The X-Files - The Complete Sixth Season
Considered by many fans as the falling point of the series, the sixth season still keeps a high quality.
In its sixth season, the X-Files received an audience boost. Powered by the motion picture’s popularity, the first episode--“The Beginning”--had the highest number of viewers of the entire season--20 million people.
However, the sixth season is also considered, by many fans, the beginning of a descending line that would continue through the seventh season and finally hit the rock bottom in the eighth and ninth season, where David Duchovny dropps the protagonist role and becomes an illustrious cameo.
Even so the sixth season has some remarkable and creative episodes that experiment with new narrative features. It’s the case of “Drive” that begins with a typical news report of a car chase on FOX News Channel: a car driving fast on a highway followed closely by police cars in what seems to be a hostage situation. Finally stopped the driver is pulled out and handcuffed, but when the cops get to the woman hostage her head blows up without any reasonable explanation. Mulder and Scully step in, and Mulder ends up becoming the hijacker's next victim.
“Triangle” shows Mulder traveling to the Bermuda Triangle to investigate a ship that disappeared in 1939 that suddenly appeared again, but his quest takes a wild turn and Mulder gets stuck in the past. The most interesting aspect of this episode is the way it was shot in four eleven-minutes sequence shots without any cuts, resulting in a nervous and non-stopping episode. Some actors of the regular cast also play different roles in the 1939 time-line.
“Dreamland” leads Mulder and Scully to the infamous Area 51, where Mulder switches bodies with one of the agency’s executives through the phenomenon known as quantum leap.
During most of the sixth season Mulder and Scully work outside the X-Files department. A new agent was designated for the department, and in several episodes Mulder works in private investigations, like in “Terms of Endearment,” in which he follows a possible baby killer that isn’t exactly what he seems to be. Bruce Campbell from “Evil Dead,” plays a major role.
"How The Ghosts Stole Christmas" is a very well done haunted house episode. Mulder gets Scully to investigate a ghost story about two lovers that committed suicide on the night before Christmas and who always comeback that night to haunt their former home.
A man obsessed with photographing death is the subject of "Tithonus," in which Scully is sent to investigate without Agent Mulder’s assistance and ends up facing death herself.
"Agua Mala" shows Mulder and Scully traveling to Florida during a hurricane to investigate what seems to be a sea creature dragged into the water system of a small town.
More than just thrilling “Arcadia” is also a very humorous episode in which the agents are sent undercover as husband and wife to investigate strange deaths in a model suburb where rules are worth more than life.
"Monday" is the X-Files approach to the concept of a repeating day. Like in “Groundhog Day” (1993) the same day repeats over and over until a particular event happens.
"Alpha" shows the investigator duo chasing a Wanshang Dhole, a reportedly extinct Asian dog that is now being blamed for several killings.
"The Unnatural" is a very touching episode, a sort of love dedication to baseball. Written and directed by David Duchovny it shows Mulder listening to a tale about a foreign visitor who falls in love with the sport, risking his own life to just play baseball. The episode‘s title is a reference to Bernard Malamud's baseball novel “The Natural.”
"Biogenesis" is one of the best season endings in the entire series, showing an anthological image of a space craft buried in the shores of Africa. The discovery of an ancient rock containing passages from the bible and a map of the human genome starts to alter Mulder’s mental health. And while Scully travels to Africa for the investigation, Mulder is taken to a mental institution.
Even though it is considered the falling point of the series the sixth season is still a very good season, showing the serious effort to find new and creative ways to tell a story. The variety continues and so does our enjoyment.
Written by: Edward Olivier
Reviewers Rating: 9
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Added: 14-Jun-2007
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