The X-Files

 The X-Files was a popular American television series created by Chris Carter. It ran for nine seasons from 1993 until 2002, spawning two feature films and one spin-off TV series.It was a critical and commercial success, due in part to its stars, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson. 

Fox Mulder, played by Duchovny, and Dana Scully, played by Anderson, are two FBI agents tasked with investigating the titular "X-Files", cases that often involve paranormal phenomena. With plots spanning conspiracy theories and high-level governmental cover-ups, the show mimicked episodic elements found in earlier shows such as The Outer Limits, The Twilight Zone, and the cult show Twin Peaks, in which Duchovny had appeared as a cross-dressing DEA agent. The series became a surprise runaway success, with a devoted following. The X-Files was declared by TV Guide to be one of the greatest television shows of all time, and the second greatest cult TV show of all time, behind Star Trek. 

Many fans consider the show's creative peak to have occurred before the fifth season due to the presence of Glen Morgan and James Wong, whose involvement in the first two seasons was as great as (many would say greater than) Chris Carter's, and who returned for the first half of the fourth season. 

Over the course of the concluding seasons, the show underwent several changes by way of both character development and plot direction, in addition to a steady ratings decline. One of the fundamental mythologies of the show, Mulder's search for his sister, would finally be resolved, as well as a few turns of events involving the ever-deepening bond between Mulder and Scully and the interaction between the two characters. Whether they "should" or "shouldn't" consummate their relationship was a matter of immense debate among the fan community for several years, and is still subject to scrutiny, since even after abundant hints, Carter refuses to substantiate whether the two characters ever had sexual intercourse. Even after the show's termination it retains a fan following — this, despite the fact that portions of the show's initial fan base 'lost interest' during the later seasons. 

The Lone Gunmen, a trio of nerdish government watchdogs who sporadically assisted Mulder and Scully, had their own short-lived TV series. The termination of the show left it's storyline unresolved, but all the characters from the series returned in the X-Files episode "Jump the Shark", an allusion to the television term, which served as a final Lone Gunmen episode. The trio also made a brief appearance, as ghosts or memories appearing to Mulder, in  final episode, "The Truth". 

The film also marked the first, and passionately talked about near kiss between Fox Mulder and Dana Scully. It was the kiss many fans had been waiting for since the beginning of the series in '93, but others felt the sexual apprehension between the two main characters was better left as apprehension, and not realized. 

Following a contract dispute with Fox, David Duchovny quit The X-Files after the seventh season.  His departure made for some interesting plot twists. The Season 7 finale found Mulder abducted by aliens and Scully pregnant. At the very end of the Season 8 finale, Scully asks Mulder how this could have happened, and he responds by referring to "the truth we both know" and proceeds to kiss her. It is unclear as to whether she is referring to her supposed infertility or the possibility that she had not been with a man recently, although Mulder and Scully's kiss is suggestive that the two of them had been together. Having supposedly been rendered infertile during her abduction in Season 2, a fact first revealed during "Memento Mori" in Season 4, this was indeed a shock to both Scully and the show's fan base. 

As far as the paternity of the child Baby William was concerned, there were scattered hints that Mulder could be the father. One of the most significant hints came in the Season 9 episode "Trust No 1." In this episode, a government agent known as the "Shadow Man" who had been spying on Scully tells her that: 

"I know your blood type, resting heart rate and your childhood fear of clowns. I know the name of your college boyfriend, your true hair color, your ATM PIN, favorite charity and pet peeves. I know you spend too much time alone, and I know one lonely night you invited Mulder into your bed. (cut to Scully) I was as surprised as you are." The fact that Scully doesn't vehemently deny this statement (as would be in her personality to do so) lends credence to his claim. 

In the series finale "The Truth," Mulder also refers to William as "my son" when questioned by a military officer and "our son" when speaking to Scully. 

However, in the same episode, speaking under oath, he refers to both Bill Mulder and the Cigarette Smoking Man as being his own father, the implication being that he believes CSM is his biological father, but still considers Bill Mulder his true father. If so, this could mean that he is symbolically accepting William as his son as a gesture to Scully, not because of any biological connection. 

Since Scully is never seen to perform DNA testing of any kind on William, it can't be considered a certainty that William is even genetically related to her. Given the non-human abilities William has, and the fact that it was impossible for her to conceive normally, it is difficult to understand why she never performs such tests. Particularly given that her earlier alleged offspring, Emily (seen in season five), died at the age of three because of problems relating to her presumed alien hybrid biology. One would think any concerned mother, particularly a medical doctor, would try to learn everything she could about a child who came to being under such suspicious circumstances, but Scully seems to violently shy away from any implication that William is anything other than a normally conceived baby--although going by the dates we see on the show, she gave birth to him more than a year after Mulder's abduction at the end of the seventh season. The confused viewer can only guess that, as she had confessed in earlier seasons, Scully was simply "afraid of the truth." 

Gail Berman, the newly crowned president of Fox Entertainment at the time, asked Chris Carter who William's father was, at a press function introducing the Fox Network's fall season for 2000. Carter's response: "I am." (Pause) "I'm its father and its mother." 

Regardless of whether he meant this as a joke or not, when he realized that Scully's motherhood was yet another drag on the ratings, Carter wrote William out of the show entirely, having Scully give her baby to a couple she'd never met, after his apparently alien powers had been arbitrarily removed by Jeffrey Spender. Other than the two brief mentions in the finale, William was not referred to again for the remainder of the show's run. 

Duchovny returned for brief stints in seasons eight and nine. In season eight, Mulder reappeared as a corpse, was buried for several months (of the story's time frame), and then later revived. With both Duchovny and Anderson's involvement reduced, the show introduced two new X-Files agents, John Doggett and Monica Reyes (played by Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish). It was Chris Carter's belief that the series could continue for another ten years with new leads. This was not to be the case, however, as Doggett and Reyes did not provide the ratings boost Chris Carter had hoped. 

The show completed its ninth and final season with the two-hour episode "The Truth", which first aired on May 19, 2002. The show ceased production at the end of the ninth season—on a cliffhanger.