In the second episode of the series, they reveal that the government is able to remove specific memories. That's a rather notable detail that never comes back, right?

• That's a huge deal. You would think that this would have major ramifications for future stories, but it's never brought up again in any way. Wouldn't Mulder have thought about this in relation to what happened with his sister? That he knew something once — something more — but was made to forget about it? I can think of several instances when the Syndicate, evil as they are, would have wanted to avail themselves of this tool. This could play into S11 in an interesting way, maybe? Given the very conspicuous UFO that showed up over that highway, the writers will have to figure out a way to forge ahead and address that revelation. I suspect they'll try to restore the status quo in one way or another because, as others have noted, a version of The X-Files where everyone knows that aliens exist is not quite The X-Files. However, wiping the memories of so many witnesses is perhaps too convoluted and farfetched, even for this show. Still, if they were to incorporate it in some other way, it'd be an interesting callback

EDIT: See replies below. I forgot about the way memory erasure crops up later. Although, I'm not sure it's clear that the government is directly responsible for all of that. Also, if they had access to the technology, you'd think it'd be used more extensively by the villains in other cases (i.e., outside of abduction).

A few other thoughts:

• I know others have mentioned this before, but it's hilarious how it easy it is for Mulder to sneak onto that government base. There's some mention of landmines and whatnot, but we never see him contending with that obstacle (or any others beyond...a fence, but that's not quite an "obstacle" in this episode)? He just appears on the tarmac in the next shot (that's a great moment, though). I do think we need more stealth and investigations of this sort in the show, but the effort needs to be there, as well. It should be difficult to break into these places. This problem cropped up again in the finale of S1 since, IIRC, Scully gets into a certain facility without much difficulty (I've also seen others complain about this moment). I believe they got it right a few episodes before, when Mulder meets up with Jerry Hardin and they discuss the alien body lying a few feet away from them. The stealth in that episode was a bit more involved, right? The first episode of S2 was also excellent in this respect.

• Duchovny would later improve dramatically as an actor. At this point, his performance is somewhat uneven. See, for instance, the way he reacts to Jerry Hardin showing up in the bathroom — a completely affectless, "who are you?" As for Gillian Anderson, her performance is already quite strong.

• At the same time, a lot of what's interesting about Duchovny's acting is intact. There's something about the way he chuckles at the bartender, or Seth Green's joke later on, that seems so effortlessly believable. I mean, that's typically the goal when you're acting, but there's something interesting about Duchovny's approach. It's very naturalistic in a specific way — it almost feels like he's simply allowing himself, as David, not Mulder, to react to these scenes, but never in a way that violates the consistency of character. You know what I mean? Like, he seems to be genuinely laughing at Seth Green in that scene. The moments feel candid, like Duchovny himself is cracking up, but because of how Mulder is written, it never feels like a violation of character. Does this make sense? His acting style has fascinated me for a while and I'm not sure I'm quite getting at its interest in this paragraph...

• The pace of the episode is very languid. I really like that. This show should always be a bit of a crawl, I think. Let us soak in the atmosphere, the details, the slowness of the investigation, the interstitial conversations between Mulder and Scully after their discussions with side characters, etc. I can't quite remember how S11 compares in this respect? I think it was more briskly paced.

• Again, I'd like to emphasize that I want the show to return to the level of mystery that is exhibited by this episode (and many other early instalments). I mean, will anything ever surpass Jerry Hardin saying, "they've been here for a long, long time"? It may seem like we can't have that sort of thing in S11 because of everything that's happened in the show and the films, but there's surely some way to return to this level of intrigue, to fog up the surroundings a bit more...

• The music in this episode is somewhere between moody in a familiar, X-Files sort of way and just...deeply sad. I'm not sure when it changed, but the sadness of the music in this episode doesn't quite correspond to my memories of the show. It's melancholic and, as a result, the vibes of this episode were…almost dispiriting and dreary (this is not to say it didn't match up with the episode, but just that it's a bit different from how I remember the music in other episodes and seasons).