Starring: X-Files, David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson
Encoding: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. This DVD will probably
NOT be viewable in other countries. Read more about DVD formats.)
Format: Color, Closed-captioned, Box set
Rated: NR
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
DVD Features:
All-new documentary: "The Truth About Season Five"
46-minute F/X special: "Inside The X-files"
6 deleted scenes with optional commentary by Chris Carter
8 special effects sequences with commentary by Paul Rabwin
Episode commentary from "The Post-Modern Prometheus"
by Chris Carter
Episode commentary from "The Pine Bluff Variant"
by John Shiban
11 "Behind the Truth" F/X spots
40 promotional TV spots
DVD ROM: Game "Earthbound"
Widescreen anamorphic format
Number of discs: 6
Editorial From Amazon.com
The midpoint of what would be a nine-season show, the fifth season
of The X-Files (the first to be put on DVD in anamorphic widescreen
format) gives fans a heavy heaping of what they love. For the mythology
buffs, riveting episodes from the season bookends "Redux"
and "The End" to several episodes in between tease with
new revelations about the vast government conspiracies and alien
invasion plot lines sketched in earlier seasons. But enough questions
are left unanswered for the theatrical X-Files movie, which was
released the subsequent summer, and the seasons that followed. Supporting
characters like the Lone Gunmen, Agent Krycek, the Pusher Robert
Modell, and Fox's father and sister Bill and Samantha Mulder are
flushed out in more detail in several episodes that occasionally
jump back in time to cover the prehistory of the X-files. New chess
pieces are introduced, each raising new questions: the clairvoyant
child Gibson Praise, Agent Spender, faceless alien resistance fighters
with pyromaniacal tendencies, a child who may be Scully's, and Mulder's
old flame, agent Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers). All the time, no one
knows who will be assassinated next, who is or isn't dead, just
who isn't potentially a child of the Cigarette Smoking Man, and
why the base of the neck is everyone's vulnerable spot. The creature
feature stand-alone episodes vary in quality, but all are redeemed
by the outrageously funny self-parody episode "Bad Blood,"
a fan favorite that guest stars Luke Wilson as a small-town sheriff
who catches Scully's eye.
Finally, "shippers" (fans who would love nothing better
than to see Mulder and Scully act upon their feelings for each other)
get a heavy dose of the usual sexual innuendo and lingering, tender
glances between the attractive costars. Mimi Rogers and Luke Wilson
incite palpable jealousy between the leads; the appearance of a
wedding band on Mulder's hand in a back story hints at stories not
told; and the usual extreme and dimly lit crises illustrate just
how far Mulder and Scully will go for each other. In the end, the
complexities of their relationship may be the most tense and intriguing
of all the mysteries explored by this epic television series. --
Eugene Wei
