Fringe was kind of a remake of The X-Files. It wasn't an exact copy but clearly derivative. Still a decent show.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1119644/

The upcoming Firefly series will be animated, seems like the right choice

Well, I for one would not be disappointed at a sequel or continuation of Firefly, as long as they figure out a way to bring Wash back from the dead and Joss Whedon has absolutely nothing at all to do with it.

They're going to, because there is no property that will not be milked for nostalgia.

Although honestly, it could work if they played into the cynicism and uncertainty of the modern UFO phenomenon. If the "conspiracy" is a hall of mirrors comprised of psyops, lies, grift and folklore and the truth is something very weird exists but the government doesn't know what it is. Establish a "post-truth" narrative where the only thing we know is that everything we thought we knew (Roswell, Area 51, Dulce, Majestic 12) was a lie.

Maybe at some point have the in-universe version of Northrop-Grumman (or pick whatever defense contractor you like) actually make a breathrough in reverse engineering alien technology (or say it's China, to play on American xenophobia) and now the enemy isn't some vast government conspiracy but dark capitalism. Have an Elon Musk analogue, AI death cults around weird alien artifacts, SV startup culture, UFO grifters within the government, creeping fascism, all of it.

Someone could make an intelligent and interesting show that studies the nature of hyperreality, the evolution of UFO folklore as a mirror of generational fears, and the embrace of metaphysics as a trauma response to the dehumanization of modern technological society. The problem is, that wouldn't be the X-Files. Something closer to Lone Gunmen, maybe, as written by Grant Morrison, without cops being protagonists, but the vibe of the 90's and the Smoking Man and all of that is just too quaint to be plausible nowadays.

They'll do it anyway, and they'll do it badly, and they'll probably do it with AI.

Not only bigger, but more mysterious at that. Information wasn't instant and wasn't readily available. There were tales, there were rumors, there were news, and you had to rely on those for your own worldview. Anything further you had to make an expedition to your encyclopedia or library or other means to dive deeper into it. If you made an appointment with someone, you had to rely on the fact both sides will be there; No portable means of communication (easily / cheap). Now we have portable comm devices where we even use them between rooms.

As sibling comment said, I feel privileged to have experienced that, but especially the whole transition from analogue world into digital and then online. It was quite a ride. Around dotcom boom, the second wave of internet users coming online, internet was relatively widespread,. It was also heterogeneous. Quite amazing actually. Now we're down to few big walled gardens and it's definitely different and, in my opinion, worse.

It felt bigger because of a few things:

1. The world felt farther away. It was much harder to learn current events about far away places, and talk to people there.

2. The number of websites you spend most of your time on has shrunk. Facebook/Insta/TikTok is a lot of people's entire internet diet.

It totally felt bigger because so many experiences required access to specific physical objects and getting those took forever.

35mm film processing, CDs (tapes even worse), VHS . . . these were all things deemed not exactly ideal at the time.

It was happier, with plenty of opportunity for everyone and society felt like it was held up on common ground. It defnately felt bigger, because it was.

24 was extreme racist pro-torture fear porn propaganda.

So yes - definitely had its finger on the pulse of early 2000s America.

Uh, no. Totally different times. To me the mid to late 90's where almost the same, among 2000 and pre S11 2001, chill, futuristic times, with computers, consoles, comic books, everything, the final death blow to the 80's which began at 1992/1993. Maybe from 2001/2002, but from 2002-2003 the one was grim, dark, pro-torture on series and tons of war propaganda in movies from the US.

I've heard this idea before but I think it's primarily hindsight. At the time The X Files was on, there were even more popular shows about strong institutions, like Law & Order or The West Wing. So if popular TV was influential, why didn't society evolve toward those portrayals? I think we can look back today and say "that looked like this," but it doesn't mean that caused this.

It took something far more powerful than a TV show that was mildly popular for a few years to create what we live today. It took the great flatness of the Internet. As Terry Pratchett predicted to Bill Gates back then.

LOL, we must've been typing in parallel: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47980081

The X-Files didn't presage it, the X-Files were inspired by it. Conspiratorial "do your own research" style thinking long predated the X-Files (both in existence and in popularity).

If anything, the 90s were the one era where that thinking had receded more than at any other time. Then 9/11 brought it roaring back.

I think it’s simpler than that, the internet makes it easier for conspiracy people to reinforce each others beliefs in a space where no one is going to challenge their fallacious reasoning.