what season did you give up on the conspiracy nonsense?

I never gave up. The monster of the week episodes were much more ridiculous. Although funny at times...

Honestly, I never cared for that story arc from the very beginning. I got into "The X-Files" for the MOTW episodes because they reminded me of the old "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" TV show.

In quit the show in season 4.

A lot of the stand alone episodes were very good. Not all "conspiracy episodes "were bad, it is just that I could not always understand the whole plot.

When the showed originally aired I would say after the first movie I lost interest.

I got bored with 'the conspiracy' very early on, probably around when you did. I watched X-Files for the monster of the week stuff.

I never skipped an episode because of the conspiracy business, I like the characters, the actors and the whole of the show too much. But by the third season it had become apparent that the conspiracy story was never going anywhere and was increasingly self-contradictory. The show works best as a series of only slightly serialized independent stories

I still need to watch the last series from a few years back.

I liked the conspiracy stuff. I'd seen odd episodes thanks to my dad and decided to go through it all one day. I was surprised to see there was an overarching plot throughout the show which got me more hooked.

It did get a bit stupid, certainly when the whole super soldier element was introduced. There where plenty of times where it felt the show was just making it up as it went along