The X-Files.
What a show.
Two FBI agents - Fox Mulder, who believes that his sister was abducted by alines as a child, and an Oxford educated profiler, destined to do well in the Bureau. Hmm... well, that's how it looked.
Then he found The X-Files.
Cases abandoned by the FBI for decades, extraordinary tales of supernatural events, paranormal occurences with the odd bit of weirdness thrown in.
From then on he made The X-Files his life.
But behind the scenes, some people were worried. These files were never meant to be found.
These people had plans...
Mulder had to be stopped. To do this, they contacted Agent Dana Scully, a medical doctor who does things by the book. Then a total skeptic, Scully was assigned to work with Mulder and prove his theories wrong. In other words to debunk his inverstigations.
(At this point, thousands of X-philes begin laughing quietly to themselves)

Our heroes, fresh from the perils of Gethsemane and staright into another photo shoot.
 

As you may have figured, the plan didn't work.
Scully saw too much, and although she always turned to science first, began to open her mind to other possibilities. The agents investigated brand new X-Files. Mutants that hibernated for 30 years, then awakening to eat 5 human livers. Tiny insects, let loose in a forest which attack when the darkness falls, ghosts, monsters and all matter of thinmgs. Then strange things began to ahppen. The same facts would pop up every now and then. There was a continuing storyline emerging in several episodes.
Then came the turning point.
Scully was abducted by forces unknown (unknown!) and returned, three months later with a metal implant in her neck.
The agents continued investigations, with more disturbing truths discovered along the way.
Mulder's sister was returned, only to be found to be one of many clones.
Scully's sister was shot, msitaken for Scully, as well as Mulder's father, who has somewhere along the line been involved in this continuing conspiracy.
They made friends, who only turned out to be enemies. They encountered suspicious characters known only by names like "The cigarette-smoking man".
Scully's implant was removed, then Scully discovered she had fatal, inoperable brain cancer. When it was replaced, the cancer went into remission.
It's ultimate purpose still remains unknown.
More cases - vampires, human lightening rods, and the rest of it.
Then came The End. Or was it?
The continuing conspiracy and the men behind it seemed to have won. The X-Files burned to the ground and Mulder & Scully split, there was nowhere they could turn to.
Then came the movie... and the truth.

The X-Files is presently in it's sixth season, with, a seventh promised for 2000.
And it still hasn't lost that shock impact each time a new revelation is made, and a new question asked.
That X Factor.

And they all lived happily ever after.
Until next week, anyhow.