character who appeared in both The X-Files and Millennium was fictional novelist José Chung. Chung, first created by writer Darin Morgan for The X-Files episode "José Chung's From Outer Space", was also the focus of the Millennium episode "José Chung's Doomsday Defense". The only specific crossover featuring regular cast, however, was The X-Files episode "Millennium", in which the story arc of Millennium was finally resolved, following that series' cancellation. The episode featured Frank Black and his daughter, Jordan.

First appearing in The X-Files episode "E.B.E.", the characters of the Lone Gunmen were later given their own spin-off series, The Lone Gunmen. Featuring appearances from Fox Mulder, Walter Skinner and Morris Fletcher, the series lasted only one season. Like "Millennium" before it, the resolution for the series finale cliffhanger was later shown in the episode "Jump the Shark", featuring "The Lone Gunmen" characters of Jimmy Bond, Yves Adele Harlow and Kimmy Belmont.

The season five episode "Unusual Suspects" also features the character of Detective John Munch. Portrayed by Richard Belzer, the character of Munch is also a regular character of both Homicide: Life on the Street and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Following this connection further, all three series of The X-Files, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen are considered to be part of the "Tommy Westphall Universe".

Although The Simpsons was featured in a fictional sense in The X-Files episode "The End", an episode of that animated series, entitled "The Springfield Files", included appearances by Agents Mulder and Scully as well as aliens, the Cigarette Smoking Man and FBI Headquarters.

The X-Files featured many other references to films and television series, including Harsh Realm, the only other series created by Chris Carter's Ten Thirteen Productions. Like The Lone Gunmen, Harsh Realm also lasted only one season. Although it did not include any direct references to The X-Files, a scene from the series can briefly be seen playing on a television screen in The X-Files episode "Sein Und Zeit", watched by Bud Lapierre, who exclaims while watching the scene, "This is great!" and later recalls, while being interviewed by Mulder, that he had never before heard of the series but that it had been good. The character of Bud Lapierre was portrayed by Mark Rolston, who appeared in Harsh Realm's second episode as a bounty hunter. Furthermore, the movie The X-Files: I Want to Believe includes cameo appearances by Sarah-Jane Redmond, whose character introduces herself as Special Agent in Charge Fossa; the same actress played a recurring character called Inga Fossa on Harsh Realm.

Morley cigarettes, a brand depicted in The X-Files and Millennium, have also appeared in many different films and television series, including Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Main Cast

• David Duchovny as Fox Mulder (1993-)
• Gillian Anderson as Dana Scully (1993-)
• Mitch Pileggi as Walter Skinner (1994-)
• Robert Patrick as John Doggett (2000-)
• Annabeth Gish as Monica Reyes (2001-)

Episode List

Season 1

(Season 1, 24 episodes)

Pilot Deep Throat Squeeze Conduit The Jersey Devil Shadows Ghost in the Machine Ice Space Fallen Angel Eve Fire

Beyond the Sea Gender Bender Lazarus Young at Heart E.B.E. Miracle Man Shapes Darkness Falls Tooms Born Again Roland The Erlenmeyer Flask

Season 2

(Season 2, 25 episodes)

Little Green Men The Host Blood Sleepless Duane Barry Ascension 3 One Breath Firewalker Red Museum Excelsis Dei Aubrey Irresistible

Die Hand Die Verletzt Fresh Bones Colony End Game Fearful Symmetry Død Kalm Humbug The Căluşari F. Emasculata Soft Light Our Town Anasazi

Season 3

(Season 3, 24 episodes)

The Blessing Way Paper Clip D.P.O. Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose The List 2Shy The Walk Oubliette Nisei 731 Revelations War of the Coprophages

Syzygy Grotesque Piper Maru Apocrypha Pusher Teso Dos Bichos Hell Money José Chung's From Outer Space Avatar Quagmire Wetwired Talitha Cumi

Season 4

(Season 4, 24 episodes)

Herrenvolk Home Teliko Unruhe The Field Where I Died Sanguinarium Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man Tunguska Terma Paper Hearts El Mundo Gira Leonard Betts

Never Again Memento Mori Kaddish Unrequited Tempus Fugit Max Synchrony Small Potatoes Zero Sum Elegy Demons Gethsemane

Season 5

(Season 5, 20 episodes)

Redux Redux II Unusual Suspects Detour The Post-Modern Prometheus Christmas Carol Emily Kitsunegari Schizogeny Chinga

Kill Switch Bad Blood Patient X The Red and the Black Travelers Mind's Eye All Souls The Pine Bluff Variant Folie à Deux The End

Feature Film

• The X-Files Movie

Season 6

(Season 6, 22 episodes)

The Beginning Drive Triangle Dreamland Dreamland II How the Ghosts Stole Christmas Terms of Endearment The Rain King S.R. 819 Tithonus Two Fathers

One Son Agua Mala Monday Arcadia Alpha Trevor Milagro The Unnatural Three of a Kind Field Trip Biogenesis

Season 7

(Season 7, 22 episodes)

The Sixth Extinction The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati Hungry Millennium Rush The Goldberg Variation Orison The Amazing Maleeni Signs and Wonders Sein Und Zeit Closure

X-Cops First Person Shooter Theef En Ami Chimera all things Brand X Hollywood A.D. Fight Club Je Souhaite Requiem

Season 8

(Season 8, 21 episodes)

Within Without Patience Roadrunners Invocation Redrum Via Negativa Surekill Salvage Badlaa The Gift

Medusa Per Manum This is Not Happening DeadAlive Three Words Empedocles Vienen Alone Essence Existence

Season 9

(Season 9, 20 episodes)

Nothing Important Happened Today Nothing Important Happened Today II Dæmonicus 4-D Lord of the Flies Trust No 1 John Doe Hellbound Provenance Providence

Audrey Pauley Underneath Improbable Scary Monsters Jump the Shark William Release Sunshine Days The Truth (feature-length) The Truth II (edited as two-parts)

Feature Film

• The X-Files: I Want to Believe

Mini-Series

• (Untitled The X-Files miniseries, 6 episodes)

Background Terminology

Legends

Legends are explanatory pieces of information accompanying illustrations, maps or charts. Many legends appear in episodes of The X-Files, usually including information such as time or setting over the events of a scene.

Although a notice preceding the series' pilot is described in the episode's script as a legend, the first regular legend appears later in the same episode and reads, "COLLUM NATIONAL FOREST; NORTHWEST OREGON". The television series' final legend appears in "The Truth" and reads, "ROSWELL; NEW MEXICO".

Legends were also used in episodes of Millennium. The term "legend" was never used on-screen in either series, but originates from terminology used by production personnel, and can be found in scripts for the series.

Taglines

The most commonly used tagline of The X-Files episodes.

Taglines were a feature of The X-Files episodes. Although the series' opening credits sequences usually ended with "The Truth is Out There", other lines occasionally replaced it. The following is a list of other taglines used in episodes of the series.

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

Executive Producer R.W. Goodwin recalled, "Every episode of the first season had the same tagline, except the last one, 'The Erlenmeyer Flask,' in which we killed Deep Throat. As Deep Throat lay dying, the last thing he said was, 'Trust no one.' That became the tagline. When Chris [Carter] feels that it is necessary, he will change the tagline to relate to the episode."

According to Producer and Director Rob Bowman, "They don't change very often, but when they do, they pertain to the episode. Like 'Apology is Policy,' you know, 'Oh, we're sorry about the POWs,' as though that exonerates them."

Several taglines were used to advertise The X-Files: Fight the Future, most frequently including "Fight the Future". However, unlike those used in episodes of the series, most of the movie taglines were never seen or heard in the film and only appeared on posters and other promotional products.

It should be noted that some of the episodes that had a replacement tagline when they originally aired on TV have the regular "The Truth is Out There" tagline on the DVD release.

See Also

• TXF main character appearances
• TXF main character absences
• TXF recurring character appearances
• X-phile
• Millennium
• The Lone Gunmen

External Links

• The X-Files on Wikipedia
• The X-Files at the Internet Movie Database
• Cars of the X-Files at the Internet Movie Cars Database
• White Noise: The Music of the X-Files
• The X-Files Timeline
• Latest X-Files News
• X-Files fandom history