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The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction drama television series created by Chris Carter. The original television series aired from September 10,
1993, to May 19, 2002, on Fox. The program spanned nine seasons, with 202 episodes.
A short tenth season consisting of six episodes premiered on January 24, 2016. Following the ratings success of this revival,
Fox announced in April 2017 that The X-Files would be returning for an eleventh season of ten episodes. The season premiered on January 3, 2018.
In addition to the television series, two feature films have been released: The 1998 film The X-Files,
which took place as part of the TV series continuity, and the stand-alone film The X-Files: I Want to Believe, released in 2008,
six years after the original television run had ended. The series revolves around Federal Bureau of Investigation special agents: Fox Mulder,
and Dana Scully who investigate X-Files: marginalized, unsolved cases involving paranormal phenomena. Mulder believes in the existence of aliens
and the paranormal while Scully, a medical doctor and a skeptic, is assigned to make scientific analyses of Mulder's discoveries to debunk his work
and thus return him to mainstream cases. Early in the series, both agents become pawns in a larger conflict and come to trust only each other
and a very few select people. The agents also discover an agenda of the government to keep the existence of extraterrestrial life a secret.
They develop a close relationship which begins as a platonic friendship, but becomes a romance by the end of the series. In addition
to the series-spanning story arc, "monster of the week" episodes form roughly two-thirds of all episodes. The X-Files was inspired
by earlier television series which featured elements of suspense and speculative fiction, including Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Twilight Zone,
Night Gallery, Tales from the Darkside, and especially Kolchak: The Night Stalker. When creating the main characters, Carter sought
to reverse gender stereotypes by making Mulder a believer and Scully a skeptic. The first seven seasons featured Duchovny and Anderson equally.
In the last two seasons, Anderson took precedence while Duchovny appeared intermittently.
New main characters were introduced: FBI agents John Doggett and Monica Reyes. Mulder and Scully's boss, Assistant Director Walter Skinner,
also became a main character. The first five seasons of The X-Files were filmed and produced in Vancouver, British Columbia,
before eventually moving to Los Angeles to accommodate Duchovny. The series later returned to Vancouver to film The X-Files: I Want
to Believe as well as the tenth season of the series. The X-Files was a hit for the Fox network and received largely positive reviews,
although its long-term story arc was criticized near the conclusion. Initially considered a cult series,
it turned into a pop culture touchstone that tapped into public mistrust of governments and large institutions and embraced conspiracy theories
and spirituality. Both the series itself and lead actors Duchovny and Anderson received multiple awards and nominations, and
by the end it was the longest-running science fiction series in U.S. television history.
The series also spawned a franchise which includes The Lone Gunmen spin-off, two theatrical films and accompanying merchandise.
 General 
The X-Files follows the careers and personal lives of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. Mulder is a talented profiler
and strong believer in the supernatural. He is also adamant about the existence of intelligent extraterrestrial life and its presence on Earth.
This set of beliefs earns him the nickname "Spooky Mulder" and an assignment to a little-known department that deals with unsolved cases,
known as the X-Files. His belief in the paranormal springs from the claimed abduction of his sister Samantha Mulder by extraterrestrials
when Mulder was 12. Her abduction drives Mulder throughout most of the series. Because of this, as well as more nebulous desires for vindication
and the revelation of truths kept hidden by human authorities, Mulder struggles to maintain objectivity in his investigations.
Agent Scully is a foil for Mulder in this regard. As a medical doctor and natural skeptic, Scully approaches cases with complete detachment even
when Mulder, despite his considerable training, loses his objectivity. She is partnered
with Mulder initially so that she can debunk Mulder's nonconforming theories, often supplying logical, scientific explanations
for the cases' apparently unexplainable phenomena. Although she is frequently able to offer scientific alternatives to Mulder's deductions,
she is rarely able to refute them completely. Over the course of the series, she becomes increasingly dissatisfied with her own ability
to approach the cases scientifically. After Mulder's abduction at the hands of aliens in the seventh season finale "Requiem", Scully becomes a
"reluctant believer" who manages to explain the paranormal with science. Various episodes also deal with the relationship between Mulder
and Scully, originally platonic, but that later develops romantically. Mulder and Scully are joined by John Doggett
and Monica Reyes late in the series, after Mulder is abducted. Doggett replaces him as Scully's partner and helps her search for him,
later involving Reyes, of whom Doggett had professional knowledge. The X-Files ends when Mulder is secretly subjected to a military tribunal
for breaking into a Top Secret military facility and viewing plans for alien invasion and colonization of Earth. He is found guilty,
but he escapes punishment with the help of the other agents and he and Scully become fugitives.
 Mythology 
As the show progressed, key episodes, called parts of the "Mytharc", were recognized as the "mythology" of the series canon;
these episodes carried the extraterrestrial/conspiracy storyline that evolved throughout the series. "monster of the week"—often abbreviated as
"MOTW" or "MoW"—came to denote the remainder of The X-Files episodes. These episodes, comprising the majority of the series, dealt
with paranormal phenomena, including: cryptids, mutants, science fiction technology, horror monsters, and religious phenomena.
Some of the Monster-of-the-Week episodes even featured satiric elements and comedic story lines. The main story arc involves the agents' efforts
to uncover a government conspiracy to hide the existence of extraterrestrials on Earth and their sinister collaboration with those governments.
Mysterious men comprising a shadow element within the U.S. government, known as "The Syndicate", are the major villains in the series;
late in the series it is revealed that The Syndicate acts as the only liaison between mankind and a group of extraterrestrials that intends
to destroy the human species. They are usually represented by Cigarette Smoking Man, a ruthless killer, masterful politician, negotiator,
failed novelist, and the series' principal antagonist. As the series goes along, Mulder and Scully learn about evidence of the alien invasion piece
by piece. It is revealed that the extraterrestrials plan on using a sentient virus, known as the black oil, to infect mankind
and turn the population of the world into a slave race. The Syndicate—having made a deal to be spared by the aliens—have been working
to develop an alien-human hybrid that will be able to withstand the effects of the black oil. The group has also been secretly working on a vaccine
to overcome the black oil; this vaccine is revealed in the latter parts of season five, as well as the 1998 film. Counter
to the alien colonization effort, another faction of aliens, the faceless rebels, are working to stop alien colonization. Eventually,
in the season six episodes "Two Fathers"/"One Son", the rebels manage to destroy the Syndicate. The colonists, now without human liaisons,
dispatch the "Super Soldiers": beings that resemble humans, but are biologically alien. In the latter parts of season eight,
and the whole of season nine, the Super Soldiers manage to replace key individuals in the government, forcing Mulder and Scully to go into hiding.
 Conception 
 [^]  California native Chris Carter was given the opportunity to produce new shows for the Fox network in the early 1990s.
Tired of the comedies he had been working on for Walt Disney Pictures, a report that 3.7 million Americans may have been abducted by aliens,
the Watergate scandal and the 1970s horror series Kolchak: The Night Stalker, triggered the idea for The X-Files.
He wrote the pilot episode in 1992. Carter's initial pitch for The X-Files was rejected by Fox executives. He fleshed out the concept
and returned a few weeks later, when they commissioned the pilot. Carter worked with NYPD Blue producer Daniel Sackheim
to further develop the pilot, drawing stylistic inspiration from the 1988 documentary The Thin Blue Line
and the British television series Prime Suspect. Inspiration also came from Carter's memories of The Twilight Zone as well as
from The Silence of the Lambs, which provided the impetus for framing the series around agents from the FBI, in order to provide the characters
with a more plausible reason for being involved in each case than Carter believed was present in Kolchak. Carter was determined
to keep the relationship between the two leads strictly platonic, basing their interactions on the characters of Emma Peel
and John Steed in The Avengers series. The early 1990s series Twin Peaks was a major influence on the show's dark atmosphere
and its often surreal blend of drama and irony. Duchovny had appeared as a cross-dressing DEA agent in Twin Peaks
and the Mulder character was seen as a parallel to that show's FBI Agent Dale Cooper. The producers and writers cited All the President's Men,
Three Days of the Condor, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Rashomon, The Thing, The Boys from Brazil,
The Silence of the Lambs and JFK as other influences. Carter's use of continuous takes in "Triangle" was modeled on Hitchcock's Rope. In addition,
episodes written by Darin Morgan often referred to or referenced other films.
 Casting 
Duchovny had worked in Los Angeles for three years prior to The X-Files; at first he wanted to focus on feature films. In 1993, his manager,
Melanie Green, gave him the script for the "pilot episode" of The X-Files. Green and Duchovny were both convinced it was a good script,
so he auditioned for the lead. Duchovny's audition was "terrific", though he talked rather slowly.
While the casting director of the show was very positive toward him, Carter thought that he was not particularly intelligent.
He asked Duchovny if he could "please" imagine himself as an FBI agent in "future" episodes. Duchovny, however, turned out
to be one of the best-read people that Carter knew. Anderson auditioned for the role of Scully in 1993. "I couldn’t put the script down",
she recalled. The network wanted either a more established or a "taller, leggier, blonder and breastier" actress for Scully
than the 24-year-old Anderson, a theater veteran with minor film experience. After auditions, Carter felt she was the only choice.
Carter insisted that Anderson had the kind of no-nonsense integrity that the role required. For portraying Scully,
Anderson won numerous major awards: the Screen Actors Guild Award in 1996 and 1997, an Emmy Award in 1997, and a Golden Globe Award 1997.
The character Walter Skinner was played by actor Mitch Pileggi, who had unsuccessfully auditioned for the roles of two
or three other characters on The X-Files before getting the part. At first, the fact that he was asked back to audition
for the recurring role slightly puzzled him, until he discovered the reason he had not previously been cast in those roles—Carter had been unable
to envision Pileggi as any of those characters, because the actor had been shaving his head. When Pileggi auditioned for Walter Skinner,
he had been in a grumpy mood and had allowed his small amount of hair to grow. His attitude fit well with Skinner's character, causing Carter
to assume that the actor was only pretending to be grumpy.
Pileggi later realized he had been lucky that he had not been cast in one of the earlier roles,
as he believed he would have appeared in only a single episode and would have missed the opportunity to play the recurring role.
Before the seventh season aired, Duchovny filed a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox. He was upset because, he claimed, Fox had undersold the rights
to its own affiliates, thereby costing him huge sums of money. Eventually, the lawsuit was settled,
and Duchovny was awarded a settlement of about $20 million. The lawsuit put strain on Duchovny's professional relationships.
Neither Carter nor Duchovny was contracted to work on the series beyond the seventh season; however,
Fox entered into negotiations near the end of that season in order to bring the two on board for an eighth season.
After settling his contract dispute, Duchovny quit full-time participation in the show after the seventh season. This contributed to uncertainties
over the likelihood of an eighth season. Carter and most fans felt the show was at its natural endpoint with Duchovny's departure,
but it was decided that Mulder would be abducted at the end of the seventh seasons and would return in 12 episodes the following year.
The producers then announced that a new character, John Doggett, would fill Mulder's role. More than 100 actors auditioned for the role of Doggett,
but only about ten were seriously considered. Lou Diamond Phillips, Hart Bochner, and Bruce Campbell were among the ten.
The producers chose Robert Patrick. Carter believed that the series could continue for another ten years with new leads,
and the opening credits were accordingly redesigned in both seasons eight and nine to emphasize the new actors.
Doggett's presence did not give the series the ratings boost the network executives were hoping for. The eighth-season episode
"This is Not Happening" marked the first appearance of Monica Reyes, played by Gish, who became a main character in season nine.
Her character was developed and introduced due to Anderson's possible departure at the end of the eighth season.
Although Anderson stayed until the end, Gish became a series regular.
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