Every so often, an old clip resurfaces and takes over the internet for the afternoon. Sometimes they’re funny, sometimes they’re endearing and sometimes they’re the perfect combination of both. So when a 2016 interview of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson on Jimmy Kimmel began making the rounds, people were obsessed.
The clip, which was part of the press junket for the revival of The X-Files, focused on the alleged tension that the pair had off-screen in the original 90s run of the mega-popular spooky drama. But the real draw is showing just how much chemistry the Fox Mulder and Dana Scully duo still possess.
You’ve likely heard of the term “shipping,” but do you know where it originated?
Relationshipping. Shipping. The phenomenon of wanting two — sometimes fictional, sometimes real life — people to stop the will-they-won’t-they rigamarole and just get together already. It’s a phenomenon that has become common within pop culture as fans watch shows, read books and follow celebrities.
But where did this concept start in modern pop-culture?
For that, you need only to go back 30 years to The X-Files. A cult-classic TV show, The X-Files introduced us to Special Agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) back in September of 1993.
Mulder, an Oxford-educated profiler for the FBI, believes in the existence of extra-terrestrials and sasquatches and vampires and everything in between. Scully is a medical doctor and a skeptic, sent into that office in the basement to debunk “Spooky” Mulder’s work.
Their relationship was, for a very long time, one of friendship and coworkers. The characters — through the brilliant portrayal of Duchovny and Anderson — grew into a duo that cared for and respected each other, and it was refreshing in the mid-to-late 90s to have an attractive couple that didn’t have a sexual relationship.
But the build up and tension around the pairing led to a frenzy online among those that wanted the couple to become romantic partners in addition to FBI partners. Enter shipping as we know it now. Certainly, fanbases before The X-Files had ideations as to whether a couple should get together or not — Sam and Diane on Cheers is one that comes to mind — but the introduction of the internet changed things.
One of the first real usages of the term “relationshipper” or “shipper” is credited to a usenet group where X-Phile (the self-dubbed name for fans of the show) Amy Schatz introduced her fan-fiction story with, “I think that everyone, both R’shipper’s and Non R’shipper’s alike, can enjoy this story.”
The impact of the internet wasn’t just limited to fan-fiction and shipping. Fans found like-minded and kindred spirits on forums, and X-Philes are credited with some of the first collective communities and online watch-parties of sorts. Some of this is just the benefit of coming onto the scene at the right time, but it also created a perfect Venn diagram of people who were interested in the growth of the internet and what our two favorite agents were getting into each week.
The X-Files dealt with topics that were ready-made for like-minded folks on the internet. A sea monster?! A liver-eating mutant? A vast government conspiracy? There was so much to discuss.
And the powers that be among the writers and creators were paying attention. A 2015 article from Gizmodo details how writer Frank Spotnitz was “inspired” to write the episode “Piper Maru” (Season 3, Episode 15) when a fan comment mentioned that they had failed to properly address a plot point.
The X-Files has had a lasting impact on our current pop culture media landscape, more than it gets credit for. The next time you ship someone, think of the original couple: Smulder.
You won’t believe the breadth of talent that starred on The X-Files over the initial 9-season run.
The original run of The X-Files included 217 episodes over nine seasons, meaning there were a lot of opportunities for guest stars. Creator Chris Carter did not let those opportunities pass, often nabbing already big names for an extraterrestrial experience or turn with a creepy monster-of-the-week.
Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, there were also a lot of yet-discovered and soon-to-be huge stars, including a teenage Ryan Reynolds and a very young Lucy Liu.
The iconic series debuted in 1993, forever changing the landscape of television.
On September 10, 1993, viewers got their first-ever out-of-this-world experience with FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as The X-Files debuted on television. Chris Carter’s iconic series would run for nine, 20+ episode seasons and two movies before a 16-episode revival in 2016.
The pilot, aptly named “Pilot,” was nearly as perfect as a premiere episode can be. We have the skeptical medical doctor, Dana Scully — played by the incredible Gillian Anderson — who is tasked with picking apart and “debunking” the X-Files as an extension of the FBI superiors. She’s instructed to take notes on her partner, Fox Mulder — portrayed by the handsome and charismatic David Duchovny — an agent that has gone from bureau golden-boy to basement joke due to his obsession with all things extra-terrestrial.
The first trailer that aired for a new FOX series in Fall of 1993 that would change the landscape forever. 30 Years ago tonight, the final touches were being put on #TheXFiles#30YearsOfTheXFilespic.twitter.com/ztdX1e5pXj
In the premiere, Mulder and Scully travel to Oregon to investigate the mysterious disappearances of some teenagers. Mulder thinks it’s alien abductions. Scully isn’t so sure. There are just enough instances that are unbelievable — loss of time, weird lights, odd bumps on abductees and a seemingly comatose Billy Miles going for nighttime jaunts in the woods — that Scully has to stretch to find explanations that might fit into the realm of plausibility.
You also meet the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis), the ominous government official that lingers in the background, chain-smoking his favorite Morley cigarettes. He takes a mysterious metal implant into a vast storage area in the Pentagon, illustrating the depth of the conspiracy. And most impressively, all of this is established with about three minutes of screen time.
Immediately, the chemistry between Anderson and Duchovny is evident. They play off each other perfectly, and that partner relationship develops over the seasons in a way that is hard to find in other series. The will they, won’t they nature of the friendship is one that would have driven Twitter users wild each week and The X-Files would have been the ideal Sunday night communal watch like HBO series Game of Thrones, Succession and The White Lotus became.
The pilot served as the first entry of what would later be classified as a mythology episode in the series, one that dealt with the overarching government conspiracies that were orchestrated by men in suits in darkly lit rooms filled with cigarette smoke.
The X-Files shaped the way television was created moving forward as the first in that 1990s time frame to really feature the long-arcing storyline (the mythology episodes) alongside what were soon dubbed monster-of-the-week episodes where Mulder and Scully investigated everything from the bizarre (black hole shadows) to the terrifying (extremely stretchy liver-eaters).
Creatives like Vince Gilligan (Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul), Kim Manners (Supernatural), Rob Bowman (Castle, The Rookie), David Nutter (Homeland, Game of Thrones, Entourage, Shameless) and Darin Morgan (Fringe, Millennium) were all some combination of writer, director and executive producer for the series.
The list of references to The X-Files in pop culture is long and robust. The Simpsons did an entire episode that involved Duchovny and Anderson voicing their animated characters as they investigated a mystery in Springfield.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Vampire Diaries, The Nanny, House MD, Criminal Minds, Castle, Breaking Bad and Bones are just a handful of the titles that made some sort of nod to the iconic series. Rock band Eve 6 took their name from a Season 1 episode, “Eve,” that featured clone girls. Barenaked Ladies’ first hit, “One Week,” included the line, “Watching X-Files with no lights on, we’re dans la maison, I hope the Smoking Man’s in this one.”
Three decades ago, The X-Files hit the airwaves and had a lasting impact on pop-culture, television and fandom. And it all started on one quiet Friday with a perfect television pilot.
