Streaming Services Launch New Series: ‘The X-Files’ Episode Rankings, A Deep Dive Into Pointless Nostalgia

Los Angeles, CA – In a move hailed by industry insiders as “the definitive statement on television’s infinite regress,” major streaming services today jointly premiered their new collaborative docuseries: ‘The X-Files Episode Rankings, A Deep Dive Into Pointless Nostalgia.’ The 14-part series, featuring hour-long episodes, meticulously analyzes, evaluates, and re-ranks every episode of the 1990s cult favorite, using algorithmic assessments and live-feed nostalgia focus groups.

Netflix, Hulu, and Max announced the initiative in a grimly lit press conference late Thursday. “We recognize the unique consumer demand for staring backward with affection and confusion,” said lead executive of Nostalgic Engagement, Julianne Drek. “We want to exhaust every conceivable avenue for audience inertia—down to the episode order.” The series incorporates archival footage, guest rankings by minor former cast members, and real-time graphs tracking audience heart rate variability in response to Scully’s trench coats.

To ensure impartiality, a bipartisan panel of “Certified Nostalgics”—drawn mainly from Reddit moderators and once-canceled podcast hosts—met daily over three months in a controlled, windowless environment. The result, reportedly, is “the first rankings list scientifically engineered for maximal conversational pointlessness.” According to lead nostalgia scientist Dr. Blake Pozner, “Unlike prior ranking attempts, we have eliminated any meaningful context. Episodes are assigned numbers based on a proprietary metric called ‘Memory Flicker Quotient,’ derived from the average time it takes a 39-year-old to say, ‘That one was pretty good.’”

Alongside official rankings, the series explores vital topics such as: which episodes make viewers sigh most deeply, the optimum sequence for feeling melancholy about the passage of time, and a 94-minute roundtable on whether the ‘Tooms’ episode was “actually about the internet.” Select segments feature advanced visualizations of viewers’ retinas glazing over, studied by eye-motion experts from the Institute of Passive Participation. Viewers at home are offered a “second screen” during the broadcast, which streams a live feed of the series’ writers scrolling through old message boards in real time.

Critical response to the new docuseries has been quietly intense. Early focus groups reported feelings ranging from “vague hunger” to “the faint sensation of aging.” A dedicated subreddit for the show was swiftly established, where users rank the episodes of the episode-rankings docuseries itself, an action which, experts warn, could soon require a further spin-off. “We’re prepared to analyze the analysis,” said Hulu’s Vice President of Recursive Content. “Anything less would abandon our commitment to innovation.”

Streaming platforms say they plan to expand the franchise with similar deep dives into other retro shows, pending contract negotiations with the estate of ‘Home Improvement.’ As of press time, the viewership statistics for ‘The X-Files Episode Rankings, A Deep Dive Into Pointless Nostalgia’ were unavailable, as Nielsen representatives claimed to be trapped contemplating their own irrelevance.