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Cynthia Nixon joins Season Two of serial killer drama.

AS if Jack Crawford (Laurence Fishburne) didn't already have enough to deal with on Hannibal, a new addition is sure to make things more difficult for him. Cynthia Nixon is joining the second season in the recurring role of an FBI investigator, an individual with knowledge of the casting told TheWrap. She will play Kade Prurnell, who works in the office of the Inspector General in FBI Oversight. She is charged with looking into the events that went down on Season One and Jack's role in them. Nixon starred as attorney Miranda Hobbes on Sex And The City, as well as its two big screen spin-offs. Her most recent TV credits include the miniseries World Without End, The Big C and a guest spot on Law & Order: Criminal Intent. Aside from Fishburne, Hannibal stars Hugh Dancy and Mads Mikkelsen. – Reuters

The X-Files turns 20

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Star2 takes a loving look at the TV show that made us see aliens, monsters, conspirators and the FBI in a whole new light.

TRUST no one. The truth is out there. I want to believe. Memorable catch-phrases from The X-Files, a series that has been hailed as one of the greatest TV dramas of all time, and certainly one of the most influential.

It generated conversations, sparked debates and arguments, sent millions of minds racing to process the possibilities and conspiracies served up each week.

It also sent me racing home one night a week, so that I could be fed and ready to tune in when the show came on. TV viewing options were still relatively scarce back then, and somehow the prospect of watching the show as it was broadcast appealed to me much more than watching it recorded.

The X-Files even broadened our horizons. In the fourth season episode Teliko, for example, a pigment-draining mutant came to the United States on a flight from Burkina Faso. Intrigued by the country's name, I looked it up.

Yes, the show really stretched it from time to time (episode: Squeeze).

A short while later, when my cousin announced to the family that she was engaged to a nice young man from Burkina Faso, a place we'd probably never heard of, both my dad and I told her "Wrong! We have heard of it ... from The X-Files!"

In the course of its nine seasons, two movies and associated ventures (comics, books, video games, albums – which fan doesn't own a copy of Songs In The Key Of X – card games, magazines, its "sister show" Millennium and direct spinoff The Lone Gunmen), it more than won a place in the hearts and imaginations of fans of the pretenatural; it became part of our lives.

Whether that part was confined to an hour a week, or an inspiration to research the extraordinary and bizarre (and unexplained), a compulsion to devour every last scrap of information – which required considerable effort in a time when the Internet was in its infancy – The X-Files had an effect on us all that no other TV show since has managed to recapture.

It fed numerous hungers in us: that craving for creepy thrills; the slightly paranoid portions of our psyche convinced that government and big business were hiding things from … and doing things to … us; it successfully served up memorable standalone featured creatures and spun a compelling mythology for its overall story arc (although one that grew densely layered and complex and occasionally inaccessible towards the end).

Was the primary 'villain' of The X-Files' mythology arc, William B. Davis's Smoking Man, just a ... differently motivated individual?

It gave us not only endearing and enduring protagonists in Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, their immediate circle of colleagues (assistant director Walter Skinner, the Lone Gunmen, Deep Throat, X) but also adversaries who weren't necessarily all bad, just differently motivated (Alex Krycek, the Smoking Man, Marita Covarrubias).

Even the bizarre menagerie of crazies, misguided individuals, sad figures, mutants and monsters who trooped past our eager eyes week after week held some appeal, if not allure. Okay, maybe not in the case of the Peacock family.

The X-Files was different, it was daring for its day (remember, this was a time before CSI made it all right to show dismemberment, decapitation and evisceration in graphic detail on network TV), and it built upon its inspirations (shows like The Night Stalker, The Twilight Zone and The Invaders) to create something unique, the likes of which we may never see on TV again.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the series' first broadcast (Sept 10, 1993), we've put together a collection of highlights and fond reminiscences of the series and take a look at what all our old friends are up to these days.

The whole truth may not be in here, but the fun certainly is – so step right in, and don't mind the liver-eating mutant in the corner; he's just nesting. – DA

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The truth is (still) out there

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Twenty years after its introduction, the influence of The X-Files can still be seen in TV shows and other mediums.

THE X-Files lasted nine seasons, spawned two feature films, a spin-off TV show and one "sister" show, three comic-book series, three lines of novels, and more merchandise than the number of cigarettes the Cigarette Smoking Man could ever possible smoke.

However, the extent of the show's influence extends way beyond its own universe. Take a look at many of today's TV series and you'll see just how influential the show has been on many of the showrunners that followed (for instance, Joss Whedon has described Buffy The Vampire Slayer as a cross between The X-Files and My So-Called Life).

The more obvious ones and recent ones would probably be Fringe and Warehouse 13, both of which feature two government agents – one male, one female, one a believer, one a sceptic – investigating cases with a paranormal twist in them.

You know you've made it as a pop culture icon when you get parodiedon The Simpsons.

Supernatural has also been compared to The X-Files, mainly because of the "monster of the week" format many of its episodes follow, while Lost's lengthy and incredibly convoluted over-arching mythology bears more than a striking resemblance to The X-Files' own crazily long and complicated story arcs.

Also, you know you've made it as a pop culture phenomenon when The Simpsons does a parody of your show. Mulder and Scully (voiced by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, naturally) made their appearance on the show in Season Eight's The Springfields Files episode back in 1997, in which Homer Simpson spots a UFO, and our two agents show up to investigate.

Even Star Trek, the mother of all sci-fi franchises, was not immune to the X-effect. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine aired an episode called Trials And Tribbleations, in which Commander Benjamin Sisko was interviewed by two agents from the Federation Department of Temporal Investigations – Agents Dulmer and Lucsly (see what they did there?) – effectively blowing the collective minds of sci-fi geeks everywhere.

Still, there is a reason The X-Files is now known as a "franchise" rather than just a TV series. Here's a look at the other members of the X-Family. – MC

TV spin-offs

There have been two shows directly associated with The X-Files itself – Millennium and The Lone Gunmen.

The former was the only one that was a direct spin-off of the show though. It featured the trio of eccentric hackers and conspiracy theorists that Mulder used to go to for help during cases, but unfortunately only lasted 13 episodes in 2001 before being unceremoniously cancelled. Although its finale ended in a cliffhanger, the best part about being a spinoff of another still ongoing show is that you get to get some form of closure in the original series – many of the loose ends were tied up in the ninth season X-Files episode Jump The Shark.

The same thing happened with Millennium, even though this particular show wasn't exactly a spin-off. The show starred Lance Henriksen as Frank Black, a forensic profiler who could somehow see through the eyes of serial killers. I remember being really excited at seeing the words "Created by Chris Carter", and expecting Mulder and Scully to pop up in the show (hey, I was a young and idealistic fanboy back then).

Although that never really happened, the show was still a pretty good watch – dark and thrilling at the same time, it showed us how scary serial killers could be, even before Agent Hotchner and his BAU from Criminal Minds were even created.

Though not a direct spinoff, Millennium was nevertheless set in the same X-universe, so when the show was cancelled, The X-Files duly provided a chance for Frank Black (Lance Henriksen) and the Millennium Group to tie up their own loose ends, in the oh-so-obviously named Millennium episode.

The films

The problem with making a movie out of a popular TV series, especially one that has a mythology as long and bloated as The X-Files, is trying not to make it seem like you are just taking a two-hour episode of the TV show and showing it on a bigger screen.

When The X-files: Fight The Future was being filmed, the filmmakers did their utmost best to assure fans that this would be different from the TV show. In addition to the usual guys (Mulder, Scully, Skinner, The Well-Manicured Man, The Lone Gunmen, and The Smoking Man) including casting well-known faces Martin Landau and Blythe Danner, and filming in various different locations to give the show a "grander feel".

When the film was eventually released in 1998, it DID turn out to be slightly more than just another episode of the TV show, but only just. The most memorable part of the movie turned out to be the much-hyped kiss between Mulder and Scully, which turned out to be yet another anti-climax when it was interrupted by a bee sting.

As for the second movie, X-Files: I Want To Believe, at the time, I wanted to believe that it would be good. But as I wrote in my review back in 2008, the screenplay would probably have ended up in one of Mulder's file cabinets in that basement office of his, filed away as an X-File in its own right.

Sure, it was worth it just to hear THAT theme song again, and at the time, it was definitely great to see Mulder and Scully back together again so long after the show ended (six years, to be exact); but there was a sense of anti-climax with this movie, and it played more like a two-hour episode of the show instead of an actual movie, and even then, it would have ranked as one of the weaker episodes.

Comics and books

If you've been longing for more X-Files stories beyond the second movie, then the only way you can get your fix is through the new X-Files: Season 10 comic book that was recently released by IDW Publishing. Now into its third issue, the comic continues on from the events of second movie, and sees Mulder and Scully living in hiding together as Mr and Mrs Blake.

Of course, this doesn't last long, and familiar faces soon start popping up - in the first three issues alone, we see Skinner, the Cigarette Smoking Man, Agent Doggett and a bunch of acolytes out to get Scully.

This isn't the first comic-book version of The X-Files, of course. From 1995 to 1998, Topps Comics published the first official line of comics for the show, and then in 2010, there was even a Wildstorm/IDW crossover between The X-Files and 30 Days Of Night, in which Mulder and Scully go to Alaska to investigate a series of possible vampire-related murders.

Other X-Files merchandise:

> The X-Files Collectible Card Game (1996)

> The X-Files Game for PC and Macintosh, and PlayStation (1998)

> The X-Files: Unrestricted Access, a game-styled database (2000)

> The X-Files: Resist Or Serve video game for PS2 (2004)

> The X-Files action figures by McFarlane Toys, released to coincide with Fight The Future (1998)

> The X-Files PALZ by Palisades, cute caricature toys including M&S, Flukeman and the Conundrum (2005)

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