One film sits between two seasons and carries the mythology; the other sits after the series and carries none of it.
Straight through the series, with one stop. The 1998 film is not a spin-off or a summary: it was made in the gap between the fifth and sixth seasons, it is where the conspiracy story is finally stated plainly, and the sixth season opens on the morning after it.
Seen some of these already? Tap the circles to tick them off. The full list below fills in as you go.
Twenty four episodes, most of them self contained cases, with the conspiracy running underneath a handful of them. Nothing before it.
Seasons 2 to 4 run straight on with no complications. The fifth is twenty episodes rather than twenty four because production stopped so the film could be shot, and it ends with the X-Files office burning.
Made in the gap and set in it. The film picks up from that fire, explains the black oil and the colonisation plan more directly than any episode does, and is required rather than optional.
Its premiere continues from the film's last scenes. Watching the film later, or not at all, leaves an actual hole rather than a missed reference.
Then what? Seasons 7, 8 and 9 run on to the end of the original series, with Mulder present part time from season 8 and two new agents carrying much of it. Fit The Lone Gunmen into season 8, where it was broadcast, and in any case before season 9's Jump the Shark, which resolves its cliffhanger and writes the characters out. I Want to Believe comes after season 9: it is a standalone case with no mythology in it, but it establishes where Mulder and Scully are living, which the 2016 revival assumes. Then seasons 10 and 11, six episodes and ten.
A suggested way in, not an official one. The full list is below: tick anything off in either place.
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Part of the subscription.
Your SagaList account.
Nothing else happens until you follow the link. If it has not arrived in a few minutes, look in your spam folder and search for SagaList. It is sent from a no-reply address on our own domain, so there is nothing to reply to.
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