Global. That's the only way to describe the The X-Files impact. But is it running out of steam, or will recent events allow it to compete with current genre hits?

As ABBA were once so fond of singing: "On and on and on". And the world has seemed to take up the chorus. Just for how much longer can The X-Files continue to make a valuable contribution to society - and has it even managed to do so over the past year or so? It's not even as if there has been a backlash. You can still find the occasional pick-of-the-day for the latest episodes here in the UK press, but the series and its stars seem to no longer be the media darlins they once were.

aybe it was the movie that did for The X-Files' popular appeal. In the months leading up to it, there was much excited whispering in the press that it would take giant steps towards explaining the omnipresent conspiracy that had come for form the backbone of the series. At the time, there didn't seem to be a soul in the country who did not know that the US government - or a shadowy counter-organisation - was in league with some aliens, polanning something or other. When the movie arrived, it was hailed as the accomplished and entertaining work it so obviously was. But, and typically X-esque, it failed to answer as many questions as it posed. The interest in these new questions remained for a while, but then - when the show continued to play its favourite fame of smoke and mirrors - interest tailed off. The world simply looked the other way, and when the big questions were answered in Season Six's Two Fathers/One Son two-parter the world failed to notice. 'Is that conspiracy stuff still going on?' the casual non-viewer might now ask. And people like you and me, who still have a healthy interest in the show, would answer, 'Well, yes. And no.'

It is interesting to note how little of Season Seven's 'conspiracy' episodes have anything to do with the conspiracy at all. By the end of the year, in the episode Requiem, the conspiracy is more or less declared dead. But there are still things going on, as most heavily evidenced (as usual) in the opening and closing stories of the season. The nature and creation of the human race has been called into question, The Sixth Extinction posting that we are in some way descended from (created by?) aliens - an idea touched on again in En Ami, where Scully is told that a possible cure for her cancer could be provided by alien information. The unasked question in all this is one of whether humanity is just some big experiment on the part of, presumably, the black oil aliens. With this new movement, The X-Files is possibly now more Erik Von Daniken than it has ever been before, but it's still an interesting idea we're not seeing anywhere else on TV at the moment.

The conspiracy has died away in much the same way that mainstream conspiracy-minded culture also has. If we take television as an indicator of the times, then the burst of X-Files clones around the time of that show's third season indicated that people really could believe that those conniving swine who run our country were really capable of keeping big secrets from us - not to mention, doing horrible things to us. Had Dakr Skies been allowed to complete its five-year storyling of governmental underhand shenanigans, people would by now have grown bored with it. New Sci-Fi nowadays is of the Stargate SG-1 or Farscape variety, true escapism in the grand old space opera tradition.

The X-Files has in some way conceded to this. Its new tack, when it decides to tackle the series' big questions, is to come at them from a very personal angle. Closure dealt - once and for all, it seems - with the question of Samantha Mulder's abduction. And what was the most interesting thing about it? The emotins Mulder had to confront in realizing that his sister, far from being cloned and sent away to Space, was in fact killed. Scully's discoveries in En Ami are driven by her desire to finally escape from the shadow of her ilnness. And in Requiem, one of the most moving 'departures' for a series' regular character for years, it's the bond between Mulder and Scully, not the invisible UFO, that elicits the most interest.

All that is not to say that The X-Files has torn up its roots and decided not to bother with the machinations of the aliens, Krycek, Caner Man and the gang. Big Stuff still happens, and we still have as little clue to what it all means as we ever did. And this Stuff remains as potentially Earth shattering as it ever was. Quite where it will all go next is an intriguing question, and one that promises to continue to supply interesting half-answers. Look at where Requiem leaves us: Mulder abducted (and we know his return will not be a simple affair), Scully pregnant, the CSM dead (again), and the real threat of the aliens arriving to destroy humanity rearing its ugly head once again. It looks like Season's Eight's mytharc episodes will be unmissable.

But where odes that leave the other episodes, the ones of the type which so commonly yield the real classics? Episodes such as Bad Blood, Season Five's excellent mixed-viewpoint vampire romp, and Season Three's psychic belly-laugh Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose are, in many ways, the real reason that we love the series. If, as Season Seven progressed, we began to wonder if The X-Files could ever pull such genius from its hat again, then Je Souhaite, Vince Gilligan's incandescently wonderful genie-in-the-bottle story shattered those doubts. It was 'The X-File4 In Feel-Good Shocker!', and it proved that the series is still more than capable of being inventive, clever, funny and moving all at once. Not many TV shows can pull that trick, and it's nice to know that The X-Files still has the ability.

Season Eight looks like it might be well worth tuning into, and it looks like it also might grab the attention of the world in general for a little while. With David Duchovny only contracted for 14 [sic] of the 22 episodes, and the additional of Robert Patricke as Doggett, his ostensible replacement, it looks like Gillian Andersons is going to have to carry the spirit of the series. Of course, the set-up offered by Requiem makes this very easy. We know now that Mulder and Scully cannot live without each other and, as Mulder's life was sjaped the search for his sister, it's now up to Scully to do the same for Mulder. Add to that the mystery of exactly how she got pregnant, and what it is that's gestating within her, and you've already got a great basis for some new directions for the show.

Scully's pregnancy is going to be interesting to watch. Unless I blinked at the wrong moment, there has been no clue as to how she fell pregnant, and no indication as to what it has to do with the big picture. We've - sort of - had this story already with the Emily saga, which culminated with the tear-jerking All Souls. We can only hope that Scully won't have to go through a similar thing with this new 'baby', but this being the mitated world of The X-Files, God alone knows the horrors are going to be visited on her this time.

Mulder's abducation also raises exciting possibilities. Finally, he is going to meet the aliens he has sought for so long; maybe not under the best of circumstances, but he seemed happy enough about it at the end of Season Seven. When he returns (and we knw damn well that he will), what news will he bring of the alien's mission? And how will the experience have changed him? Not too much, we can supposeL if Duchovny is in 14 episodes next year, they surely can't all be about the conspiracy - unless Chris Carter has finally decided to wrap the while shebang up and is giving it the airtime in deserves. More likely, Mulder will be back to his normal self, investigating the unusual - bt with Patrick's new character to aid or hinder him.

The presence of this new character itself is interesting. The X-Files has tried it before, most notably with the frankly irritating Spender. It did look for a while as if this move was insurance against the possible departure of either of the leads: get someone ready and in palce to take the spotlight if needs be. Despite the character's protest, it didn't take Spender long to show his inescapable links to The X-Files world. His mother was a multiple abductee, and his father was the CSM. Who knows what lies in Doggett's history? I think we can rest assured, however, that he will have some sort of link to the series shadowy underworld - whether he knows it or not. For all Spender's intrinsic links with the conspiracy, he remained a generally unpopular character. We can't easily assume that Patrick's Doggett will be different, and he will have a lot of resistance to overcome before he is fully accepted. He does at least seem to be a permanent fixture, unlike the sporadically appearing Spender, but will familiarity breed contempt?

Of course, the other big change in the world of The X-Files is the Lone Gunmen. With the three conspiracy-busting geeks getting their own show, I think it's safe to expect a couple of crossovers. This presents the idea of new stories being played out on a very large canvas. Of course, it could go either way. Best case scenario, the new series will be cracking and both shows will benefit from telling tales of too large a scope for either one of them singly. But then, Chris Carter's hardly had the best of luck with projects other than The X-Files. Last year's Harsh Realm was put out of its misery with unseemly haste, while Millenium's run was perceived as little more than a three-year death rattle. Come on, people, who really expected it *not* to get cancelled.

Somehow, though, despite an incresingly take-it-or-leave-it attitude from the media, The X-Files has escaped a similar fate. This is, of course, down to the fact that - although it may not be the world-beating major player it once was - it is still one of the highest rated dramas on US television. And television execs never ignore numbers like that. So let's be thankful the series is still around. It's one of the most enduring US Science Fiction shows, and more than that it remains a bona fide TV drama hit. While it may never again be the phenomenon it once was, the world will still fondly remember The X-Files long after the files are finally closed