http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Series/TheXFiles

"I want to believe."

The truth is out there.

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The X-Files is an American TV series created by Chris Carter. It ran nine seasons (1993-2002) and two movies (Fight the Future, which was The Movie, in 1998 and I Want to Believe in 2008). 2016 saw a limited revival in the form of a six-episode 10th season, which in 2018 was continued with a longer 11th season running ten episodes.

FBI physician Dr. Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is assigned the task of keeping tabs on Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), a talented detective whose obsession with the paranormal is of grave concern to his superiors. Working out of the Hoover Building basement, Mulder specializes in the Bureau's "X-Files": a collection of cold cases deemed unsolvable due to macabre or taboo elements. While Mulder attributes these elements to the supernatural and extraterrestrial, Scully is a skeptic who attempts to debunk his theories through scientific reasoning. Together they investigate all manner of strange and unusual cases, which over time hint at a massive government conspiracy linked to a series of alien abductions going as far back as the forties.

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The show's writers, among them Carter and future Breaking Bad showrunner Vince Gilligan, were celebrated for their innovative mix of cop-show conventions, Moonlighting style romance, urban legends, new age mysticism, government conspiracies, action, wry humor and genuinely scary moments. The show's high production values and sharp writing helped it reach beyond the niche Twin Peaks crowd to make it one of the most popular and acclaimed shows on television and a bona fide worldwide cultural phenomenon. It was one of the earliest shows to be released in box sets (albeit on home video with inflated price tags) with behind-the-scenes goodies. These VHS sets became a common sight in supermarkets and rental stores, which fueled viewership even more.

Although it genuinely was good in its own right, the series arrived at the right time for that to happen; mainstream interest in ufology and related topics peaked in around 1998. These days, however, E.T. doesn't get quite as much airtime as he used to outside of fringe circles, and as a result, The X-Files as a series is a lot less culturally relevant now than it was during production.

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Episodes alternate between standalone Monster of the Week episodes and a complex, unfolding Myth Arc confirming pretty much every terrifying "conspiracy" of the past forty years (and even predicting a few new ones): there was a second gunman, the Cold War is a sham, the government is in cahoots with various factions of aliens, and we're all slaves to the machinations of sinister (and worse — borderline incompetent) old men in smoke-filled back rooms. A quarter to a third of each season figures into Mulder's ever-growing investigation, though it was put on hold in 1997 to avoid conflicts with Fight the Future (then in post-production), resulting in the Denser and Wackier Season Five. Several of the show's most acclaimed comedic episodes were aired during this period. The final season was supposed to be followed by a series of movies that would eventually resolve the ongoing plot, but the first post-series movie did not touch on the conspiracy plotline and met with lukewarm success. The show received a short-lived spinoff, The Lone Gunmen.

The future of The X-Files and its Myth Arc remained uncertain for a long time while die-hard fans kept expecting a third film that would either close-up the mystery or revive the franchise. In March 2013, IDW announced that they would be continuing the series as a comic book . The comic book, marked as the tenth season, came out in July 2013 and picks up after the events of the second movie. And now it has a trope page!

A six-episode miniseries , which functions as the 10th season, with the involvement of Carter, Duchovny and Anderson began airing January 25th, 2016, and feature a split of mythology and Monster of the Week episodes. Former writers/producers James Wong, Darin Morgan, and Glen Morgan contributed to the revival, and composer Mark Snow will also return. The first full-length trailer can be viewed here . After this, an 11th season, consisting of ten episodes, started airing on January 3, 2018. Following this, though, Anderson has expressed reluctance to do further seasons, and Carter has declared the series on hold as a result, possibly permanently.

The show has a Best Episode Crowner and many sub-pages like a character sheet or recaps.

"Cold Cases", a series of Audio Adaptation episodes of the season 10 comic books with revisits to past cases such as the Flukeman, was released on Audible on July 18, 2017, featuring the voice talents of Duchovny, Anderson, Mitch Pileggi, and more. It does not correspond to the season 10 TV miniseries continuity.

As a long-running show with a passionate fanbase, the series has attracted many recap, review and parodies from the internet: The AV Club had one, primarily by Emily VanDerWerff and Zack Handlen, a former Mary Sue writer has been working on a review blog of the entire series for 5 years, there's a podcast recapping the whole series and a webcomic recapping all the episodes has been started by Shaenon K. Garrity.

The X-Files and its Myth Arc provide examples of the following tropes:

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