The X-Files - The Complete Sixth Season (Slim Set)

The last truly outstanding season of "The X-Files" the complete sixth season ties up a few loose ends but the series begins to unravel in the process. The seventh season despite some fine episodes would suffer. While the eighth season would get a jolt of much needed energy from Robert Patrick the writing still wasn't quite up to previous years. "The X-Files: Fight the Future" appeared during the summer between season five and six. The set, like the other reduced price sets from Fox, will include all the episodes from season six. You'll be able to access special features for respective episodes such as commentary, deleted scenes and international clips.

"The Beginning" ties into the movie although the movie could stand independently on its own (which is just as well because despite some marvelous set pieces it basically was a rehashing of a number of alien movies). Mulder and Scully have been removed from the X Files and replaced by two new agents. One of the most interesting episodes includes "SR 819" where Assistant Director Skinner is black mailed into helping an old foe. Skinner has been infected with some mysterious organism that this other person can control to make Skinner do his bidding.

Bruce Campbell appears as a philandering husband in "Terms of Endearment". When his baby disappears and is apparently taken by a Demon Mulder and Scully are called in by local police to help with the case. Campbell gives an excellent performance.


The two part "Dreamland" is terrific with a great guest performance by Michael McKean ("Spinal Tap"). A black ops agent switches bodies with Mulder freeing him from his shrewish wife and stuffy lifestyle. Suddenly Mulder becomes a wild and crazy guy.

The humorous but suspenseful "Arcadia" plants Mulder and Scully in suburbia playing a husband and wife in one of those "planned communities" ruled by an iron fist. Houses have to be a certain color, portable basketball hoops are forbidden and residents who step out of line mysterious vanish or are killed.

Duchovny's "The Unnatural" is a clever tale involving Arthur Dale (here played by character actor M. Emmett Walsh when Darren McGavin wasn't available in a truly X-files twist), racism and baseball loving aliens set before baseball was integrated. Dale is assigned to protect a African American baseball player who's life has been threatened as they tour the South.

"How the Ghosts Stole Christmas" is a funny and fun episode with guest appearences by Ed Asner and Lily Tomlin. Mulder decides to check out a haunted out on Christmas Eve and a reluctant Scully goes to check on him. The two get pulled into a surreal story which makes them doubt their own sanity.

For mythology fans the two episodes "Two Fathers and "One Son" closes out the main conspiracy arc of the last five years. While threads remain (and show up in the fascinating "Biogenesis")many of the mysteries of the last five years are nicely wrapped up until we discover that there are aliens on Earth working beside us every day. To say more would spoil it and although it's unlikely you haven't seen it, I'd rather not spoil the conclusion and the set up for season seven.

Being one of the late comers to the show, having started watching it around the 5th season, I decided to watch all the seasons in order, as I would understand it a lot more. Sitting through them all, I would have to say that season 6 is probably one of the finest, and most entertaining seasons of the lot. David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson looks like they are really enjoying themselves in some of the most interesting episodes of the entire show.

The season kicks off with "The beginning" which is sort of a follow up to the movie. Unfortunately, the episode isn't one of my favourite openings, but it was exciting, as it showed the return of Gibson Praise, and also guest-starred one of the aliens from the movie. The next couple of episodes are some of the seasons' best. "Drive" is one of my personal favourites, as it is about a man who is forced to drive Mulder around the highways at high speed, or he will die. The opening scene to that episode is one of my favourites. "Triangle" is a very entertaining episode, in which Mulder crosses through the Bermuda triangle and gets caught up on a ship that was said to have disappeared during world war II. "Dreamland I/Dreamland II" is a very humorous episode, in which Mulder switces body with another man, after a UFO is seen flying over them. And "How the ghosts stole christmas" is an intertesting story were Mulder and Scully get locked in a house which is believed to be haunted by a married couple at Christmas eve.

Other good episodes include "Two fathers/One son" which basically closes of about 5 years of mythology in the show. The conclusion to the episode is breathtaking. "Monday" is another of my personal favourites, in which a woman has to relive the same day over and over again, until she can save Mulder and Scully from being killed by her boyfriend. "Arcadia" shows Mulder and Scully going undercover as a maried couple to try to investigate the disappearences of people in a small neighbourhood. It starts of very fun, but ends in a sort of disturbing way. "The Unnatural" is a great episode, in which a story is told about one of America's greatest baseball players being an alien. It includes a guest appearence by Brian Thompson as the alien bounty hunter. "Field trip" is a very unsettling and confusing episode, but very dream-like and it ranks as one of my personal favourite episodes ever.

A few episodes do let the season down: "The rain king" is a stupid episode which mostly revolves around a weather man trying to have the guts his long-time friend out. "Alpha" seemed like a good episode, about a killer dog on ther loose, but it just fell flat. "Terms of endearment" wasn't a bad episode, it was just average really, about a man who just wants to have a normal baby and he will do anything to make it happen. It does have a good guest-starring Bruce Campbell (The Evil dead films). "Trevor" was just boring, and it seemed familiar ("Sqeeze" and "Tooms" from season 1).

The season-finale isn't the most exciting finale to me, as it didn't really have a good cliffhnager (the best ones would be Season 2's "Anasazi" and Season 4's "Gethsamane").

Still, this is probably one of the more experimental seasons of the show. Mixed with episodes of comedy, and some just straight-ahead horror stories.

THE X-FILES was one of the first television series to appear on DVD, but unfortunately 20th Century Fox didn't yet understand the market and as a result the sets were horribly overpriced, retailing usually for around $80 or $90 in most outlets, a price that meant that it wasn't going to be widely purchased. Furthermore, the situation was made more complex by an influx of cheap Hong Kong pirated editions, which meant that anyone attempting to buy the series used over the Internet ran the risk of getting tacky editions that lacked special features and where the movements of the actors mouths failed to synch with the sound. Thankfully, 20th Century Fox has finally corrected the situation by bringing out the original DVDs in a new Collector's edition.

Most serious fans of THE X-FILES, even those who believe, as I do, that the show was at least very good until the very end, that at some point the show failed to maintain the extremely high level it had been at from its beginnings in Season One. My belief is that this happened in Season Six with the ending of the original Alien colonization mythology. The problem was that with the cessation of the colonization arc, there was no successful rebuilding of the mythology aspect of the show to go along with the continuing excellent stand-alone episodes. As any fan of the show knows, the first five seasons consisted of a blend of stand-alone episodes that did nothing to advance the alienation conspiracy arc with episodes that did advance that arc. But that arc comes to an end in Season Six, and while they continued to have episodes that dealt with aliens and the governmental conspiracy to hide the truth about alien visitation, the show did not have a real arc until Season Eight with the introduction of the almost universally loathed Super Soldiers arc. As mythology, Season Six was the last season to advance the original story.

Despite the end of the colonization arc, THE X-FILES in Season Six remains a remarkable show and contains a host of truly great episodes. This was also the first season to be made in Hollywood rather than in Vancouver. Some see this as featuring into the show's demise, but my own feeling is that the fault lies with the writing. Though it never becomes anywhere close to being unwatchable, there simply aren't as many breathtaking episodes. My own favorite pair of episodes is the delightful "Dreamland" parts 1 and 2. Contacted by an anonymous Area 51 source Mulder and Scully go there only to have Mulder and his contact, played by Michael McKean, switch bodies when a spaceship causes a temporal distortion in their area. The result is both a moving and funny pair of episodes in which the two switchees manage to completely mess up living the other's life, though it is funny when McKean's Mulder cleans out the bedroom that had been used as a storage closet (the show's fans all know that Mulder merely slept on his couch) buys a water bed, a mirror for the ceiling, and other accoutrements to turn Mulder's apartment into a bachelor pad. "Two Fathers" and "One Son" bring the original mythology arc to a close, and while they are wonderfully satisfying and in no sense a disappointment, their cessation left the series nowhere to go. All in all, while this was still a series of the highest quality, by X-FILES standards it is a very slight disappointment. It was the first season in which it failed to maintain its own high standards. The good news is that even in the weakest episodes of the season, the show continued to surpass almost everything else that was taking place on television.

Perhaps because of the end of the original mythology arc, Season Six saw the repressed romance between Scully and Mulder come a bit more to the surface. There is no explicit romance, but their relationship becomes increasingly flirtatious and Scully, usually serious to an extreme, starts smiling a great deal more around Mulder. The biggest tease might be in "The Unnatural," where Mulder, arms around Scully, tries to give her a feel for swinging a baseball bat.

I honestly do not believe that there are any seasons of THE X-FILES that can be construed as anything short of Must See. Although in Season Six it finally fell slightly below the astonishing standard it set in its first five seasons, it remains riveting television. And now that it is available at a completely affordable price, there is no reason for any fan not to own their own copy of each season.

Nominated for 12 Golden Globes and 61 Emmys, including 4 for Outstanding Drama Series, The X-Files is one of the world's most popular science-fiction drama shows. Premiering in the Fall of 1993 on the Fox Network, home of popular programs such as The Simpsons (1989) and King Of The Hill (1997), The X-Files created an entire fictional world of conspiracies and secret organizations, building a legion of fanatic followers as devoted to the series as Trekkies are to Star Trek. Creator Cris Carter, a former writer for numerous TV shows in the late-80s/early-90s - The Nanny (1993) is one example - brings together the finest aspects of suspense-laden spy novels and alien science fiction. The result is one of the top sci-fi franchises ever produced, spawning its own line of merchandise and even a full length feature film - The X-Files: Fight The Future (1998). With nine successful seasons to its credit, The X-Files is one of the longest-running sci-fi series in television history...

The X-Files follows the exploits of four FBI agents assigned to investigate a series of unsolved and mysterious cases known only as "The X-Files". FBI special agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), John Doggett (Robert Patrick), and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) are the primary agents investigating these unusual cases which could never be solved by conventional investigatory methods. But Mulder and Scully in particular play prominent roles in the series. The partnership and friendship the two develop during the course of the series sets the tone for their investigations into the paranormal with Scully, a medical doctor, playing the skeptic to Mulder's deeply held beliefs in widespread government conspiracies and alien abductions. Through the course of the series, The X-Files covers a wide-range of frightening and mysterious subjects from killer insects and secret world government organizations to the colonization of Earth by parasitic aliens. In so doing, it adds its own unique brand of humor and an original blend of creativity that fans of the genre will certainly appreciate...

The X-Files (Season 6) DVD features a number of suspense riddled episodes including the season premiere "The Beginning" in which, much to Mulder's dismay, the Office of Professional Conduct has refused to put he and Scully back in charge of The X-Files project, opting to replace them with Agents Fowley and Spender instead. Nevertheless, the two continue their work off duty while their latitude within the agency shrinks... Other notable episodes from Season 6 include "Rain King" in which Mulder comes to believe that a weatherman's emotions are effecting the weather in a small rural town, and "Alpha" in which an anthropologist discovers the existence of an extinct canine species is Asia and brings it to America where it escapes and begins randomly killing people...

Below is a list of episodes included on The X-Files (Season 6) DVD:

Episode 118 (The Beginning)
Episode 119 (Drive)
Episode 120 (Triangle)
Episode 121 (Dreamland)
Episode 122 (Dreamland II)
Episode 123 (How the Ghosts Stole Christmas)
Episode 124 (Terms of Endearment)
Episode 125 (Rain King)
Episode 126 (S.R. 819)
Episode 127 (Tithonus)
Episode 128 (Two Fathers)
Episode 129 (One Son)
Episode 130 (Agua Mala)
Episode 131 (Monday)
Episode 132 (Arcadia)
Episode 133 (Alpha)
Episode 134 (Trevor)
Episode 135 (Milagro)
Episode 136 (The Unnatural)
Episode 137 (Three of a Kind)
Episode 138 (Field Trip)
Episode 139 (Biogenesis)

The DVD Report

After the success of the X-Files feature film, everyone was ready for the new season of X-Files. But from the first frame we see of the first episode of the season we realize something is different. And that something is the show moved to L.A. This had several fans disgruntled. It had them disgruntled for the same reason more people would be in season 8. There was a change. Not that that was a bad thing. I mean Vancouver was great, but after 5 seasons there it was starting to get old. I actually think that if they would've continued filming in Vancouver the show might have acutally ended after season 7. The episodes of season 6 are lighter, sillier, and have a stronger focus on the M&S relationship. Below as always is a short episode guide of some of the seasons best. SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!!!!!!!

The Beginning: Mulder and Scully return from Antarctica to discover that no one believes their story. They are put off the X-Files, and reassigned. But they realize that they still have work to do, and the reappearance of Gibson Praise confirms that.
Triangle: Mulder is stuck in a time warp on a Nazi ship in 1940.
Dreamland: Mulder swaps bodies with a MIB. Mulder tries to get his old body back, but the MIB doesn't want a thing to change.
How The Ghosts Stole Christmas: Mulder takes Scully to a house he believes is haunted. The ghosts living there try and get M&S to kill each other.
S.R. 819: Skinner is infected with a disease that is rapidly killing him, and M&S search for what happened to him, and who caused it.
Tithonus: Scully is partnered with a Alfred Fellig, a man who mysteriously shows up at a crime scene as soon as it happens.
Two Fathers: Cassandra Spender reappears, and gives Mulder startling information concerning the impending alien colonization.
Arcadia: M&S are back on the X-Files and must go undercover as husband and wife to investigate the deaths of several residents in a seemingly perfect town.
Milagro: Mulder's neighbor becomes obsessed with Scully, and Scully is drawn to him even though he is a murder suspect.
Field Trip:a couple is found on a mountainside as nothing but skin and bones, and Mulder thinks paranormal phenomena could account for it.
Biogenesis: an artifact with strange writings on it is discovered of the coast of Africa, and Mulder thinks it may hold the key to all life on Earth. However, Mulder begins going crazy, stopping him from giving out his theory.

Some great stand alone episodes throughout the season definentely help the series transition to L.A. However, even I have to admit sometimes the show did get a little to light. Never the less, a great season.