"The X-Files" has already spilled over into an officially sanctioned Topps Comics series that nicely sustains the show's creepy-yet-just-plausible-enough storylines and brainy deadpan wit. Now, Warner Bros. has released the official "X-Files" soundtrack CD, "Songs in the Key of X: Music From and Inspired By 'The X-Files'," co produced by the show's creator, Chris Carter, and David Was.

In the wake of such recent K-Tel Greatest Hits wannabes as the soundtracks from "Melrose Place" and "Friends" (be afraid, be very afraid), you have every right to be suspicious of an "X-Files" soundtrack album. I mean, what is "X-Files" music anyway? Billy Riley's "Flying Saucers Rock 'n' Roll"? Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"?

Actually, "Songs in the Key of X" could have used a couple of goofs like that. Carter and Was have assembled a bunch of tracks (most are previously unreleased) from X-Philes like Elvis Costello (working with Brian Eno), Nick Cave, Soul Coughing, the Meat Puppets and Sheryl Crow (now that's scary) that are long on gloom and doom, but short on the show's sense of goosebump-y fun. The cover art, by British artist Sue Coe, is cool, though -- cool as in chilling, with charcoal portraits of, among others, Flukeman, Toombs, Cancer Man, the Erlenmayer Flask and those little almond-eyed aliens.

Many of the artists here -- Rob Zombie and Alice Cooper, Filter, Danzig -- apparently associate "The X-Files" with heavy goth. No guys, that's CBS's "American Gothic" -- you had the wrong channel. Mulder's droll humor is represented fleetingly (in Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Frenzy" and in the very presence of the Foo Fighters, UFO buffs who've named their record label "Roswell"), while Scully's calm spirituality is conveyed (beautifully) only on P.M. Dawn's "If You Never Say Goodbye."

Costello's track, "My Dark Life," is overlong and strenuously impenetrable; he's recorded a slew of songs that feed more naturally into the "X-Files" mood -- "Accidents Will Happen," "Watch Your Step," "Beyond Belief," "Tokyo Storm Warning," "Satellite," stop me, I could go on all night. Likewise R.E.M., who appear here as the backing band for William S. Burroughs singing (and I use the term loosely) "Star Me Kitten." They'd have been better represented by their "Man on the Moon," about the slipperiness of reality, which is the ultimate "X-Files" song -- and it swings, too.

On the upside, you won't believe how spooky Mark Snow's instrumental "X-Files Theme" sounds coming out of your speakers.

Like the comic books, the soundtrack album taps mainly into the show's topmost layers. Deep within the Net's Duchovny and Anderson fan worship sites is where the most tantalizing aspect of "The X-Files" -- Mulder and Scully's relationship -- is brought out into the light.

To say that these two are sexually attracted to each other is almost beside the point. Mulder and Scully have already connected -- are wed to each other, really -- on a deeper level. They are the true meaning of "soul mates."

There's an inexplicable intimacy in the way Mulder and Scully call each other by their last names, especially when they join the formal and the familiar in their telephone greetings to each other ("Mulder, it's me"). They're oddly faithful to one another -- Mulder quenches his desires with porn, Scully, well, Scully doesn't seem to have any desires. You get the feeling that, for Mulder and Scully, sex would be a complication, an unnecessary frill, an invitation to the betrayal that oozes all around them. Their love (if I may be so bold) is direct and stark, the one incorruptible thing. (It also neatly suggests love in the AIDS-shadowed '90s, where communion might be lethal, so it's all the more precious.)

Carter has wisely let Mulder and Scully nurture their love at arm's length; on "The X-Files," a discreet touch of the hands feels like bliss. Such exquisite restraint also pulls thrillingly against the stars' pin-up attractiveness. With the Australian Rolling Stone cover, "X-Files" fans can finally have their cake and eat it too. No matter how it turns out for Mulder and Scully in that far-off "X Files" finale, they'll (and we'll) always have cyberspace.

What do you think of the deep, but unconsummated relationship between Mulder and Scully? Log in to the Television section of Table Talk and join the conversation.