The X-Files Starter Guide

The key thing with The X-Files is not to worry about understanding it. Jump right in, wherever. If the mytharc makes any sense to you, then all power to you, but I watched the series for ten years and never got the hang of it, and I still love it. My favourite episodes are the ones where no prior knowledge is remotely needed. The TV series hit such highs that completely raised the bar for writing for all television shows that followed. My personal favourites are mainly the ones with humour, I must admit, but that's probably because they are easier to rewatch.

MY TOP 5 EPISODES:

1. "Small Potatoes" Series 4. Hilarity ensues after five babies in a small town are born with tails. Includes a shippy scene that nearly blew my brain when it first broadcast, that's how into the Mulder/Scully relationship I was.

2. "Bad Blood" Series 5. The same story told from each of their POVs. Yes, like that episode of Dawson's Creek. But so much better! Scully gets a laugh, Mulder sings "Shaft" and Luke Wilson guest stars. It's a cracker.

3. "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" Series 6. A couple of ghosts drive Mulder and Scully to murder and suicide. Funnier than it sounds, if only for the scene where Mulder walks into a brick wall.

4. "Pusher" Series 3. Freak of the week who can control people via mind control. Creepy because he only controls their bodies, so they know what they're doing but can't stop. The most skin-crawling game of Russian roulette ever.

5. "Squeeze" Series 1. Freak of the week who has an encore later. He crawls into houses through tiny gaps and eats livers. As you do.

And this list doesn't even include Dreamland, Eve, Syzygy, Paper Hearts, Quagmire, War of the Coprophages, Chinga and, of course, The Truth.

ONES TO AVOID

1. Teso dos Bichos - some nonsense about a South American artefact blahblahblah. Awful.

2. Musings of the Cigarette Smoking Man - Honestly, I haven't seen this for so long I can't even remember why I don't like it. Just boring, I think. Possibly something to do with JFK.

3. Kaddish - Unremittingly depressing.

4. Deadalive - Just ridiculous.

5. William - Needlessly confusing.

KEY CHARACTERS

FOX MULDER

Firstly, his name really is Fox. It's not a stupid nickname. The names in The X-Files are sometimes more interesting than the plots (cf "Dakota Whitney" in "I Want to Believe", who sounds like a contestant from "American Idol", not an FBI agent). Former FBI profiler, did postgrad at Oxford. He makes the eating of sunflower seeds sexy. Gave up a glowing FBI career for a less-than-glowing FBI career, stuck in a basement. His quest is for "the truth", which mainly stems from his unfortunate obsession with his long-since vanished sister, Samantha (possibly alien abducted, possibly arranged by her father. Possibly cloned to breed alien killer bees. Possibly not. Possibly dead. Possibly not. Certainly has a weird hold on her brother.)

The original truth he is seeking is about her disapperance (arguably), since then it has become a search for any random truth, until you want to take the word "truth" and shove it down his gorgeous throat. His alleged father, Bill, was as crazy as him and involved in the Syndicate. His mother appeared to be normal, but was involved with the Cigarette Smoking Man. All in all, Mulder's dysfunction is both nature and nurture.

There was a point in the late-90s where it seemed that Buffy Summers and Mulder died and were resurrected on alternate weeks. This was because David Duchovny decided he didn't want to be a regular anymore, and in an excellent example of Chris Carter's tendency to embrace the counter-intuiative, rather than making up a logical storyline to explain this (Mulder really dead/Mulder really gone), he kept making shit up on the fly. He should have jettisoned Mulder, upon sober reflection, though I freely admit at the time I lived from week to week hoping he would show up.

DANA SCULLY
Scully was reasonably normal at the start, having quit medicine to join the FBI. She is brought in to bring clarity of fact to the X-Files, a task she spectacularly fails at. For the first few series, she tended to be out the room whenever crazy shit went down, to maintain her mantra of "Mulder, the scientific facts can't be argued with". After an alien abduction, giving birth to a baby/alien hybrid (or possibly a Mulder/Scully hybrid, it's never clear) despite having been sterilised by aliens previously, bringing people back from the dead, witnessing shapeshifting, being given alien nose cancer and many other things, she is still surprisingly close-minded. She has her own "truth", which is Catholicism. Mostly she goes around and wipes up Mulder's mess after him, because she loves him. She has a totally horrendous few years at the end of the series, but it's ok because Gillian Anderson is a superb crier.

Mulder may or may not be the father of Scully's son, William. To be honest, I was so confused by the time William was born, Scully may or may not be the mother. Either way, William is another example of a Chris Carter Flogging the Dead Horse school of storytelling, eventually mercifully dumped on some random farmers who have no idea what they're getting themselves into. Mulder refers to William as his son, though.

Scully had her own Family Issues (apart from what species her son is). She constantly needed to prove herself her naval father (played by General Hammond from SG-1!), had a grouchy brother, and had dramatics when her sister, Melissa, met the fate of All Who Know Mulder and/or Scully Well. The Scullys are nowhere near as interesting as the Mulders, by virtue of being relatively down to earth.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR WALTER SKINNER
Mulder and Scully's direct boss, and consequently more than earns his pay cheque every week. He is a god amongst men, originally mostly confined to an office, the raison d'etre for which was to have the door to it bashed down on a weekly basis by Mulder/Scully bursting in demanding for help or advice. In later years he got out more though and saved their skin in a more active manner. Uncomfortably close relationship with the Cigarette Smoking Man, admittedly, but all in all a Good Egg. A man torn between pressures from the shadowy Syndicate, pressures from the government to shut Mulder up and pressures from his loyalty to Mulder as well as his own sense of morality, he chooses the Light Side every time, because he is just that awesome. Well, every time apart from that time when....er, never mind that. He's a good guy, who sometimes does the wrong things for the right reasons, let's say.

CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN
Key figure of the Syndicate, which knows aliens are going to colonize earth in 2012, fuelled by aforementioned bees and black oil, or something, it's really hard to say because I hated the mytharc so much I never understood it. The Syndicate plans to create alien/hybrid babies, possibly, an example of which may be William Scully, possibly, or Samantha Mulder, possibly. Good mate of Bill Mulder's, until he kills him. Keeps an eye on Mulder and constantly attempts to discredit him, possibly. He's Very, Very, Very Bad, is behind Scully's abduction amongst many other things. He is the face of the conspiracy to keep alien activity on the QT. Hangs out with Krycek, a sexy devil who sometimes works with, sometimes against Mulder, and sometimes even in the FBI, sometimes in the Syndicate but mostly for himself. The CSM is the dad of Agent Jeffrey Spender, (an irritant who takes over The X-Files at one of the several points it is closed over the years), and one or two others which are only revealed in the finale.