The X-Files - The Complete Fifth Season (Slim Set)
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Movie Reviews of The X-Files - The Complete Fifth Season (Slim Set)
Movie Review: The Turning Point...
Summary: 3 Stars
This is where the series begins a downward trajectory that lasts until the end. Some very good episodes, admittedly, but not as great as the preceding seasons. My recommendations: Pine Bluff Variant, Folie A Deux, Minds' Eye, Travelers (even though it is a riff on sci-fi classic 'The Hidden."), Bad Blood (One of the best funny episodes of the show.), and Chinga (co-written by Stephen King and DISTURBING AS HELL!) Do yourself a favor and go no further, it's all downhill from here. Goodbye, X-Files, it seems we hardly knew ye...Movie Review: I'm a fan...so I'm biased.
Summary: 5 Stars
It's the X-Files, how could it not be awesome? Not as many great one-off episodes as other seasons but a worthy addition nonetheless. Movie Review: back in the day
Summary: 4 Stars
still back when things were all about mulder and scully, this is one of the last seasons that were really still about what the show started out as. i'm a true fan, and loved it till the end...own all the seasons, but if you're only gonna get a few of them, stick with this or earlier seasons.Movie Review: The Critically Acclaimed Season V (This season goes Widescreen)
Summary: 5 Stars
The Critically Acclaimed Season V (This season goes Widescreen)
The X-Files Collection is a worthy hobby and next to Star Trek is certainly one of largest of the television series DVD collections, running an extra two seasons longer than the maximum seven season Star Trek series. Although The X-Files is not the longest running television media franchise, it can boast being one of the longest running SF series airing for nine seasons between 1993 and 2002. At around 1100 minutes per box, you are looking at approx. 9 boxes with 165 hours of viewing. That is nearly 1 full week of non-stop X-Files. Very few DVD series can come even remotely close to that. Get going collecting right now and you could build up the series collection in no time. By the end you will have a television paranormal anthology that defines the word awe. This is the kind of item that requires 1 hour a day of your time over the course of a year. The X-Files creator Chris Carter nails a powerful television series premise, setting up a fringe paranormal bureau of investigation that is at odds with its own department, the government, the military and just about everyone else, with the immortal tagline "The truth is out there". Fox "Spooky" Mulder (David Duchovny) is the workaholic basement-dwelling good-looking nerd with a heart of gold and a mind for the criminal macabre, all things supernatural and who runs the X-Files department. He is teamed with Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), the rational doctor turned FBI agent who is asked to write reports on the X-Files cases by her cynical boss. Most episodes play along with the theme of Mulder witnessing a paranormal event while Dana gradually arrives on the scene only after it is over, missing it all, or discovering something odd at best. This kind of regular plot occurrence bonds the characters and is what makes The X-Files so enjoyable. There are some improvements since the Season III DVD case with a seventh bonus disc now inside a cardboard holder and not just sitting in a slot in a piece of card that falls out easily like in Season I and II, bouncing around the box. Season V actually has the bonus disc in with actual holder itself. Not all boxes have this bonus seventh disc item. It depends on the edition. The more important six discs with episodes are firmly in place in a plastic flip case inside a thick season box that slides into a wider cardboard presentation holder for the shelf and looks quite good. Although the inside is slightly flimsy, these DVDs are presented on the cheap and so economically The X-Files seasons are sound value for money but the presentation is nothing to brag about and when we get around to seeing what is on the discs we will not be so blown away either. There are 4 episodes per disc, and 6 episode discs in total, making an average of 25 episodes for most seasons. Some seasons have more or less than this figure. Some discs have a few deleted scenes... and that is about it. On the episode discs there are no commentaries and not much in the way of bonus material except for some international clips with Mulder and Scully speaking in Japanese for a scene. They could have at least provided us with the X-Files remastered in 5:1 Dolby Digital but have instead just presented the series as it was aired in 2:1 surround. Again, everything here is on the cheap. The transfer quality however is very good for most of it. Since the show was shot in full frame until Season 5, these dimensions are retained. Season 5 is the first X-Files season to go Widescreen 1.78:1
X-Files: Season five follows in the steps of Season two, produces a virtually unstoppable series of great episodes, now that it has been firmly established as mainstream TV series viewing. Although the `to be continued ending' of Season four is not the best beginnings to a season, and the first few episodes are a bit dodgy, this is all forgiven when the screenwriters decide to go back and follow in the steps of Season 2's acclaim. There is a crazy role reversal. Mulder believes that the hegemony and the alien colonization of planet Earth is a con to detract from what is simply a series of government experiments on the citizens of planet Earth and the alien agenda just subterfuge. Scully however is absolutely convinced that Mulder was right all long and so takes the lead role as the paranormal investigator while Mulder turns sceptic. This character switch works wonders and kudos to the screenwriters for doing it. The Cigarette-Smoking Man (William B. Davis) is dead as is Mr X (Steven Williams), however packs of Morley's turn up from time to time. Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) is more aware that something paranormal is going on and even sides with Scully when Mulder lambastes both for being delusional. Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) has a secret. `The Lone Gumen' John Fitzgerald Byers (Bruce Harwood), Melvin Frohike (Tom Braidwood) and Richard 'Ringo' Langly (Dean Haglund) are back and even have their own private episode of how they came to be together. The Well-Manicured Man (John Neville from "The Adventures of Baron Munchausen") is back and Alex Krycek (Nicholas Lea) has another surprise in store. Deep Throat (Jerry Hardin) is gone, long since dead, however Section Chief Scott Blevins (Charles Cioffi) from Season 1 (and a bit of Season 4) is back for a very important double episode. There is also the introduction of Special Agent Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens) who also plays a significant role. Robert Modell (Robert Wisden) from Season Two's Pusher is back.
The X-files season five is some of the best X-files to date. More conspiracy and more major revelations, means that you will be hooked from disc 2 onwards, right to the staggering finale. There are also a few supporting actors you have seen in movies. And yes, thankfully after 3 seasons of Scully's overrun cancer suffering, this is about to come to an end. Season five of the X-Files is mostly about - pre-X files back stories, Scully's cancer, mothman, mystery offspring, Frankenstein, Modell the pusher, psychotherapy, witchcraft, AI, vampires, extraterrestrial wars, hoasting alien experiments, blind psychics, Angels and Demons, government toxins, monsters and ESP. Episodes "Kitsunegari", "Kill Switch", "Bad Blood" and "All Souls" stand out as great non-conspiracy episodes, but the final episode is one of the best conspiracy episodes to date. The best episode is "Folie À Deux" which has a terrific monster story and some really mad special effects for a television episode. Season 5 is all top stuff. Remember before moving onto Season 6, you are supposed to watch X Files the movie first! After the movie, then go on to Season 6.
Movie Review: Technical Notes On The Slim Sets
Summary: 5 Stars
I wanted to point out something technical about the slim set discs that I bought. If you're looking for insight into the episodes or characters - please look elsewhere.
When I put the first disc of Season One into my DVD player, it started the "loading" process and gave me a disc error after about one minute. Instead of cursing Fox (well, I did it later anyway) I turned the player off, leaving the disc inside. After a couple of minutes, I turned my DVD player on and Viola! I heard the X-Files theme and saw the menus (after the obligatory FBI copyright infringement warnings).
For those wondering, the DVD player in question above is a Philips Progressive Scan. The same problem occurred on a newer Panasonic player. No glitches materialized when I tried the discs on the Sony or AKAI players. In all cases, I was eventually able to get to the episodes. With the first two the screen sometimes showed up scrambled and the menus inaccessible. On other occasions I was able to access a root menu similar to one you would see if you "explore" the DVD contents on a PC (Video_TS files, etc.), though the players would not load any content from these menus. Speaking of PC viewing, I experienced no problems with any of the discs on my PC and all four programs my PC has to play DVDs functioned perfectly.
PLEASE DON'T READ INTO THIS TOO MUCH. I don't work for Fox - I'm not trying to encourage sales of the more expensive sets. This was just a personal experience I had, and it seemed to occur less frequently with Seasons 4 - 9. My uneducated opinion: the equipment I have isn't top of the line, and maybe wasn't equipped to handle the way the content was compressed. I was impressed that 4, sometimes 5 episodes were squeezed on one disc. That's three - almost four hours of content. I know - dual layer DVDs and blah, blah, blah. But c'mon - even Lord of the Rings - Return of the King was issued on 2 discs! (By the way, the content looked and sounded great.)
Another side note: Seasons 1 - 4 that I got were full frame, and 5 - 9 are widescreen. At first I thought I had missed the option when purchasing these discs, but these are the only way I've found them at retail stores and online. Nothing major; I just thought I was losing my mind at first. (Which is still a possibility.) I can't remember if they aired this way on television - I just noticed that the cinematography got revved up a bit starting with Season 5. If this observation is incorrect, someone please feel free to correct me.
Okay. If you have read this entire review give yourself a pat on the back, a cookie, I dunno - watch some old Doctor Who episodes or something. A better price, better packaging, and better for you. (They were giving out a carton of Morley's with the bigger sets, right?) By the way - the 5 stars is based on my overall X-Files enjoyment. Sure, there are episodes I can skip through. But for me, it's good bang for the buck. Enjoy!