The X-Files - The Complete Second Season
Better than the first, the second season proves that the series was progressing and following the right path.
In the second season of The X-Files, the series improved several technical and plot details. New characters were introduced and the main series’ mythology became more evident.
A curious aspect contributed to the show’s creative choices. Gillian Anderson, the actress who plays Dana Scully, was pregnant, so the question was - how to hide that during the season?
The solution came in the form of an abduction. During the first four episodes, Scully was filmed only through chest shots or behind objects to hide her growing belly.
Since the X-Files department was closed at the end of the first season, Scully was transferred to the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, playing a secondary role until the fifth and sixth episode - "Duane Barry" and "Ascension." A new partner was also designated for Mulder - Alex Krycek.
Duane Barry, the episode’s title character, was a former FBI agent and a victim of constant alien abductions. After kidnapping Scully, Barry switches his abduction for Scully’s.
That way the writers introduced an event that would reflect through the entire series and solved the problem of Anderson’s pregnancy at the same time.
Scully finally reappears in the episode "One Breath" and Krycek reveals himself as a traitor and an ally of the infamous “Cigarette Smoking Man,” another character that played a small part in the first season and became a constant after the second.
This season also has several remarkable episodes. "The Host" shows a Chernobyl-caused anomaly who escapes to the sewer system of Newark, where it starts to attack sewer workers and use their bodies as a host for its parasitic worms. Mulder’s new insider, “X,” is introduced in this episode. A very creative creature episode.
"Excelsis Dei" creates a ghost story in an old convalescent home but, as almost all X-Files episodes, nothing is exactly what it seems. A sad yet exciting episode.
"Aubrey" leads Mulder and Scully to a little town in Missouri where the body of an FBI agent is found buried after fifty years since its disappearing. The murdered agent was a victim of a serial killer who is still killing people in the same town. This episode makes an original approach to a heavily used subject - serial killers - combining psychology and science fiction in a perfect way.
Seems that one abduction wasn’t enough for Scully, and in "Irresistible" she is abducted again, this time by a fetishist murderer in a very disturbing and thrilling episode. The fetishist character is very well developed.
Like Scully’s abduction episodes, "Colony" and "End Game" are part of the series' main mythology and introduce the character of the shape-shifting alien bounty hunter. Mulder’s lost sister and his father also appear in this episode and for the first time we get an idea of what the main series' plot is about.
The "Død Kalm" episode takes the investigators to a mysterious boat in high sea in which everybody starts to age very fast. This is a good episode except for the aging make-up, which is simply terrible.
"Humbug" is probably the season’s most interesting episode, showing a community of former performers of Barnum’s freak show assailed by strange murders. All residents have some kind of physical anomaly and the episode also teaches us a little bit of the history of this kind of show.
"The Calusari" is The X-Files' first approach to an exorcism story, in which the agents believe a little boy is dominated by an evil spirit.
The Anasazi is the season’s final episode. As becomes tradition in The X-Files, this episode will introduce a plot that will only end in the next season. Mixing computer codes, natives and aliens, this episode literally ends the season with a big bang. Chris Carter, the creator, also makes a cameo.
The conclusion is that, even though the second season is better than the first, showing improvements of story, plots, characters and subjects, it isn’t the best of The X-Files yet, but they were definitely following the right path to progress Mulder’s quest for the truth.
Written by: Edward Olivier
Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 10.00
Reader's Votes: 1
Added: 6-Jun-2007
Talk to other readers about this story.
|
