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The X-Files - The Complete First Season

When The X-Files pilot episode was broadcast on September 10, 1993, probably not even the creator, Chris Carter, imagined that it would become one of the most praised TV shows in the nineties.

Even so, The X-Files spanned through nine seasons and collected a legion of faithful fans, who worshiped the series at levels comparable to Star Trek fans.

It was hard not to be attracted to something that perfectly combined mystery, science fiction and studies of several mythological and folkloric subjects of our time.

Looking back thirteen years ago, the first season has the feeling of a classic. The series was still tightening some screws and establishing some aspects, plots and characters.

Nevertheless, the first season has some episodes that help us to understand the show’s future success and gives us that unmistakable X-Files thrilling.

In the “Pilot episode,” FBI Agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) had just re-opened the X-Files, a Bureau division in charge of investigating unsolved cases revolving around unexplained phenomenon.

Dana Scully’s character (Gillian Anderson) is introduced as the scientific balance for the crusader of the unknown, the highly believer - “Spooky” Mulder.

Their first case together is about strange deaths of adolescents in a small town, mysteriously attracted to a local forest where they make contact with a strange light.

Even pretty crude if compared to the following seasons, the episode already presents events that will be on focus of the double through the whole series—UFOs, Mulder’s abducted sister and Scully’s rational thought opposing what Mulder believes.

Some episodes deserve special attention - "Squeeze" is about the stretching murderer Eugene Tooms, a mutant who eats livers to prolong his eternal existence. The murderer will come back in the episode "Tooms," which also gives him a more definitive ending.

"Ice" is one of the best episodes in this season. Inspired by the film John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982), the episode shows an Arctic research team mysteriously killing themselves. The FBI agents and a group of scientists are sent to investigate and become trapped in a paranoia plot while isolated in the research station.

"Shadows" is a very compelling ghost story, in which Mulder believes that a deceased boss is protecting one of his employees.

"Ghost in the Machine" is about artificial intelligence. A computer that becomes an assassin of several workers in a computer corporation, probably inspired by HAL 9000 in 2001.

The plot of "Fire" is about pyrogenicity, the psychic power to create fire through will. In this case, someone is using that power to commit murders.

"Shapes" is one of the first episodes that shows Mulder and Scully investigating a crime with folkloric origins and one of the most fascinating mysteries of the human race, the Lycanthropy. In an Indian reservation in northwestern Montana, the FBI agents will face a murder case related to a werewolf. If an episode deserves the prize as the best in the season, this is the one. It’s remarkable in its way of building the plot and creating the mood.

In "Darkness Falls," Mulder and Scully investigate a mysterious disappearing of a group of loggers, who may have discovered a new kind of nature’s force after cutting an ancient tree.

After watching the entire first season it becomes clear why the X-Files was so successful. No series after this one took such care and excellency to deal with supernatural elements.

The realistic covering, the mood, the characters, everything is done with an amazing and incomparable creative connection, in which every single aspect contributes to create the stories. Of course, all of this was improved in the following seasons.

Since the show's end, the fans have never been able to find any supernatural series with a craft comparable to the X-Files. But, like Mulder, they are still waiting and looking for it... out there...

Written by: Edward Olivier

Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 10.00
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