The X-Files: The Complete Sixth Season (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)Producer Chris Carter, for various reasons, chief among them being Fox's probable insistence, has moved the entire production to California from Vancouver. This is notable as some of the scenery for the show changes to scenes in various western states and more prominently in the availability of bigger named guest stars. On the whole though, at least for this first season out west, these changes serve as an enhancement to the outstanding experience that is "The X-Files." Season six is another excellent season that fluidly picks up where the movie, "Fight the Future" left off.
The mythology episodes:
"The Beginning" An FBI committee decides that yes, the X-Files will be reopened, they will not however, include Agents Mulder and Scully. Agents Spinder and Fowler will take that role, both with a huge helping of duplicity. AD Skinner is still on their side though and leads them towards a case that involves the Alien/Syndicate conspiracy. Gibson Praise makes a return as well. "SR 819" Krycek makes a new appearance and he targets AD Skinner with alien created nanite technology.
"Two Fathers" & "One Son" Long awaited truths are finally revealed about the fifty year conspiracy between the syndicate and the aliens. The syndicate is all but destroyed by the alien rebels. Simply stated, these are the two episodes that every fan had been waiting five years for. No disappointment whatsoever.
"The Unnatural" I list this as a mythology episode, as it simply does not fit as a stand alone. This episode is singularly the best episode of the season as it contains some great humor and one of the most touching endings of the season. We are treated to meeting Arthur Dale or actually his brother, as he tells Mulder the tale of when he met his first alien.
"Biogenesis" As we learned in "One Son," the Syndicate is gone and with it the Alien/Syndicate conspiracy. Now we're treated to a new track on the mythology, as there still seems to be some sort of conspiracy evidenced by the discovery of an alien ship in Africa and Fox ending up in a loony bin. The conclusion will be on the Season Seven set.
Stand alone episodes:
"Drive" Our heroes run into a man who must continue moving west at a high rate of speed or his head will explode. "Triangle" a true X-Files classic as Mulder goes on a search for a ship that's been missing from the Bermuda Triangle since prior to WWII.
"Dreamland & Dreamland II" Mulder and Scully take a trip to Area 51, where they run into the "Men in Black" and they witness a UFO which literally makes Mulder switch bodies with one of the MIB's. These are simply two of the finest and most hilarious X-Files episodes of the entire nine year run. "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" a beautifully well written episode guest starring Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin.
"Terms of Endearment" another extremely well written episode as our heroes visit Roanoke, VA and run across a bedraggled demon who is in search of a normal child. This episode has another one of those wonderfully well written ironic endings that only Chris Carter is capable of. "The Rain King" Mulder and Scully take a trip to Kansas to investigate a man who can supposedly make rain at will. This episode is replete with some of the series most hilarious lines.
"Agua Mala" Mulder and Scully take a trip to Florida in the middle of a hurricane to investigate a family's disappearance and discover a sea creature. "Monday" this is an X-Files homage to "Ground Hog Day," that is superbly written and played. "Arcadia" in this beautiful episode our erstwhile heroes pose undercover as husband and wife to discover why three couples have disappeared from a planned community.
"Alpha" Mulder and Scully are summoned by an internet friend of his to find a mysterious wild animal that has been shipped to the US that has killed two merchant marines and then disappears. "Trevor" is an intriguing episode in which Mulder and Scully set off to find a prison escapee who supposedly died in a tornado, yet he's on the loose and exhibiting some interesting abilities.
"Milagro" this is an interesting yet horrifying episode in which a writer, fascinated with Scully moves in next to Mulder and begins spying on her. Meanwhile Mulder and Scully are investigating several deaths where victims' hearts have been removed, but there is no evidence as to how. "Three of a Kind" the quintessential "Lone Gunmen" episode that just shines with a pure brilliance that may well have been the precursor to their short lived spin off series. "Field Trip" our two heroes end up in North Carolina and run into a hallucinogenic fungal mountain. This episode definitely breeches the different barrier, even for this series!
Special features - Included, as with the other season's boxed sets, are some great special features to include my personal favorite - "Character profile on the Cigarette Smoking Man." The cover art for the boxed set and DVD's is fantastic as well. {ssintrepid}
Episode list:
The Beginning {mythology}
Drive
Triangle
Dreamland
Dreamland II
How the Ghosts Stole Christmas
Terms of Endearment
The Rain King
S.R. 819 {mythology}
Tithonus
Two Fathers {mythology}
One Son {mythology}
Agua Mala
Monday
Arcadia
Alpha
Trevor
Milagro
The Unnatural {mythology}
Three of a Kind
Field Trip
Biogenesis {mythology}

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Studio: TcfheRelease Date: 12/02/2008Run time: 820 minutesRating: Nr

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The X-Files: The Complete Seventh Season (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)The new slimpack releases of Seasons 7 through 9-which are essentially the original sets with the extras disc removed as well as many other special features-will complete the entire rerelease of all the X-FILES in affordable editions. I've been disappointed to find many of the special features missing in the first six volumes, but given that I couldn't afford the original editions, I'm all in all delighted to finally own my own copies, instead of relying on video stores and Netflix.
Season Seven is, on the one hand, unquestionably the weakest of the first seven that featured David Duchovny fulltime, and perhaps even weaker than Season Eight when Duchovny was only a part time member of the cast. On the other hand, the series still had more outstanding episodes than the vast majority of shows in TV history. So, my five-star rating reflects the show compared with other series, not with other seasons in its own run. In my opinion, the only season weaker than this one is the unfortunate Season Nine, with the near complete loss of David Duchovny and the weak overall story line.
Why did Season Seven fail to measure up to other X-Files seasons? First, there was the loss of the overall alien colonization story line. The season starts with a carry over of the final episode of Season Six, that seems to be reasserting an alien arc, but in fact this is a false promise, and the story told in that brief arc more or less disappears from the show. The problem, in fact, the show had in its final three seasons was the lack of a consistent and compelling story arc. There are efforts at story arcs, but the "super soldiers" arc that becomes full blown in Season Nine was riffled with inconsistencies, and was definitely not compelling. Still, the loss of Mulder in Season Eight provided a focus for that Season, while Season Nine at least had the opportunity of exploring the new partnership of Doggett and Reyes. Season Seven essentially had memories of the six seasons that preceded it.
Nonetheless, Season Seven still contained many absolutely outstanding individual episodes. From beginning to end of the series, the writers never lost the ability to concoct a killer tale to be told in 43 minutes. "X-Cops" is a classic among the Mulder-Scully parody episodes, with the real-life production crew of the show COPS capturing the duo on videotape as an X-File collides with a police investigation supposedly being covered for the show. Typically, Scully spends most of the episode glaring disdainfully at the cameramen, while Mulder delightfully welcomes their presence. The dramatic highlight might be the heart-rending two-parter of "Sein und Zeit" (with apologies to Martin Heidegger) and "Closure," which features one of the best single-episode guest appearances ever by Anthony Heald (a role so outstanding that a reprisal of the role would have seem necessary, but which sadly never occurred) as a man who claims he has visions of departed children. Images from those episodes are among some of the most haunting in the series of the show. "Millennium" features what is technically Mulder and Scully's first kiss (with Mulder commenting afterwards, technically commenting on the Y2K predictions of disaster, "See, the world didn't end"). The intensely romantic non-romance between Mulder and Scully becomes such a joke that in "Fight Club" Mulder mentions a doppelganger pair of agents who had, believe it or not, been together for seven years but had not had a romantic relationship. "En Ami" is a marvelous swan song for the Cigarette Smoking Man, as he persuades Scully to help him in a caper (he would reappear later in the season to die, but would thereafter tragically be missing from the show, another problem the show had in its final two seasons). "all things" (lower cap) is my personal favorite of the season, an absolutely astonishing tour de force by Gillian Anderson that reveals depths of talent in a host of directions that no one could have anticipated. She wrote, directed, and acted in the episode (with Mulder largely absent) as Scully unexpectedly reencounters a former professor/mentor, a man who was married at the time she and he had what was evidently a torrid love affair, revealing more about Scully's past than we had ever learned before. The show is outstanding on multiple levels, including visually and narratively (as well as musically, helped not merely by Mark Snow's usually brilliant score but by contributions by Moby). It also features the best teaser in the history of the show, with Scully at the beginning dressing in what turns out to be Mulder's bathroom, and leaving the apartment with a naked Mulder in his bed. The episode is so outstanding the viewer is only left to wonder why Gillian Anderson wrote and directed only this one. Probably my favorite Scully episode since the one where she learned that she had, inexplicably, a genetic daughter.
There were also some disappointing moments. "Hollywood A.D." simultaneously was one of the funniest and worse episodes, a weak X-file with a funny backstory of a Hollywood producer (a friend of Skinner) following Mulder and Scully in order to gather background for a Hollywood film. Though much in the episode is wooden, there are some precious moments, such as the producer talking in the phone to studio execs: "No, its an optical illusion. She is actually quite tall" (obviously referring to Scully--I have always been extremely sceptical about the 5'3 or 5'2 that is often given as Gillian Anderson's height). Also wonderful is the exquisite pairing the wildly improbable Gary Shandling as Fox Mulder with Tea Leoni (in real life Mrs. David Duchovny) as Scully. Anyone who saw Gary Shandling's THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW knows that David Duchovny was one of "Larry Sanders's" more frequent guests, with many jokes about Duchovny having a cursh on Sanders, so that Shandling's playing Mulder is a fairly complex in-joke. Another perfect moment in the episode is Leoni asking Scully to show her how she is able to run in heels. We then see while Shandling and Mulder talk in the foreground, Scully in the distant background sprinting from one side of the stage to the other while Leoni looks on.
But for me the biggest disappointment is the final episode, "Requiem," which is more or less Mulder's exit from the show. Although he would reappear in a few episodes in the final two seasons, this episode ends the seven-season partnership between Mulder and Scully. The episode, despite some fine moments, just didn't seem to have the "gravitas" that such a key episode would seem to require. It did nicely take place in the same town in Oregon that saw Mulder and Scully have their first adventure together in Season One, but all in all it was not one of the more remarkable episodes.
In the end, the ending of the greatest partnership in TV history is what creates an indescribable sadness at the end of the season. There would be two final seasons, with many great new episodes, but if you had to point to the single thing that made THE X-FILES such an amazing phenomena, it was--along with the great writing--the exquisite pairing of Gillian Anderson and David Duchovny as Mulder and Scully. Many of us remain hopeful that there will be a future movie. We know that the key figures have discussed it and have all expressed a willingness. But so far we have had no definite indications that Mulder and Scully will get together again. Hopefully the truth is out there.

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The X-Files - The Complete Second Season (1993) Review

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(More customer reviews)It's difficult to say why The X-Files continues to capture the awe of the viewer. The first season introduced us to Agents Mulder and Scully, who connected with each other movingly in the first season, and we see how that effects them in the second as they continue to work together.
The second season stretches the mythology angle somewhat, but some of the stand-alones rank among the best.
Here's just a rundown on the best episodes (though all of them are definitely worth seeing).
---Duane Barry/Ascension/One Breath: The X-Files trilogy that abducted Scully! Now, we all know that Scully comes back, but these three shows held for me an intense fascination with the fate/free will ideas, and certainly engaged it's viewers in passionate discussions.---Firewalker: I don't know why I love this episode. I think that the seemless mesh of science, fiction, and suspense is what enthralled me throughout.---Irresistable: In introducing us to Donnie Pfaster, Chris Carter introduced us to one of the most evil villains in the show's history (not the coolest, mind you). I'd thought that the second season had peaked with this episode, but along came---Colony/End Game: The episode that showed us Mulder's abducted sister! (or a clone, or an alien-human hybrid). Scully gets taken by the bionic killer people (my friends claim this is why that I'm not an X-phile, having no clue what they're called. Oh well). Not as good as many other mythology episodes, but still notable for Mulder's attachment to his partner.---Dod Kalm: My favourite of season 2. No way to truly describe it, but it was enchanting and magical, thrilling and inspiring, a combination of technical brilliance and artistic majesty. Gillian Anderson deserved an Emmy for this and Irresistable.---Anasazi: Ending with what was the best Mythology episode to date, I'd be a fool to tell you what happened.

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In this second season box set, Mulder and Scully get glimpses of the global conspiracy as they investigate UFO's, alien abductions, genetic engineering, and ominous government agents.

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