Fringe and Xfiles are DIFFERENT

Last night I noticed several tweeters commenting that Fringe was just a rip off of the X Files episode Monday. This comment has been made many times before - because Fringe has covered many similar themes to X files episodes. I would like to point out, however, that both shows, while excellent sci-fi FBI shows, are really quite different in thematic content, explanations, and general story telling.
We'll start with White Tulip vs. Monday.
In White Tulip, we encounter a bad guy (Robocop, or as my husband likes to call him, Robert O. Kopp), who can time travel. The only drawback? Wherever he lands, he sucks up all the energy present, killing anything living around him as well as sucking all the energy out of phones, lights, batteries, etc. He appears on a train, killing several passengers, which brings the Fringe team in to investigate. It turns out that the bad guy, Dr. Peck, is on a mission. His fiance was killed 10 months earlier, and he plans to save her life. He even has a plan to avoid killing others - he will land in a field where there are no people present. The beginning of the episode plays off the time travel by having the train event happen twice. Then the story moves forward, as Walter confronts Dr. Peck and tries to convince him to abandon his plan, Dr. Peck goes ahead with his plan but with a twist, and Walter finds an unexpected miracle.

In Monday, we see Mulder wake up late because his water bed springs a leak which shorts out his alarm clock. He runs to work, but has to deposit his paycheck or else his rent check will bounce. When he gets to the bank, a robbery is in progress and Mulder is killed. Then the scene resets with Mulder waking up to a soggy bed. This chain of events happens over and over, with variations - sometimes Scully goes to the bank for him, sometimes he is accosted by a woman who tries to warn him. Finally the woman tells him that they are stuck in some kind of time warp - that she has tried to change the future a hundred times but it always ends with disaster at the bank robbery. In the end, the woman dies saving Mulder's life and ends the cycle.

Parallels: Events repeat themselves. The person aware of the time repeats ultimately dies.
Differences: in Monday, we have no idea why there is a time loop. In White Tulip, the time travel creates the repeated events and a scientist is doing it deliberately.
In Monday, Mulder and Scully try many different ways to resolve the problem and fail each time. Ultimately, the only person who can stop the event is the one who knows about it. In White Tulip, Walter tries to resolve the problem by sharing his own, similar experience, with Dr. Peck. It is most likely this conversation which changes Dr. Peck's intent and resolves the issue.
In Monday, there is no redemptive theme for any character. In White Tulip, Dr. Peck provides Walter with the one thing he is looking for: a symbol of forgiveness for what he did.
In Monday, almost the entire episode is dedicated to the repeated bank robbery. In White Tulip, only about the first 20 minutes shows repeated events - then the story moves forward.
In Monday, only 2 people (Pam & Mulder) believe that events are repeating. In White Tulip, the whole team is basically on board with Walter's idea about time travel.

Need I go on? Probably not, but I will. I'll be going back and comparing other Fringe and X Files episodes that people claim are the same. I will say this: X Files was on for 9 years. It was a great show that covered a lot of sci-fi ground. It's probably impossible to create a show like Fringe and not cover some of the same themes and ideas that X Files covered. BUT, there are still important differences. In X Files, the bad guys were the government, and the problems were mainly caused by aliens. In Fringe, the bad guys are big corporations and mad scientists, and the problems are mainly caused by experiments on non-consenting people. Big differences.