The X-files

The Truth is Out There was a major catch phrase for almost a decade as The X-Files was a part of a wave of Fox shows that helped to establish it as the hip young network. Over the course of the series it went from the best science fiction show on television, to a shell of its former self, to the best thing on television again! Cast changes, sometimes confusing storyline paths, all leading to an amazing set of realizations in the final seasons, made The X-Files such a complete and total revelation. The key to the series is the relationship between Scully and Mulder, and even more so, the truth and the myth that each represented. Dana Scully, played with incredible perfection by Gillian Anderson, played the realist who keeps getting dragged into the weird, and trying to make it all fit in with the world we understand. Mulder knew better than to trust anything or anybody... save for Scully. That dynamic, coupled with a coterie of characters like The Cigarette Smoking Man, Jose Chung, and The Lone Gunmen, all helped turn The X-Files into one of the defining television programs of the 1990s, of the Fox Network, and of scifi tv. Why it's on the list: There are few stories in the history of science fiction that go as deep, look as far, and still manage to take place in the here and now.