Yes, The X-Files. Mulder, Scully, The Truth is Out There – all of that. Let’s face it, most of us had trouble with the letter X for this challenge. There are precious few words that begin with X, and precious fewer that have to do with writing. This was a tricky one.

X-Files, you may think, has nothing to do with writing. But, in my personal writing life, it has a lot to do with it. You may or may not know that I don’t watch much television. Like, at all. I often wonder why I pay for cable when I probably get a good 1 hour of TV a week. That used to be different. Maybe there were better shows on back then, and maybe I just changed, but X-Files, I loved X-Files and of course, it was the writing. For me, it had a great balance of overall plot, individual episode plot and character development. It was on during my college years, when I started writing so to say it didn’t influence my writing would be a lie. I loved the chemistry and the romantic tension between Mulder and Scully. What also intrigued me was the way the slowly unfolded the main plot with the aliens and Mulder’s sister, etc. My apologies if you have never watched the series or have no idea what I’m talking about.

There are few TV series that I get seriously invested in, but X-Files was one of  the first major ones. I think the reason I don’t get invested in TV is because they end up canceling the ones I really like. Any “American Gothic” or “Dead Like Me” fans in the house?

So what TV shows have you really gotten into, whether it influenced you or not? What shows have you enjoyed and why?