what season did you give up on the conspiracy nonsense?
and just watched the stand alone episodes.
season 2 for me.
X-Files was basically the “Lost” of the 90s.
shareLOL... You're not exactly wrong.
X-Files didn't have the benefit of a known end date. Back in those days successful series were continued as long as they had the viewership. So Carter had to string his audience along. He had to walk a fine line between revealing stuff so audiences wouldn't get bored, but not so much so that the mythology stuff wrapped up. This is very apparent in the final two seasons when he pivoted to the 'super-soldier' stories.
LOST was given something that no previous network series had ever been given... an end date two years in advance to wrap things up. They screwed it up badly. So badly, that even today ABC's periodic attempts to generate interest in a re-boot go nowhere.