Fox's revival of one of its biggest hits, The X-Files, has been one of the biggest stories in television this year. Premiering after the network's broadcast of the NFL's NFC Championship game, millions of eyeballs will be glued to their TV sets, waiting to see if production company 1013 and stars Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny can recapture the magic (and chemistry) they had so many years ago.

2008's I Want To Believe, the second feature film in the franchise, seems to have been forgotten. That's probably not a bad thing - while not outright horrible (nothing with Billy Connolly ever is), it is more more or less an elongated X-Files episode to begin with. Somewhat underrated, but far from criminally so.

However, with the new season on its way - a revival, not a reboot or remake, just six new episodes - now is a great time to look back at some X-Files episodes that really were, in fact, criminally underrated. These are the episodes that never caught on with fans, critics, or both. Yet upon further review, they're actually quite good - and in some cases, excellent.



