Review of X Files, The: Season 2 Boxset

Introduction

I like to leave a space between viewings, allow a story to fade from my mind before reacquainting myself. Generally that means a space of two or more years between watching a disc again. With something like the X Files, a show that hooked me when it was shown on television, I aimed to leave an even longer gap to forget as much of it as possible. But then one of those Internet rumours cropped up, in that all was not hunky dory with the boxsets. And sure enough there wasn`t. Anyway, a quick heads up for those who remain unaware. If you purchased the Collector`s Edition of Season 2, the big chunky foldout digipack version back in 2001 when it was first released, check your discs. Mine wound up with the cloudy sticky residue symptomatic of disc delamination. Anyway, a new set of discs later, and I have an immediate reason to start watching the X Files again, a tad sooner than I had planned to.

Dana Scully, a doctor with a background in Physics is assigned to the X Files. She has to work with Fox `Spooky` Mulder, a gifted psychologist and investigator, who has taken his career down an unorthodox path. Following the disappearance of his sister, which he believes to be the result of an alien abduction, he has become obsessed with the paranormal and supernatural. Since he discovered the X Files, those cases the FBI deemed unsolvable, he has been pursuing his obsession on the FBI`s ticket. Their cases take them into the unexplainable, the mysterious, and the downright weird, subjects that their superiors have no time for, and factions in the government want hidden from sight.

The end of Season 1 saw dramatic developments for the X Files. Mulder and Scully`s most promising lead also turned out to be the most hazardous. Trying to find evidence of alien human hybrids saw Mulder kidnapped, and his sole source on the other side gunned down. This was the final straw for his superiors, and the X Files were shut down. As we begin the second season, Scully has been reassigned to teach once more at the Academy, and Mulder assigned to the dreary chore of audio surveillance, where his superiors believe that he can be kept out of trouble. Mulder`s commitment to finding the truth is challenged, and he is even losing faith in his own recollections of his sister`s abduction. Season 2 shows that you can`t keep the X Files down for long, as well as offering a novel way to deal with an actress` pregnancy. Mulder has to break in a new partner, and Alex Krycek is following more than one agenda.

The story continues in Season 2 of the X Files, over 25 episodes presented on 7 discs.

Disc 1

1. Little Green Men
Mulder still has some friends in high places, as an invitation to Senator Matheson`s office reveals. A signal has been received from the stars, and Mulder needs to get to the radio telescope at Arecibo in Puerto Rico before the government can sanitise the area. Of course it means forsaking his assigned duties when he is already under a cloud at the FBI.

2. The Host
There`s something in the sewers in New York, and it isn`t the apocryphal alligators. Mulder is specifically assigned to the case, just when he thinks he can`t sink any lower. But a giant mutant worm would have been the ideal X File.

3. Blood
A host of killing sprees in an agricultural town renowned for its placid nature needs Mulder`s skills in psychological profiling. There is a new pest control spray being used on local crops, and subliminal messages appearing on digital displays.

4. Sleepless
24 years previously, in their never-ending quest to create the perfect soldier, the military experimented on a squad of marines, removing their need to sleep. Now, those involved in the exercise are winding up dead of no apparent cause.

Disc 2

5. Duane Barry
Mulder finds himself out of his depth when called on to negotiate with Duane Barry, when the escapee from a mental institution takes hostages. It`s only because Barry claims to be an abductee that Mulder is assigned to the delicate negotiations. But Duane Barry is more than just an escaped lunatic.

6. Ascension
Duane Barry isn`t going to be taken again, not this time. This time he has a substitute to offer, Special Agent Dana Scully. It`s a race against time for Mulder to rescue his former partner.

7. 3
Scully`s abduction is just the impetus needed to reopen the X Files. A bizarre murder sends Mulder off to California, where a group of serial killers have resurfaced. They believe that by drinking the blood of a believer that they can attain eternal life.

8. One Breath
Just when they are about to give up hope, Scully is returned. She turns up in a hospital, with no history, and no record of how she got there, but she`s comatose, and on the verge of death. While her family keeps a vigil, Mulder goes about finding the ones responsible.

Disc 3

9. Firewalker
Contact has been lost with a scientific expedition to a volcano is the Cascades. Mulder and Scully arrive to find trouble in the caldera. The expedition leader has gone missing after killing one of the scientists, and the survivors are acting very strangely.

10. Red Museum
There are a series of abductions occurring in cattle country, with teens taken and then found wandering, with "She/He is one" inked onto their back. The local sheriff suspects the nearby vegetarian cult, but when Scully and Mulder investigate, the government conspiracy reappears.

11. Exelsius Dei
The Exelcius Dei is a convalescent home that takes care of the old and infirm. A brutal and unexplainable assault draws the attention of Agent Scully. Rumours are that the old building is haunted, but it could be something as simple as homeopathic medicine.

12. Aubrey
A clairvoyant police detective unearths the remains of an unconventional FBI agent, who was murdered fifty years previously while investigating a serial killer. Now it seems after all that time, the serial killer has picked up where he left off.

Disc 4

13. Irresistible
A fetishist is operating in Middle America. He`s collecting the hair and fingernails of dead girls, and it won`t be long before he graduates from mortuaries to creating his own corpses. It`s a case that affects Scully strongly.

14. Die Hand Die Verletzt
Satanists, black magic and devil worshippers are at large in a high school, and it`s not just children listening to Heavy Metal backwards. When a student is found dead, Scully and Mulder investigate, and walk straight into trouble.

15. Fresh Bones
When a soldier is killed in car crash at a site marked with an arcane symbol, voodoo is suspected. The soldier worked at an internment camp where Haitian refugees are being detained, a camp where a ten-year-old boy recently died in a riot.

16. Colony
Mulder`s faith is beginning to slip, when a UFO crash in the Arctic draws him into events that will challenge his preconceptions. A killer is targeting abortion doctors, but they share much more in common than just a profession. Then Mulder gets a call, his sister has returned.

Disc 5

17. End Game
Samantha says that she is in danger from the same killer that is hunting the doctors, a shape-shifting alien killer hunting alien-human hybrids. Her story seems especially plausible when one Mulder in her room, and another on her phone confront Scully.

18. Fearful Symmetry
A stampede of invisible elephants draws Mulder and Scully to Idaho. Fairfield Zoo is in trouble enough, without its exhibits escaping and causing havoc outside. Scully suspects the local animal welfare group while Mulder… Why would aliens abduct animals anyway?

19. Død Kalm
A US Navy destroyer has been abandoned in the North Atlantic, it`s crew suffering from rapid aging. Mulder posits a region of ocean where time flows at a different rate, citing the Philadelphia experiment. But when Mulder and Scully get to the ship, they find a whole heap of trouble.

20. Humbug
The carnival sideshows attract the attention of the FBI, when another in a series of strange murders occurs. Where normality is an alien concept, where weirdness is the order of the day, how do you track down a weird killer?

Disc 6

21. The Calusari
Tragedy occurs on a family day out, when a toddler wanders in front of a train. But there is something strange going on in the Holvey family, a dark secret haunts the family, and the grandmother sees the mark of evil in the surviving child.

22. F. Emasculata
A prison break seems an odd case to be assigned to, but walking into the cellblock and being confronted with quarantine conditions, the X File becomes clear. A previously unknown and highly contagious disease is sweeping through the prison population, and the escapees may be infected. The disease also has a nefarious source.

23. Soft Light
A series of disappearances is baffling the police, and a former student of Scully`s calls her and Mulder for help. Mulder glibly suggests spontaneous combustion, but the trail leads to a scientist who has been meddling with dark matter.

24. Our Town
A Federal chicken inspector goes missing in a small town built on poultry. It seems like just another chicken feed assignment to Scully, but Mulder sees an ominous pattern in the disappearances over the years in the area. There is an unexplained longevity to the townsfolk, and it looks as if they aren`t just eating KFC.

Disc 7

25. Anasazi
An earthquake in New Mexico reveals an alien burial site. A conspiracy nut hacks into the defence department and steals records written in Navaho, records with Scully`s name in. There`s something in the water in Mulder`s apartment, something making him increasingly paranoid. The Cigarette Smoking Man pays a visit to Mulder`s dad. Mulder winds up a suspect in a murder case. It must be the end of season cliffhanger.

Video

A 4:3 transfer that is marginally brighter and clearer than season 1`s, but it`s still good old fashioned, low resolution television from the nineties. There are no problems to speak of, aside from the incessant grain.

Audio

You have a choice of DD 2.0 English and Italian, along with DD 2.0 Surround French. There is a nice assortment of subtitles to choose from.

Features

With the episodes, you`ll find International Clips for Duane Barry, Irresistible, Humbug and Anasazi, in a variety of Japanese, German, Italian and Spanish. Given that one of the alternate language choices on these discs is Italian, it makes some of these clips redundant.

You`ll also find deleted scenes to reintegrate into 3, Humbug, and Anasazi, along with Behind the Scenes clips for End Game, Humbug, and Anasazi.

The deleted scenes and behind the scenes clips are repeated on Disc 7, where you can view them out of context of the episodes. There is also an additional deleted scene for Sleepless, which shows the actress originally cast as X.

Also on Disc 7, you`ll find 12½ minutes of promos for the episodes. The Documentary, The Truth About Season 2 is there, with 14 minutes of interviews with the cast and crew. They talk about the season in general as well as specific episodes.

Chris Carter Talks About Season 2 for around 26 minutes, focusing on 12 episodes of note. Finally the FX Behind The Truth spots are here, 9 in total lasting a minute each, offering 9 snippets of X Files lore.

It`s all sound bites and ephemeral stuff, with not a lot of substance to anything. Promotional material is all well and good, but you want a little more meat to go with a series of this stature.

Incidentally, if you had the Collector`s Edition, you would also have had a DVD ROM X Files game to play on your PC. It isn`t there on the M-Lock release, nor is the exclusive number on the sleeve. Neither is any great loss frankly.

Conclusion

If season 1 of the X Files was where the show found its feet, established a style and a sense of identity, season 2 was where it consolidated the best of what had come before, and began to build a mythology and a sense of continuity. There is a greater sense of coherence and momentum to this second season, and most of it is down to the threads of conspiracy that tie many of the episodes together. The hidden government machinations drive much of this season, whereas in season 1, the episodes could be clearly divided into conspiracy episodes and stand-alone stories. There is also a palpable strengthening of the writing, the episodes feel much more complex and layered, and there are fewer of the `monster of the week` shows that made so much of season 1 feel ordinary. This is where the X Files got good, and it`s here that I realised why the show developed such a cult following.

Major developments in this season saw back-stories established for the main characters, and while we had met Scully`s family at the end of season 1, there is much more development this time around. We also meet Mulder`s family and see the effect that his sister`s abduction still has on them. While we met AD Skinner at the end of Season 1, he gets greater development here, and he becomes an integral part of the show. At this point his loyalties are always in question, not helped by the fact that practically every encounter he has with Mulder is antagonistic. It`s a masterstroke to introduce such a strong-minded yet ambiguous character, and you never know whose side he is going to be on. The constant presence of the Cigarette Smoking Man in his office simply makes his position more obscure. While Deep Throat didn`t make it to the end of the first season, his replacement makes something of an impact here. X is not the fatherly figure that his predecessor was, and his interactions with Mulder have a sense of danger to them. As with many of the characters in the show, his motivations always remain unclear.

Looking back on this season, it also becomes apparent how time distorts memories of it. Actress Gillian Anderson was pregnant for much of the start of the season, and following a lengthy period of voluminous coats and being confined to a desk, it was more effective just to have Scully abducted by aliens. In actual fact, the abduction lasted just one episode of screen time, but the feeling is that it was much longer. Similarly, I always had the impression that Alex Krycek, Mulder`s replacement partner, was pulling the wool over his eyes for much longer than in reality. But Krycek joined the X Files in Sleepless, and by Ascension his true colours had been revealed.

Think back to the early nineties. Most sci-fi television, and there wasn`t much of it, was episodic stuff, with a hefty great reset button at the end of each episode to put all the characters back in their shiny happy places, with no consequences. Then along came the X Files, which to everyone`s horror had an ongoing storyline. This meant that you couldn`t afford to miss an episode, and it became essential watercooler chat. It also coincided with the nascence of the Internet, with whole newsgroups devoted to the various aspects of the show. The second season is where the arc blossomed, with much of the season devoted to developing this storyline in some way. Even the most innocuous looking of X Files may have had the ominous presence of Big Brother in the background. There`s no hint here that the show would eventually disappear up its own mythology, and watching these episodes I was still hanging on every word. So it is easy to single out episodes to recommend, stories with deft writing, and ongoing consequences. But even were they without the added overtones, shows like Sleepless and Soft Light, Blood and F. Emasculata would still be outstanding episodes.

While shows like Little Green Men, Duane Barry and Ascension, One Breath, Colony and End Game, and Anasazi all stood out because of the ongoing story, where the X Files really excelled was when it combined a creepy storyline and gave it a modern twist. The Host took fears of Chernobyl and mutations, and monsters living in the sewers, and gave us the half man half worm. Sleepless passed comment on what the military would do to make the ultimate soldier, Blood played to fears of what is done to our food before it reaches the plate, also echoed in Red Museum and Our Town, although the latter paid more than a cheeky nod to the BSE crisis in the UK of the nineties. Exelcius Dei looked at how the elderly are treated in the West, Fresh Bones at the treatment of refugees, and F. Emasculata the lengths drug companies go to test their medicines. All of these episodes had some relevance to society, while Aubrey and Irresistible were just damned fine thrillers.

Where the X Files failed to deliver, were in shows that were highly derivative and recognisably so. I can forgive the Terminator clone of Colony, as the shapeshifting bounty killer became such a signature character in the show. Actor Brian Thompson was also the first victim of Arnold Schwarzenegger`s Terminator in the movie of the same name. Firewalker is enjoyable enough, but too much of a rehash of the superior Ice in season 1. But then there is The Calusari, or Exorcist redux, complete with stereotypical superstitious old Romanian woman, with its overtones of the Omen. Død Kalm is a spooky version of Star Trek`s The Deadly Years, complete with laughable old age make-up, although with the usual X Files` dark setting, it isn`t as noticeable. Fearful Symmetry has a man in a gorilla suit, drawing unfavourable comparisons with Trading Places, while Die Hand Die Verletzt has comedy Satanists. When the X Files resorts to the age-old archetypes, it is then that it is weakest. The stinker of the season has to be 3. Just as there was the werewolf episode in season 1, this time around we get vampires. It`s also ill placed in the run. Scully has been abducted, Mulder is bereft, alone, looking for answers, so what else is there to do but to head to California to get some blood sucking loving from a dark haired temptress. If there was one episode I could delete from the canon…

Still, in Humbug the X Files gets its first comedy episode, and in many ways it is still the best, not least because of the brilliant Vincent Schiavelli. A town full of circus `freaks` and it just gets weirder and weirder wherever Mulder and Scully turn. There are some choice lines in the episode, including my favourite "Now you know how I feel" from Mulder, when one of Scully`s theories is ridiculed. It also ends with the greatest punchline.

Season 2 is the reason why the X Files became a household name. While there is the occasional moment of dross, the good by far outweighs the bad. If you`re feeling a little nostalgic, why not invest in a set. It`s not like they break the bank anymore.