I watched a 1994 episode of The X-Files today. Really watched it, and I discovered summat.
I really miss the paranoia of the Nineties.
The Cold War was over, but Bad Things were happening. Weird Bad Things. Art Bell
was in his heyday. Saucers , mutilations, earth changes;
the overarching feeling that Something Strange Is Going On, and The Government Is Probably Behind It All.

On top of it all, I was mildly insane at the time: undiagnosed clinical depression, with a soupcon of manic sprinkled on, so it was all really weird. When I watched the X-files and Millennium on telly,
I had some difficulty distinguishing their storylines from REALITY, not in a hallucinatory way, but in the hair on the back of the neck, out of the corner of your eye sort.

In the not-so-new normal, where the enemy is robe-clad, bearded, and is a Member of the Religion of Peace and Love, things are just too in-your-face. No subtlety, no mystery.

At least I have 24.