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Created by Chris Carter, The X-Files was first broadcast on the Fox Network in September 1993. Unbeknownst to anyone at the time, the little show that crept almost unnoticed onto television screens would go on to become a worldwide phenomenon, making its two stars household names, and so firmly entrenching itself in the public consciousness that to this day any new drama dabbling in the supernatural is held up against the 1990s series — and is generally found wanting...

The two lead characters were Fox "Spooky" Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), two FBI agents who were assigned to investigate the "X-Files" — the unexplained cases that slipped through the cracks in the system. Of the two, Mulder was the believer in the paranormal who became interested in the subject after apparently witnessing the abduction by aliens of his sister, Samantha, when he was twelve. Scully, on the other hand, was the sceptic who was partnered with Mulder in an attempt to discredit both him and his work.

Early stories included the liver-eating mutant Eugene Victor Tooms (Doug Hutchison), parasitic creatures buried in the ice in the Antarctic, and the beginnings of what would turn into The X-Files' most famous, and ultimately most problematic storylines — an alien invasion plan, backed up by an all-too-human conspiracy. Season One also saw the first appearance of Byers, Langly and Frohike, the three conspiracy theorists who worked on The Lone Gunmen magazine and whose talents for digging out classified information, and expertise with cutting-edge technology, were to make them useful, if rather unreliable allies of Mulder and Scully over the following years.

With the secretive informant Deep Throat (who had been helping Mulder) killed off at the conclusion of Season One, and the "X-Files" having been closed down, Season Two saw the series take a further turn towards the conspiracy-themed episodes when Scully was apparently abducted by aliens part-way through (a handy way to deal with Gillian Anderson's pregnancy), and the introduction of Alex Krycek who would quickly be revealed as an ally of the sinister Cigarette-Smoking Man and become an integral part of the conspiracy right through to the very final episode of the series. With Scully swiftly returned (although the repercussions of her abduction would be of major importance in future seasons) she was once more paired with Mulder, and the "X-Files" were re-opened.

The second half of the season saw the production of Humbug, written by Darin Morgan — brother of regular writer Glen Morgan — which was to provide the final piece of the puzzle in establishing the series as one of the top shows on television. While the earlier episodes had relied on Mulder's dry wit to lighten the atmosphere, Darin Morgan's contribution to the show was to see the addition of a new subset of episodes which would occasionally see the series veer off into the downright peculiar — often with some incredibly funny dialogue. It's to Morgan's credit that the remainder of his four episodes for the series (Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose / War of the Coprophages / Jose Chung's From Outer Space — all produced for Season Three) would raise the bar to a level that was rarely reached again. Season Two also marked the departure from the series of Glen Morgan and James Wong who had been responsible for many of the most memorable episodes to date and who moved on to write and produce their own series — the short-lived and criminally under-rated Space: Above and Beyond.

In the UK, as well as forming the lynchpin of Sky One's mid-1990s sci-fi schedule, Season Two was also pulling in such a large audience on the terrestrial BBC2 that from Fearful Symmetry onwards it was switched to the more mainstream BBC1 where the ratings continued to climb ever higher.

Seasons Three to Four once more saw the episodes split between the fan-friendly conspiracy episodes and the one-off stories, with each season now ending on a cliffhanger which would be resolved (in as much as the conspiracy stories were ever resolved...) in the opening episode of the following season. Season Four also coincided with the launch of Millennium, which Chris Carter had developed as a follow-up to The X-Files. The series was once more produced for the Fox Network and was moved into the X-Files' timeslot on Friday evening, with the older series now moving to a more prestigious slot on Sundays. Season Two was overseen, and mainly written, by Glen Morgan and James Wong after the failure of Space: Above and Beyond, and this allowed Chris Carter to focus his attention more fully on The X-Files. Millennium would eventually run to three seasons with the final episode being resolved in Millennium, a Season Seven episode of The X-Files.

By now the series had become a fully-fledged phenomenon, with the videos of the series and the original novels by Charles Grant and Kevin J Anderson dominating the relevant sales charts worldwide, and the time was deemed right for the series to make its debut on the big screen. The X-Files: Fight the Future went in front of the cameras during 1997 at the conclusion of Season Four, with the movie due to be released in cinemas after the conclusion on television on Season Five. This season was therefore reduced in length to just twenty episodes in order to accomodate the filming of the movie, and the very final episode saw a major change for the series as it was the last to be filmed in Vancouver. Up to this point the series had been filmed in Canada as the favourable exchange rate and tax breaks had made it more economical than filming in the United States, but with the contracts of Duchovny and Anderson having to be renegotiated if the series was to continue to Season Six and beyond, it became apparent that moving the show to California was in the interests of all concerned.

Seasons Six and Seven saw the series progress very much as before, although the increasingly muddled and convoluted alien conspiracy episodes were now starting to attract a certain amount of critism from fans and critics alike. The final episode of Season Seven, Requiem, proved to be something of a landmark for the series as the episode marked the end of David Duchovny's regular involvement with the series. Returning to the scene of the very first episode, Mulder vanished in the woods, and wasn't to be seen in the series again until the final eight episodes of Season Eight, by which point Robert Patrick was firmly ensconsed as Scully's new partner, Special Agent John Doggett. The other major plot point of Requiem was the fact that Scully was pregnant, although the identity of the father was not revealed. The episodes in which Mulder returned also saw the introduction of Annabeth Gish as Special Agent Monica Reyes who, along with Doggett, would form the new "X-Files" team during Season Nine.

Early 2001 saw the transmission of a spin-off series from The X-Files in the form of The Lone Gunmen. As may be expected from the title, it featured the three characters who had appeared on-and-off in the parent series since it's inception back in 1993, and introduced Yves Adele Harlow (Zuleikha Robinson) and Jimmy Bond (Stephen Snedden). Unfortunately the series failed to find a Friday evening audience, and Fox wasn't prepared to give it the benefit of the doubt. The series finished after just thirteen episodes, with the cliffhanging final episode eventually being resolved in Jump the Shark, a Season Nine episode of The X-Files in which our three geeky heroes are killed off and eventually buried with full honours. Despite being a fun, if short-lived programme, it is now best known for its opening episode which saw a terrorist attempt to fly an airliner into the World Trade Center in New York. Real world events just six months later meant that the episode was temporarily removed from sale and was omitted completely when the series was run in the UK, although it has since been released on DVD.

Season Nine was the final year for The X-Files and saw Scully very much relegated to supporting character status for much of the season, with the bulk of the episodes being now being carried by Doggett and Reyes. Despite the fact that ratings for the show were now waning, if the increasingly messy conspiracy episode are ignored it proved to be something of a return to form for the series, which had looked increasingly tired throughout the previous two seasons. Unsurprisingly the final episode, simply titled The Truth, was a feature-length attempt at resolving the loose ends in the series, and saw the re-appearance of Mulder and a whole host of familiar faces who had been involved in the alien conspiracy plot. Needless to say, given the unplanned way in which the storyline had evolved over the previous nine years, it was as much of a mess as was expected.

Over the course of its nine seasons, The X-Files became one of the landmark television dramas of its era. New programmes that dare to tread on similar ground are now compared instantly to the series, and the explosion in science fiction television in the United States during the mid-to-late 1990s was arguably far more connected with the success of The X-Files than that of the Star Trek spin-offs of the time.

A second spin-off movie, titled The X-Files: I Want to Believe, was released in August 2008, with both Duchovny and Anderson reprising their roles as Mulder and Scully.