The X-Files debuted in September of 1993, the same year Bill Clinton took office. Most female law enforcement characters today have been informed by Gillian Anderson’s shoulder-padded, eye-rolling, Scully. An iconic pop-culture phenomenon in the 90s, The X-Files was a landmark in feminist screenwriting and groundbreaking in its presentation of a truly equal TV partnership. Dana Scully was the skeptical rule-follower led by logic. She was brilliant and capable with her feet firmly on the ground, diametrically opposed to her partner Fox “Spooky” Mulder’s head-in-the-clouds, follow-the-spaceship approach. Critics have decoded The X-Files in manifold ways, including as an allegory of illegal immigration. Indeed, it hardly seems coincidental that the show’s climb to cult status took place during a period marked by nationalist discourse obsessed with borders, so-called “illegal aliens” and immigration. The topicality of both The X-Files and paranoia about an “alien nation” were symptomatic of the political moment. The X-Files was popular in the 90s because it expressed the high degrees of complexity emerging with the post-industrial era. Its characters were alien and alienated. The visual aesthetic became, in turn, a touchstone for the distrust, tension and angst of the nineties. The X-Files premiered right around the time that the internet was becoming readily accessible. Because of this, it has a naively optimistic charm, a relic from a (relatively) innocent pre-9/11 era when America hadn't been so deeply threatened and could turn inward. It's about belief and faith in something that exists on a higher plane. But it also represents a full-blown default mistrust in the world as it was presented to us, an effective primer on recent trends in online misinformation. The show's infamous tagline, "THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE," may look a tad anachronistic in a post-truth world marred by internet-fueled conspiracy theories. Nostalgia-driven tv shows like The X-Files, firmly embedded in the cultural milieu of the 90s, serve as the ultimate emotional pacifier, an antidote to the increasingly unpredictable nature of daily life in the shadow of Covid-19.