THE timing tells it all: Jennifer Garner, the star of ABC’s new freaky-deaky thriller “Alias,” walks off with the best TV-actress Golden Globe the same week that Fox decides to call it quits on “The X-Files.”

Coincidence? Not really.

Garner, who has emerged as the brightest new TV star of the season, has done what no other show has been able to do in a decade – help people tune-out Scully and Mulder.

In the TV industry, there is a school of thought that the only smart move ABC has made in a year or two was scheduling “Alias” directly against “X-Files” on Sunday night.

“X-Files” has not really been able to recover since David Duchovny left the show as a regular after the 1999-2000 season and only appeared in handful of episodes last year.

And when the ratings for the “X-Files” began slumping this season, fans began to turn to “Alias,” a fresh conspiracy/spy drama that stars Garner as a karate-chopping double agent that requires viewers to pay close to attention to keep up with plot twists and double crosses.

Now, it appears, “Alias” was the final nail in the coffin for “X-Files,” whose ninth season will be its last.

“I think ‘Alias’ is a good thing,” “X-Files” fan Liz Wallace wrote on the Internet newsgroup alt.tv.x-files, shortly after the ABC show’s debut.

“We have been saying ‘change the channel’ for ages, and it looks like some finally have,” she wrote.

And it appears many other fans have switched.

For the season-to-date, “Alias” has been averaging about 10.2 million viewers each week, while the once-potent and untouchable “X-Files” has been seen by about 8.7 million.

Even “X-Files” creator Chris Carter admitted last week that one of the many reasons he was pulling the plug on his most successful show ever was because of “Alias.”

“I was looking at this year’s ratings which were down from the season opener and I felt we were counter-programmed [by ‘Alias’],” Carter told This Post. “It was kind of a strange beginning for us this year. We never had that before.”

Garner, 29, has been cannily marketed to audiences as a bright, undiscovered newcomer – but in fact she’s been around Hollywood and New York for some years.

She is married to “Felicity” star Scott Foley, whom she met on the set of the WB college-days series when making a guest appearance.

She’s appeared in “Pearl Harbor,” “Dude Where’s My Car” and the Woody Allen comedy “Deconstructing Harry.” Her earlier TV credits include “Law & Order” and “Spin City.”

“Alias,” from “Felicity” creator J.J. Abrams, follows the adventures of Sydney Bristow (Garner), a fists-of-fury spy-babe who works for both the CIA and a rogue spy agency called SD-6.

Torn between the two, Sydney is constantly trying to undermine SD-6 without her superiors finding out she’s a double agent.