The X Files

In order to be truly great a television series needs great writing, a great cast and great stories; but there's something more that a series having all these things needs to really stand out - timing. When a television series is aired which captures the mood of the moment it can, for good or worse, become a cultural phenomenon. It becomes more than a sum of its parts, it becomes something that embodies an era, something that expands beyond what its creator originally thought possible. There is no better example of this than the X-Files, arriving after the end of the Cold War at a time when international fears of nuclear war were receding, it tapped into a phenomenon of fear of the unknown within, of finding conspiracies within our own governments rather than those perpetrated by enemies abroad. The X Files benefitted hugely from tapping into a cultural phenomenon, how much this phenomenon was fuelled by the show and how much it existed aside from it is hard to say.

The X Files' main plot arc revolved around a huge international conspiracy to cover up the US government's knowledge of the existence of alien life forms. Each week Mulder and Scully would uncover some unexplained phenomenon which would lead them somewhere on the trail to uncovering the plot, but ultimately would be left in the dark with more questions than answers. Alien conspiracies were hardly the only paranormal events that they had to deal with; genetic mutations, ghosts, Artificial Intelligence, monsters, ESP, telekinesis and many more were all part of the show at one point or another. In fact, many of the best episodes were those that dealt with a stand-alone monster of the week rather than the often tedious conspiracy arc.

The X Files was a programme which broke new ground in television. The concept of an episodic drama with a story arc - standard these days - was extremely rare at the time. Television programmes which told a story were often in the form of short mini series (think 'Boys from the Black Stuff') or soaps. Long-running series like the X Files almost always existed on a show by show basis, with the characters existing for the purpose of telling this week's story (for example 'The Avengers'). The first series of the X Files has a lot of stand-alone episodes (and in fact there are many throughout), but as the series matured there was always a feeling that there was a plot moving along in the background.

The series benefited from some excellent acting and a willingness to trust in the intelligence of its audience. Certain episodes dealt with difficult concepts, often with very little explanation, other episodes moved the plot along rapidly, assuming that the audience would fill in the blanks without needing to be spoon-fed. This all meant that quite intricate stories could at times be told, without losing an emotional connection to the main characters.

The end of the X Files was long overdue when the final episode was eventually transmitted. David Duchovny (Fox Mulder) had long left the show, his character has been distilled into two new ones and the chemistry of the final two seasons simply wasn't there. In fact, most of what they did after the 5th series was fairly poor (with one or two notable exceptions). The end of the series in a cultural sense happened with the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Centre in 2001, with a new - all too real - enemy to fear, the world seemed less interested in conspiracies at home. Suddenly the X Files made no sense and was doomed to the annals of television history.

This limp ending was a shame, but the first 3 series of the show are still outstanding even for the modern viewer. There's nothing quite like seeing Mulder pick up a newspaper report of something weird happening and then zooming off to investigate while Scully tries to reign him in and stop him getting killed / fired / eaten / abducted by aliens. It's a series which had a place in the 1990s but which is still fantastically engaging, jaw-dropping science fiction.