In 1999 The X-Files did an episode called The Goldberg Variation about a man with impossible good luck to the point hat it was supernatural. I know what you're thinking: Punk bastards on The X-Files never could come up with an original idea, always had to go ripping someone off.

   Okay, more than likely that wasn't what you were thinking. More likely you were thinking, "What the hell web site is this? How did I accidentally get here? I was searching for a chocolate chip cookie recipe!" But luck has brought you here. Or... more likely... Google.

   Anyway, well before The X-File did its story of the luckiest man alive, Strange Luck had already covered that ground. D. B. Sweeney starred as Alex "Chance" Harper. The dude had mad luck. As a kid he survived an air crash that killed his parents. So, lucky for him, not so much for the folks. But as he grew up he used his luck to help those he ran into. He was the right place at the wrong time guy. He would luckily show up when bad crap was going to happen and help change the outcome. The show was one of Fox's many attempts to find another genre show to pair with The X-Files on Friday nights. Like many of the other shows they tried out, it gained a cult following but failed to last beyond a single season.

   Of course even though The X-Files took awhile to get to this specific idea themselves, they generally dealt with all sorts of supernatural jerkiness on a weekly basis for years and years and years. It's actually impressive that The X-Files actually worked. I mean... a show about F.B.I. agents - Fox Mulder and Dana Scully who chase after a government/alien conspiracy? That was played very real? Okay... making that single plot alone work believably is an impossible feat. But then The X-Files added in hundreds of stand alone impossible supernatural stories. Like, okay, a world where there is an alien invasion conspiracy. Okay. But then you also say that same world has all sorts of telekinetics, killers who can seep into your dreams or survive beyond death, vampires, fat eating vampires, man eating plants, killer cockroaches... the list goes on and on. And for the most part, week to week they sold you on the impossibility of it all.

   Now despite the fact that Mulder and Scully did meet a guy with incredible luck, they never did meet Chance Harper... but they could have. The final episode of Strange Luck had Chance finding his long lost brother as well as discovering his dad didn't actually die in that plane crash. Apparently he was just faking. Wacky dad! Actually it turned out being lucky ran in Chances family. The plane crash was an attack by someone out to destroy Chance's entire family! Only, idiot, you're not going to be able to kill the "Lucky Bastard" family. All ya managed to do was off mom which is meaningless since the luck clearly came from Dad's side of the family. Way to suck at being a villain!

   At the end of the episode, as they were parting company, Chance's brother told him that if that if Chance ever heard that something had happened to him, he should contact an F.B.I. agent named Fox Mulder. If the series had continued would that have happened. MMM... probably not. But the shows clearly share a reality even without a full blown crossover.

   Here's an odd added footnote I discovered while looking into this connection. Usually when some little thing like this happens I assume that it to be an unofficial, unauthorized little in-joke. But in this case, it was actually authorized. Turns out the Strange Luck people actually did call up The X-File folks and got permission from Chris Carter to name check Fox Mulder. So even though this is a small connection between the shows, it has to really really count.

Other X-Files Crossover Links
The X-files and COPS
The X-files and Homicide: Life On The Street
The X-files and Law And Order: Special Victims Unit
The X-files and The Lone Gunmen
The X-files and Millennium
The X-Files and Picket Fences
The X-files and The Simpsons

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