Gillian Anderson's Scully standing with David Duchovny's Mulder in a cemetery in The X-Files
Since Rod Serling first delighted audiences with The Twilight Zone and Gene Roddenberry first dreamed up Star Trek, there probably hasn't been a more influential television series in modern science fiction than The X-Files.
Created by Chris Carter, the series followed FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully as they investigate every weird and unexplained thing that goes bump in the night. It was because of this series that the"spooky cop" show was cemented in American pop culture. So, just like The Twilight Zone and Star Trek have had several imitators over the years, it's no wonder that there are plenty of shows out there that exist in the same vein as The X-Files. Whether it's the same basic format, with FBI agents investigating strange cases, or similar concepts involving human experimentation and government cover-ups, there are plenty of great sci-fi shows out there that, in a spiritual sense, continue the narrative beyond Mulder and Scully. So, before The X-Files is rebooted, here are the other sci-fi shows you ought to check out that cover many of the same concepts on the small screen. 'Fringe' When J. J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Roberto Orci first came up with Fringe, Fox was no doubt interested due to the clear similarities to The X-Files. An FBI-formed team investigates strange, unexplainable cases involving fringe technologies and theoretical events that spring up around New England called"The Pattern" certainly sounds like something that Mulder and Scully would be involved in. But this time, it wasn't aliens and UFOs that were at the center of a government conspiracy, but the existence of a parallel universe. Following FBI Agent Olivia Dunham , jack-of-all-trades Peter Bishop , and his"mad" scientist father Walter Bishiop , this unlikely trio become the anchor for not just their universe but the whole timeline as they eventually save the world. One of the best sci-fi shows without aliens, Fringe is a 21st century triumph that builds on the foundation that The X-Files laid on Fox while managing to create a voice of its own. It's easily one of the most creative network sci-fi shows out there. 'Dark Skies' If there was any television series that was directly created to rival The X-Files, it would be Dark Skies. Created by Brent V. Friedman and Bryce Zabel, the series at first glance appears to be nothing more than a carbon copy of Mulder and Scully's adventures, but upon a closer examination, it's abundantly clear that the only real similarities are their meditations on an impending alien invasion. Everything else about this NBC program was completely original to this short-lived series. For one thing, Dark Skies is a period drama set in the '60s, as John Loengard and Kimberly Sayers stumble upon the existence of"The Hive," which seeks to overtake the Earth over the course of the 20th century. A sci-fi series certainly better than it was given credit for, Dark Skies was supposed to cover a new decade every season until the narrative hit the 21st century, which would've erupted into a full-on invasion. Sadly, this never happened, but the first 19-episode season remains exciting nonetheless. 'Warehouse 13' From the very beginning, Warehouse 13 was described by SyFy as"part The X-Files, part Raiders of the Lost Ark, and part Moonlighting." So, it's not exactly a surprise that it has found its way to this list. When U.S. Secret Service Agents Myka Bering and Pete Lattimer are assigned to the mythical"Warehouse 13," it becomes their responsibility to find, capture, and catalog mystical artifacts under the direction of supervisor Artie Nielsen . An underrated sci-fi show that is better than it looks, Warehouse 13 is full of lovable characters, complicated worldbuilding, and plenty of great episodes that make for an easy binge. You'll find yourself just as disappointed that the whole thing is over as the characters do come the finale, though the ride itself is assuredly worth it. While it's a bit campier than The X-Files, this underrated Syfy series follows its example by perfectly blending sci-fi and fantasy into an adventure well-worth undertaking. 'Millennium' Okay, this one may be a bit of a cheat for a few reasons. For one, Millennium exists in the same shared universe as The X-Files, and was likewise created by Chris Carter. Following former FBI profiler Frank Black , the Seattle-based series — at least for the first two seasons — mostly tackled serial killers with some spiritual elements peppered in throughout. It wasn't really a science fiction series up front , but it dove into more genre-based territory in its second season and beyond. As Frank investigated the Millennium Group that he found himself intimately involved with, more sci-fi elements popped up, including bioweapon viruses, anxieties surrounding a millennial Y2K disaster, conspiracies surrounding government surveillance, and other low-genre concepts. Still, it's continuously referred to as a sci-fi series, so we couldn't not put it on here, especially since so many of the creative threads carry over. In fact, Frank Black famously crossed over with Mulder and Scully in The X-Files' seventh season.Would You Survive? The Matrix · Mad Max · Blade Runner · Dune · Star Wars Five universes. Five completely different ways the future went wrong — or sideways, or up in flames. Only one of them is the world your instincts were built for. Ten questions will figure out which dystopia, galaxy, or desert wasteland you'd actually make it out of alive. 💊The Matrix 🔥Mad Max 🌧️Blade Runner 🏜️Dune 🚀Star Wars TEST YOUR SURVIVAL → QUESTION 1 / 10INSTINCT 01 You sense something is deeply wrong with the world around you. What do you do? The first instinct is often the truest one. APull on every thread until I understand the system — then figure out how to break it. BStop asking questions and start stockpiling — food, fuel, weapons. Questions don't keep you alive. CKeep my head down, observe carefully, and trust no one until I know who's pulling the strings. DStudy the patterns. Every system has a rhythm — learn it, and you learn how to survive it. EFind the people fighting back and join them. You can't fix a broken galaxy alone. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 2 / 10RESOURCE 02 In a world of scarcity, what resource do you guard most fiercely? What we protect reveals what we believe survival actually requires. AKnowledge. If you understand the system, you don't need resources — you can generate them. BFuel. Everything else — movement, power, escape — runs on it. CTrust. In a world of fakes and informants, a truly reliable ally is rarer than any commodity. DWater. And after water, information — the two things empires are truly built on. EShips and credits. The galaxy is big — you survive it by being able to move through it freely. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 3 / 10THREAT 03 What kind of threat keeps you up at night? Fear is useful data — if you're honest about what you're actually afraid of. AThat reality itself is a lie — that everything I experience has been constructed to keep me compliant. BA raid. No warning, no mercy — just the roar of engines and then nothing left. CBeing identified. Once someone with power decides you're a problem, you're already out of time. DBeing outmanoeuvred — losing a political game I didn't even know I was playing. EThe Empire tightening its grip until there's nowhere left to run. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 4 / 10SKILL 04 Which of these comes most naturally to you? Your strongest skill is your best survival asset — use it accordingly. AHacking, pattern recognition, finding the exploit in any system — digital or human. BMechanical skill — I can strip an engine, rig a weapon, or fix anything with whatever's around. CReading people — knowing when someone's lying, hiding something, or about to run. DDiscipline and endurance — mental and physical. I outlast things rather than overpower them. EPiloting, navigation, knowing how to get from A to B when every route is dangerous. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 5 / 10AUTHORITY 05 How do you deal with authority you don't trust? Every dystopia has a power structure. Your approach to it determines everything. ASubvert it from the inside — learn its rules well enough to weaponise them against it. BIgnore it and stay out of its reach. The further from any power structure, the better. CAppear to comply while doing exactly what I need to do. Visibility is the enemy. DManoeuvre within it carefully. You can't beat a system you refuse to understand. EResist openly when I have to. Some things are worth the risk of being seen. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 6 / 10ENVIRONMENT 06 Which environment could you actually endure long-term? Survival isn't just tactical — it's physical, psychological, and very much about where you are. AUnderground bunkers and server rooms — cramped, artificial, but with access to everything that matters. BOpen wasteland — brutal sun, no shelter, constant movement. At least the threat is honest. CA dense, rain-soaked city where you can disappear into the crowd and nobody asks questions. DMerciless desert — extreme heat, no water, and something enormous living beneath the sand. EThe fringe — backwater planets and busy spaceports where the Empire's attention rarely reaches. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 7 / 10ALLIANCE 07 Who do you want in your corner when things fall apart? The company you keep is the clearest signal of who you actually are. AA tight crew of believers who've seen behind the curtain and have nothing left to lose. BOne or two people I'd trust with my life. Any more than that and someone talks. CNobody, ideally. Alliances are liabilities. I work alone unless I have no choice. DA community bound by shared hardship and mutual survival — people who need each other to last. EA ragtag team with wildly different skills and total commitment when it counts. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 8 / 10TRUTH 08 A comfortable lie or a devastating truth — which can you actually live with? Some worlds offer one. Some offer the other. Very few offer both. AThe truth, no matter the cost. I'd rather live in a brutal reality than a beautiful cage. BNeither — truth and lies are luxuries. What matters is surviving the next hour. CI've learned to live with ambiguity. Some truths don't have clean answers. DThe truth — but deployed strategically. Knowing something others don't is power. EThe truth. Even when it means confronting something in yourself you'd rather leave buried. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 9 / 10MORALITY 09 Where do you draw the line — if you draw one at all? Every survivor eventually faces a moment that tests what they're actually made of. AI won't harm the innocent — even the ones who'd report me without hesitation. BI do what I have to to protect the people I've chosen. Everything else is negotiable. CThe line shifts depending on who's asking and what's at stake. DI draw a long-term line — nothing that compromises my people's future, even if it'd help now. ESome lines, once crossed, can't be uncrossed. I know which ones they are. NEXT QUESTION → QUESTION 10 / 10PURPOSE 10 What would actually make survival worth it? Staying alive is one thing. Having a reason to is another. AWaking others up — dismantling the illusion so no one else has to live inside it. BFinding somewhere — or someone — worth protecting. A reason to keep moving. CAnswers. Understanding what I am, what any of this means, before time runs out. DLegacy — shaping the future in a way that outlasts me by generations. EFreedom — for myself, for others, for every world still living under someone else's boot. REVEAL MY WORLD → Your Fate Has Been Calculated You'd Survive In… Your answers point to the world your instincts were built for. Read all five — your result is the one that resonates most deeply. YOUR WORLD The Matrix You took the red pill a long time ago — probably before anyone offered it to you. You're a systems thinker who can't help but notice the seams in things, the places where the official version doesn't quite line up. In the Matrix, that instinct is the difference between life and permanent digital sedation. You'd find the Resistance, or it would find you. The machines built an airtight prison. You'd be the one probing the walls for the door. YOUR WORLD Mad Max The wasteland doesn't reward the clever or the well-connected — it rewards those who are hard to kill and harder to break. That's you. You don't need comfort, community, or a cause larger than the next horizon. You need a vehicle, a clear threat, and enough fuel to outrun it. You are unsentimental enough to survive that world, and decent enough — just barely — to be something more than another raider. YOUR WORLD Blade Runner You'd survive here because you know how to exist in moral grey areas without losing yourself completely. You read people accurately, keep your circle small, and ask the questions others prefer not to answer. In a city where humanity is a legal designation rather than a feeling, you hold onto something that keeps you functional. You're not a hero. But you're not lost, either. In Blade Runner's world, that distinction is everything. YOUR WORLD Dune Arrakis is the most hostile environment in the known universe — and you are precisely the kind of person it rewards. Patience, discipline, pattern recognition, political awareness, and an understanding that the long game matters more than any single victory. Others come to Dune and are consumed by it. You'd learn its logic, earn its respect, and perhaps, in time, reshape it entirely. YOUR WORLD Star Wars The galaxy far, far away is vast, loud, and in a constant state of violent political upheaval — and you wouldn't have it any other way. You're someone who finds meaning in being part of something larger than yourself. You'd gravitate toward the Rebellion, or the fringes, or whatever pocket of the galaxy still believes the Empire's grip can be broken. Whatever you are, you fight. And in Star Wars, that willingness is what makes the difference. ↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ 'Night Stalker' It's not exactly a secret that the original Kolchak: The Night Stalker was a direct precursor to The X-Files, having inspired Chris Carter's interest in supernatural and urban sci-fi efforts on television. So, when former X-Files producer Frank Spotnitz partnered with ABC to reboot the concept with Stuart Townsend as the infamously quirky reporter Carl Kolchak, most expected it to be on the same level as Mulder and Scully's previous work. Unfortunately, Night Stalker was anything but. The short-lived series didn't even make it six episodes before it was pulled from ABC's schedule and promptly canceled. The remaining episodes were released digitally via iTunes, and the series was left in the dust. While the original Kolchak is one great '70s show you likely haven't seen, the 2005 Night Stalker could never be considered"great" by comparison. If you're looking for a journalist-investigates-the-macabre type of story, you're better off revisiting the original. 'Almost Human' Easily one of the most underrated sci-fi shows you've never heard of, Almost Human was created by Fringe showrunner J. H. Wyman after that series ended, making it a sort of"spiritual grandchild" of The X-Files. Set in the technologically advanced future of 2048, the Fox drama follows Detective John Kennex and his synthetic partner Dorian as they track down cyberterrorists, out-of-control androids, and other illegal technologies that have been distributed throughout New Pittsburg. Subscribe to the newsletter for shows like The X-Files Explore more Mulder-and-Scully-adjacent TV: subscribe to the newsletter for curated recommendations, in-depth rundowns, and watchlist ideas focused on shows that echo The X-Files' themes. Find hidden gems and the next sci-fi series you'll love. Get Updates By subscribing, you agree to receive newsletter and marketing emails, and accept our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. You can unsubscribe anytime. Almost Human is everything you could ask for in a television series about a Blade Runner-style future that still needs to follow a weekly procedural format. The chemistry between Urban and Ealy was remarkable, and the complicated plotlines, which involved a conspiracy involving the New Pittsburg criminal underworld, made for killer television. More than anything, it's just a shame it didn't last longer than a single season. 'Stranger Things' It may seem a bit strange to compare Stranger Things, which itself has become a momentous franchise that's just as popular with non-sci-fi fans as it is with them, but hear us out. When the Netflix series first started, it was sort of the first of its kind. The emphasis on the serialized plot surrounding concepts like small-town government cover-ups, the MKUltra program, and the existence of alien lifeforms from other dimensions all feel ripped straight from The X-Files — and there's a reason for that: Mulder and Scully did it first. Although the emphasis of each show couldn't be more different , there are clear threads connecting them. Still, Stranger Things proved itself to be far more than just an X-Files riff — the show was directly influenced by '80s movies, after all — but a cultural phenomenon that continues to expand with prequel stageplays and interquel animated series. Who knows what the Duffer Brothers will do next; all we know is that Stranger Things has moved beyond the realm of The X-Files, for better or worse. Like Stranger Things TV-14 Drama Mystery Horror Science Fiction Release Date 2016 - 2025-00-00 Network Netflix Showrunner Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer Directors Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer, Andrew Stanton, Frank Darabont, Nimród Antal, Uta Briesewitz Cast See All When a young boy vanishes, a small town uncovers a mystery involving secret experiments, terrifying supernatural forces and one strange little girl. Writers Kate Trefry, Jessie Nickson-Lopez, Jessica Mecklenburg, Alison Tatlock Main Genre Drama Seasons 5 Producers Rand Geiger, Justin Doble, Lampton Enochs Franchise Stranger Things Creator Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer Story By The Duffer Brothers Streaming Service Netflix Executive Producer Shawn Levy, Dan Cohen, Curtis Gwinn, Cindy Holland, Karl Gajdusek, Iain Paterson, Matt Duffer, Ross Duffer Powered by Expand Collapse
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