More than the ugly clothes, more than the overly coiffed hairstyles, I think my favorite random ‘period piece’ element of this show is when they reference things like (in this episode) the Jim Bakker scandal, or the Bosnian War, or the (recent, to them!!) fall of the Berlin Wall, because this stuff really does set the stage.  This is a political show — this is a show about politics more than it is a show about aliens or monsters, and what’s fascinating to me watching it now is how much the political landscape has been demonstrably altered in the last twenty years.

I mean, if she had not been a frequent guest on The Howard Stern Show (which my parents have always loved)  in my childhood while pursuing her modeling and acting career, I would not have any idea who Jessica Hahn is.  I imagine a lot of these pop cultural references fly over the heads of people my age watching this show (including me), because they’re so specifically topical to the late 80s and early 90s.

In “E.B.E.” when they showed a scene set in Iraq in the teaser, I was struck by the fact that the Iraqis appeared to have a very functional air force operating — then I was like OH RIGHT because it’s 1993 and we haven’t destroyed their entire infrastructure yet.  Because the international political stage is in a state of rebuilding after the fall of the U.S.S.R., as opposed to a state of immediate and unrelenting chaos due to wars that won’t end.  The conspiracy plot itself relies overwhelmingly on the idea that the U.S. Government is a totally solidified superpower completely in control of everything going on within its borders — terrorism hasn’t even been mentioned yet, aside from a brief reference to the failed 1993 WTC bombing in “Squeeze”.

It’s just interesting because this show has been so often replicated — as Fringe, most recently — but never seems to hit quite the same successful note with critics or general audiences, and I wonder if that isn’t because this concept was so specific to the immediate post-Cold War era.

Just food for thought.