NIGHTMARE TIME: With psychosis and paranoia and all that creepy jazz, The X-Files (###1/2 out of four, Fox, 9 ET/PT) delivers yet another reliable jolt of graphically entertaining terror. Series creator Chris Carter writes and directs the first of a two-parter about a mental-ward escapee who claims the aliens are coming to get him. Again. As madman Duane Barry, Steve Railsback rivals his career-defining work as Charles Manson in the 1976 Helter Skelter miniseries.

HIGHLY SUSPECT: If your tastes are less baroque, the good news is that the moody whodunit Under Suspicion (###, CBS, 9 ET/PT) is improving, concluding its best two-part mystery yet: the grisly abduction-murder of a teen-age girl. Karen Sillas, as edgy Detective "Phil" Phillips, continues to carry the atmospherically grim show on her capable shoulders.