X Files

Draft mania -- UP -- Previously the domain of hopeless seamheads and Baseball America, this week's draft offers the Orioles four first-round selections -- the first team ever given such an opportunity -- and seven of the first 50 overall. Find out what 2004 will look like.The X-Files -- DOWN -- Settling sore-shouldered Xavier Hernandez's grievance for $1.75 million does not enhance GM Frank Wren's position with ownership.El Sid -- UP -- Before this season, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer likened freckle-faced, 22-year-old Sidney Ponson to, well, himself.

This may be Gillian Anderson's big movie moment, but don't think she's nervous. The actress is maintaining an almost Scullyan unflappability even as "The X-Files" looks to be as big of a hit as the TV show that spawned it."I'm really kind of casual about it all," Anderson said when she phoned the film desk this week. "I'm excited that the numbers are staying high for the week, and I'm curious about how next weekend will do. I have to say I'm finally relaxed."Finally? "There was just a lot of press centered around the opening of the film and other commitments," she said.

Unlike the paranormal events it chronicles every week, the hit television show "The X-Files" can be programmed, categorized and easily referenced.It appeals to the conspiracy buff in all of us, with the siren call of government cover-ups, shadowy well-dressed cabals and -- bonus! -- extraterrestrials of the Roswell, N.M., variety. It is science fiction at its most sophisticated -- no pie plates on strings, no time warps, just the stuff of the human imagination on its darkest, wildest day.Its stories teem with memorable and often recurring themes and characters, all of which will one day connect in the Grand Unified Theory that will link the Kennedy assassination, Area 51 and why you can't find a decent cup of coffee on I-95.

I AM SICK TO DEATH of aliens. I'm sick of ''The X Files,'' sick of ''Independence Day,'' sick of Heaven's Gate, sick of the ''Star Wars'' trilogy. Sick of action figures, sick of video games, sick of comic books, sick of television, sick of trashy novels: in short, sick of American culture.What holds us together as a people is not our shared belief in the Constitution or something touching like that; in fact most of us would gladly shred the Constitution if that meant we could arbitrarily impose our views on our friends and neighbors.

Baltimore: a nice place to be introduced to The Conspiracy.At least that's how Fox Mulder of "The X-Files" has come to regard Charm City. For it was right here, in a Fells Point warehouse, that Mulder was transformed from your run-of-the-mill, bad-guy-chasing FBI agent to the guy who sees conspiracies everywhere and the truth nowhere.Tomorrow night's episode of "The X-Files" (9 p.m.-10 p.m. on WBFF, Channel 45) takes a break from the season's litany of conspiracy twists -- Is Cigarette-Smoking Man really dead?

PASADENA, Calif. -- There's a darkness spreading across the land of popular culture, and it is coming to a television set near you.If you are one of the millions of fans of Fox Television's "The X-Files," you have already encountered this sensibility, with its weird camera angles, long shadows, and scenes set in deep forests, basements and underground garages. It's a universe of conspiracies, whispers, tape recordings and a government that lies to its own employees and "terminates" those citizens who discover its dirty secrets.

The truth is out there.And FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully will seek it on a new night next fall. Fox is boldly shifting "The X-Files" to Sunday nights, the key move in the network's 1996 fall schedule, announced yesterday.The switch means that "Married With Children," a fixture on Sunday nights for a decade, is heading to a new night. Al Bundy & Co. now will be lewdly bodacious at 9 p.m. Saturdays.Fox's fall schedule features five new series, including three sitcoms and two dramas.

Lots of sci-fi season premieres are on the tube tonight."Maryland Teacher of the Year Awards" (7 p.m.-8 p.m., MPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- The best teacher in the state will be chosen from a field of seven finalists in a live presentation."

Basketball fans will be in heaven tonight, but the alternatives, except for the fabulous fantasy forays on Fox, are few. Take it philosophically: That's the way the basketball bounces.* "NCAA basketball championships." (noon-5 p.m., 7:30 p.m.-12:30 a.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- This second day of action is likely to be no less upsetting -- as in the potential of some top-seeded upsets -- than yesterday's. CBS, once again, provides 10 hours of coverage in the afternoon and evening. CBS.* "VR.5."

It's a night for "X-Files" addicts and daytime devotees: A two-hour block on Fox includes the season finale of the popular mystery show; also, the annual Daytime Emmys air live from New York.* "Orioles Baseball" (7:30 p.m.-10:30 p.m., WJZ, Channel 13) -- The Birds are scheduled to take on the Yankees in New York. Note: The game locally pre-empts two CBS nostalgia specials, "TV's All-Time Favorites" (8 p.m.-9 p.m.) and "Ed Sullivan's All-Star Comedy Special" (9 p.m.-11 p.m.). Those shows will air on Washington's WUSA, Channel 9.* "Family Matters" (8 p.m.-8:30 p.m., WMAR, Channel 2)

That terrific TV critic Joyce Millman rightly called the first chaotic X-Files movie, The X-Files: Fight the Future, "an overgrown sweeps episode." Ten years later (and six years after the series' demise), The X -Files: I Want to Believe resembles those TV-series reunions that bring the cast of a hit together for a not-so-special occasion. The plot about a clairvoyant defrocked priest, Father Joe (Billy Connolly), who may lead the FBI to a kidnapped agent, sutures together tropes from serial-killer movies, horror classics such as The Body Snatcher and Frankenstein, medical suspense films like Coma and psychic jamborees like The Dead Zone.

Aliens are taking over Earth and the only person who can stop it is a smart-aleck prodigal son leading a band of misfits against them and an obstructive military. Wait, cut! This isn't "The X-Files"! It may be a sci-fi project starring David Duchovny, but it's different, really, it is! What distinguishes "Evolution" from the series most is that it proves intelligent life on Earth is a much more precious commodity than we realize. Spoofy sci-fi works best when it zaps audiences with full-on audacity - "Men in Black" comes to mind.

Draft mania -- UP -- Previously the domain of hopeless seamheads and Baseball America, this week's draft offers the Orioles four first-round selections -- the first team ever given such an opportunity -- and seven of the first 50 overall. Find out what 2004 will look like.The X-Files -- DOWN -- Settling sore-shouldered Xavier Hernandez's grievance for $1.75 million does not enhance GM Frank Wren's position with ownership.El Sid -- UP -- Before this season, Hall of Famer Jim Palmer likened freckle-faced, 22-year-old Sidney Ponson to, well, himself.

This may be Gillian Anderson's big movie moment, but don't think she's nervous. The actress is maintaining an almost Scullyan unflappability even as "The X-Files" looks to be as big of a hit as the TV show that spawned it."I'm really kind of casual about it all," Anderson said when she phoned the film desk this week. "I'm excited that the numbers are staying high for the week, and I'm curious about how next weekend will do. I have to say I'm finally relaxed."Finally? "There was just a lot of press centered around the opening of the film and other commitments," she said.

Unlike the paranormal events it chronicles every week, the hit television show "The X-Files" can be programmed, categorized and easily referenced.It appeals to the conspiracy buff in all of us, with the siren call of government cover-ups, shadowy well-dressed cabals and -- bonus! -- extraterrestrials of the Roswell, N.M., variety. It is science fiction at its most sophisticated -- no pie plates on strings, no time warps, just the stuff of the human imagination on its darkest, wildest day.Its stories teem with memorable and often recurring themes and characters, all of which will one day connect in the Grand Unified Theory that will link the Kennedy assassination, Area 51 and why you can't find a decent cup of coffee on I-95.

Baltimore: a nice place to be introduced to The Conspiracy.At least that's how Fox Mulder of "The X-Files" has come to regard Charm City. For it was right here, in a Fells Point warehouse, that Mulder was transformed from your run-of-the-mill, bad-guy-chasing FBI agent to the guy who sees conspiracies everywhere and the truth nowhere.Tomorrow night's episode of "The X-Files" (9 p.m.-10 p.m. on WBFF, Channel 45) takes a break from the season's litany of conspiracy twists -- Is Cigarette-Smoking Man really dead?

I AM SICK TO DEATH of aliens. I'm sick of ''The X Files,'' sick of ''Independence Day,'' sick of Heaven's Gate, sick of the ''Star Wars'' trilogy. Sick of action figures, sick of video games, sick of comic books, sick of television, sick of trashy novels: in short, sick of American culture.What holds us together as a people is not our shared belief in the Constitution or something touching like that; in fact most of us would gladly shred the Constitution if that meant we could arbitrarily impose our views on our friends and neighbors.

Lots of sci-fi season premieres are on the tube tonight."Maryland Teacher of the Year Awards" (7 p.m.-8 p.m., MPT, Channels 22 and 67) -- The best teacher in the state will be chosen from a field of seven finalists in a live presentation."

PASADENA, Calif. -- There's a darkness spreading across the land of popular culture, and it is coming to a television set near you.If you are one of the millions of fans of Fox Television's "The X-Files," you have already encountered this sensibility, with its weird camera angles, long shadows, and scenes set in deep forests, basements and underground garages. It's a universe of conspiracies, whispers, tape recordings and a government that lies to its own employees and "terminates" those citizens who discover its dirty secrets.

The truth is out there.And FBI Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully will seek it on a new night next fall. Fox is boldly shifting "The X-Files" to Sunday nights, the key move in the network's 1996 fall schedule, announced yesterday.The switch means that "Married With Children," a fixture on Sunday nights for a decade, is heading to a new night. Al Bundy & Co. now will be lewdly bodacious at 9 p.m. Saturdays.Fox's fall schedule features five new series, including three sitcoms and two dramas.