Next week sees the release of The X-Files on blu ray for the first time, just over a month before the new six-episode series premieres on Fox in January. We’re running daily reviews of the show (and its spin-offs) between now and the end of the year, but we thought it might be worth compiling some guides for newer viewers who are looking to experience the length and breadth of what The X-Files has to offer. Every day this week, we’ll be publishing one quick list of recommended episodes every day, that should offer a good place to start for those looking to dive into the show.
Here are a few no-nonsense combos for viewers eager to gulp down some vintage nineties television before the show lands. The lists are broken down depending on what you want from the experience. Do you just want good standalones? Or do you want to rush through the mythology? Do you want the best of both? The goal is to narrow the two-hundred-and-two-episode run down to more digestible selections of approximately thirty-to-forty episodes, thus giving the viewer ample time to rush through it before the new season begins.
The “Dammit, Just Give Me Thirty to Forty of the Best Episodes” List
Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath
Colony/End Game
Humbug
Anasazi
The Blessing Way/Paper Clip
Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
Nisei/731
Pusher
Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”
Home
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Never Again
Bad Blood
Patient X/The Red and the Black
The Pine Bluff Variant
Folie a Deux
Roadrunners
Via Negativa
Vienen
John Doe
Hellbound
Improbable
The “I Heard the Standalones From the First Five Seasons Are Pretty Great” List
Squeeze
Ice
Eve
Beyond the Sea
Darkness Falls
Tooms
The Host
Sleepless
Irresistible
Die Hand die Verletzt
Fresh Bones
Humbug
F. Emasculata
Our Town
D.P.O.
Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
Oubliette
War of the Coprophages
Grotesque
Pusher
Hell Money
Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”
Quagmire
Home
Unruhe
The Field Where I Died
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Never Again
Kaddish
Unusual Suspects
Detour
The Post-Modern Prometheus
Kill Switch
Bad Blood
Mind’s Eye
The Pine Bluff Variant
Folie a Deux
The “Give Me the Best Standalones Before Mulder Left” List
Ice
Beyond the Sea
Darkness Falls
Irresistible
Humbug
F. Emasculata
Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
Oubliette
War of the Coprophages
Pusher
Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”
Quagmire
Home
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Never Again
Unusual Suspects
Kill Switch
Bad Blood
The Pine Bluff Variant
Folie a Deux
Drive
Triangle
Terms of Endearment
Tithonus
Monday
The Unnatural
Field Trip
Hungry
X-Cops
Theef
Hollywood A.D.
Je Souhaite
The “Sod It, Give Me the Best Standalones From Beginning to End” List
Ice
Beyond the Sea
Darkness Falls
Irresistible
Humbug
F. Emasculata
Clyde Bruckman’s Final Repose
War of the Coprophages
Pusher
Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”
Quagmire
Home
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Paper Hearts
Leonard Betts
Never Again
Unusual Suspects
Kill Switch
Bad Blood
The Pine Bluff Variant
Folie a Deux
Drive
Triangle
Monday
The Unnatural
Field Trip
Roadrunners
Via Negativa
The Gift
Empedocles
Vienen
John Doe
Hellbound
Improbable
Release
The “So, What Was So Great About the Mythology?” List
Pilot
Deep Throat
Fallen Angel
E.B.E.
The Erlenmeyer Flask
Little Green Men
Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath
Colony/End Game
Anasazi
The Blessing Way/Paper Clip
Nisei/731
Piper Maru/Apocrypha
Jose Chung’s “From Outer Space”
Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man
Memento Mori
Tempus Fugit/Max
Zero Sum
Gethsemane
Redux I/Redux II
Unusual Suspects
Patient X/The Red and the Black
Within/Without
Per Manum
This is Not Happening/DeadAlive
Essence/Existence
The “I Don’t Give a Crap About Quality, I Want to Watch the Mythology” List
Pilot
Deep Throat
The Erlenmeyer Flask
Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath
Colony/End Game
Anasazi
The Blessing Way/Paper Clip
Nisei/731
Piper Maru/Apocrypha
Talitha Cumi
Herrenvolk
Tunguska/Terma
Memento Mori
Gethsemane
Redux I/Redux II
Patient X/The Red and the Black
The End
The Beginning
Two Fathers/One Son
Biogenesis
The Sixth Extinction I/The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati
Sein und Zeit/Closure
Requiem
Within/Without
This is Not Happening/DeadAlive
Essence/Existence
Nothing Important Happened Today/Nothing Important Happened Today II
Provenance/Providence
William
The Truth
The “I’m Just Here For the Shipping” List
Little Green Men
The Host
One Breath
Humbug
Anasazi
War of the Coprophages
Syzygy
Pusher
Quagmire
Wetwired
Paper Hearts
Never Again
Memento Mori
Small Potatoes
Gethsemane
Redux I/Redux II
Detour
Bad Blood
Folie a Deux
The End
Triangle
Dreamland I/Dreamland II
How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
The Rain King
The Unnatural
Field Trip
Millennium
The Amazing Maleeni
all things
Requiem
Within/Without
Per Manum
This is Not Happening/DeadAlive
Alone
Essence/Existence
The last five minutes of The Truth
Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: the x-files |
the m0vie blog 
Good list, but you skipped 105.
I did!
I misscheduled the fifth list. It went up on Sunday rather than Friday! Mea culpa.