DVD: X-Files Season 6

Another strong season but I am beginning to see where the show starts to fall apart after the movie. Overall this probably has my favorite standalone episodes but as a package it isn’t at strong as the first, fourth, or fifth seasons. Though I flew through seasons four and five this past summer, this season actually took me awhile to get through.

The mythology takes a huge turning point in this series with the Syndicate being killed and the colonization, black oil, and abduction plots kind of being put to rest. Still there are plenty of questions still needing to be answered. Even though we kind of know why Mulder’s sister was taken we don’t really know the specific details and where she is now. However we have the whole basic plot of the conspiracy which is the Syndicate knew they couldn’t stop the colonization so they decided to save their immediate families after making a deal with the aliens. Then there is a whole other plot with making hybrids which I am still a bit shady on and finding a way to counter act the hybrid by taking some sort of immunization. Again i can see the complaints that many people had because the writers don’t ever give a completely clear picture. However that has always kind of been the theme of X-Files even in standalone episodes. We kind of know what is going on but the end is always a bit murky.

I have a lot of favorite episodes this season, probably more then any other season (even if overall this isn’t the strongest season). The first five episodes are brilliant. “The Beginning” is a great way to start off the season after the movie. I had high expectations and they were reached. Bryan Cranston is always great and really made “Drive” another excellent episodes. “Triangle” will go down as one of my favorites. I love the whole filming sequence that makes it look like each act is one continuous shot and it is also very funny. Scully in the FBI offices is perhaps one of my favorite sequences in the whole series. I love those episodes when they poke fun at themselves. The “Dreamland” double episode is funny and brilliant. Mulder in the house with his “wife” and “teenagers” is some of the best moments of the entire series. The “Two Fathers” and “One Son” mytharc episodes are epic. Seriously I had no idea that the Syndicate was taken out and so soon after the movie and we got so many answers and so many questions.

“Monday” is also brilliant. I am always a fan of the “Groundhog’s Day” episodes in series. The woman playing the part of the only person that knows it is a continuous day plays it perfectly. Plus I love the throwback of the water bed from Dreamland. I was surprised at how much I loved “Arcadia.” This episode was also great. I love in later seasons of shows that the producers have to get creative and their brains go in crazy places. It was just great brainstorming of getting Scully and Mulder to go undercover. I also fell in love with the episode “Field Trip” of Mulder and Scully getting digested by a huge fungus/mushroom and them having their trips. I have to say they got me a few times in this with their false endings. Finally “Biogenesis” started a great new arc, even though the old mytharc is still kind of confusing. I am pretty sure I am at the turning point of Scully now where she starts to take what Mulder says seriously. The ending was epic as well with the huge ship washed ashore, I wish they didn’t put it in the opening flash at the beginning of each disc because that would have been awesome to see for the first time. Plus I loved the throwback to the Native American plot that happened at the end of season 2.

Plus I loved James Pickens Jr. being in the fist half of the season. I think he is brilliant and underrated in Grey’s Anatomy.

One more season with Mulder left. I am not really sure how much I will like this show without him. He is the show.

DVD: X-Files: Fight the Future

Between Fight the Future and I Want to Believe I actually prefer I Want to Believe, despite the reviews and that it bombed opening weekend. However there are things I really like about Fight the Future. It put the closing chapter on some of the shows mysteries and the end to the key player The Well Manicured Man. Black Oil should be done as well. Chris Carter is great at some of the visual moments but some of the first movies mystery is a little muddled and the whole thing is frustrating because their isn’t really a conclusion. However Gillian, David, and Mitch all do a great job. The CSM is also great as a menacing figure who is overseeing almost everything. The whole movie looks great and is an interesting chapter between the fifth and sixth season. However they added a new character in the last episode and she isn’t even mentioned in the movie at all, guess that is what happens when you film the movie a year ahead because the only real reference is to the X-Files being burned and closed down and even then their is no reference of the X-Files being destroyed.

The bees, the cornstalk, and the near kiss were all some great scenes and it will be one of my favorite movies of all time.

DVD: X-Files Season 5

What an amazing season. It might be my favorite season besides the first. A great mix of mythology and standalone episodes. Plus the brilliant Bad blood where we have each Mulder and Scully giving their own account on one of their cases. Starting with the great opener of Mulder faking his own death and “finding out” that aliens were manufactured as an elaborate cover up in order to hide what the government is really doing. Plus curing Scully’s cancer.

Another great episode was “The Unusual Suspects” which mainly centered around the Lone Gunmen (and which made me want to pick up that series eventually). “Detour” and “Post-Modern Prometheus” were also both amazing. “Christmas Carol” was great and had an awesome cliff-hanger with Emily being Scully’s child. Finally the final two mythology episodes leading up to the movie were both amazing. The Cigarette Smoking Man is alive after getting shot in the beginning of the season, Marita is a triple agent with Krycek, Mulder, and the Syndicate. The finale might be my favorite with the burning of the X-Files, the introduction of Diana, and the return off CSM in his finest, just screwing everything up.

Can’t wait to see the movie, which should be tonight.

DVD: X-Files Season Four

I don’t want to be one of those people that like everything they watch, because honestly I don’t. This season had some amazing episodes (and I still don’t really know how the next five seasons end besides a few big spoilers). The only real downside I have with season four is some of the confusing myth arc stuff that I don’t really get. However I found a site and plan to rewatch all the mythology episodes together, to hopefully get it all sorted out. I think after the finale, the guy who told Mulder and Scully was lying to them. Since the whole point of the episode was to believe the lie. That the government wants Mulder to think that the aliens and UFO’s are an elaborate cover story for what they are really doing (the behind the scenes genetic cloning, testing, abducting by the actual government). However I think both are true. That the government is doing all but they also have contact with aliens. It was a very sad end but not my favorite cliff hanger. Because come on, David Duchovny was in seasons 5, 6, and 7 plus the movie. So he obviously didn’t commit suicide. I think the best finale was season one still. With the whole Deep Throat getting shot and the Cigarette Smoking Man putting the stuff in the warehouse were great. Season 2 and 4 had the Mulder is dead cliff hanger which probably would have been really epic if I didn’t already know that Mulder was alive in the next seasons. Season three had the stand off but that might be my least liked of the first four season enders.

My favorite episodes…obviously you have to state Home. A mix of frightening scenes (like the death of the sherrif and his wife while Wonderful! Wonderful! is playing) and funny scenes (the Andy Griffith show ties and Ba Ram Yew by Scully). Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man will also always be a favorite of mine, my mouth dropped when you found out CSM was behind all of the murders, and a great way to tie in real history/conspiracy to the show. Paper Hearts, Leonard Betts, Max, and Small Potatoes were all great as well. And I loved the Skinner centric Zero Sum episode. Mitch Pileggi is a great actor and it is also great finding out that Marvita is working for CSM. I thought I would be more captured by Memento Mori…but honestly it didn’t really do much for me. Maybe when I watch it again with commentary I’ll like it more. I really enjoy the Scully has cancer plot but the episode didn’t tug at my emotions like I thought it would.

That being said some episodes were not that great, the one that comes to mind if the African Albino that needs melanin in order to survive. It was just kind of boring as well as El Mundo Gira, the one about the man getting hit by the yellow rain and turning into a monster. This was a season where I ended up liking the standalone episodes more then the myth arc ones (for the most part) where in previous season I loved the mythology episodes.

Overall great season, going to get season five and Fight the Future done before the 25th of July.