20. Pilot (Season 1, Episode 1)
"Do you believe in the existence of extraterrestrials?" -Fox Mulder
Special Agent Dana Scully, a fresh-faced Academy-teaching medical doctor, is assigned to work with Fox "Spooky" Mulder. Mulder runs the X-Files division, a unit devoted to unexplained phenomena and (unofficially) the pursuit of proof of extraterrestrial life and the supposed government conspiracy to conceal it. Scully's real assignment? Use her training as a scientist to debunk Agent Mulder's work and give the FBI a legitimate excuse to shut the X-Files down. Unfortunately for the shady government officials who would later come to very much regret their selection of spy, Scully is a woman of integrity, and she resolves to work
with Mulder rather than just against him. In their first case together, the duo travels to Oregon to investigate the disappearances and deaths of a string of young people whom Mulder believes were alien abductees. The first season may not be the most stellar, but you can't go wrong by starting with the pilot. Not only will you be introduced to very young versions of David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson (who was only 24 when filming began) as Agents Mulder and Scully, but the premise of the show is explained as thoroughly as is anything on the
The X-Files. The root of Mulder's obsession with the paranormal, the reasoning behind assigning the extraordinarily skeptical Agent Scully to the X-Files, the shadowy villains within the U.S. government, and a silent man who smokes cigarettes and watches over everything...all there in the first episode. As the mythology of the show--the overarching storylines spanning many episodes and seasons--can become confusing fairly quickly, the pilot is a good place to start. There are not many mythology episodes that will make much sense to new viewers, but the pilot is definitely (and obviously) one of them.