15 times The X-Files’ Dana Scully was the best character on TV

Gillian Anderson in ‘The X-Files’ film. Image via 20th Century Fox/Getty Images

While there’s much to love about The X-Files, FBI special agent Dana Scully was one of the best parts of the beloved science fiction television series.

If ever there was a nearly perfect example of the no-nonsense, highly-competent, girl-power ideal, it would be Dana Scully. Ever since she first appeared on The X-Files in 1993, she’s been a shining beacon of TV feminism.

It’s true that nothing is perfect. After all, Dana Scully (played by Gillian Anderson) was sometimes relegated to playing second fiddle to her FBI partner, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny). After all, the X-Files were the weirdest of the weird that the Federal Bureau of Investigations could offer, and Mulder was at least as strange as the case files themselves.

But, let’s be real. Mulder would have been nothing without Scully. He would have quietly faded away there in the basement office, papering the walls in UFO posters and filling the ceiling tiles with carefully aimed pencils. But the moment that Scully—vastly intelligent, supremely capable Scully—walked into his windowless office was the moment that the X-Files truly took off.

Scully held in equal measure both logic and compassion. She was not afraid to lend her voice to the truth, however difficult it might be. Nor was she afraid to be loving, emotional, and even spiritual in the face of incredibly odd and sometimes dangerous situations. She had gone to medical school and could conduct a midnight autopsy of an alien or supposed vampire, but Scully never lost sight of her own humanity.

In its best stories, The X-Files was at heart a tale of two compatriots that formed an amazing team. Sure, there was the occasional awkward episode where Scully was a damsel in distress, or where she fulfilled some fill-in-the-blank stereotype about women. But fans don’t remember that. What they remember instead is the fact that, ultimately, Mulder and Scully were equals.

In celebration of the practically groundbreaking portrayal of FBI special agent Dana Scully, here are 15 times where she was just simply the best.