The X-Files:
The Complete 8th Season
(FOX Region One DVD)
(2000)
review by Head Cheeze

The X-Files was one of the best television shows to ever grace the airwaves. The combination of hardcore sci-fi, horror, humour, and gritty conspiracy drama worked fantastically.....

...for five seasons.

Then, just as all good things, the X-Files string of consistant quality came to an end. The neverending conspiracy thread that held the show together came unraveled and quickly spun out into a parody of itself (which it had already so capably done in the brilliant early episode Jose Chung's From Outer Space). Still, the series managed to creep along, despite the growing disenchantment from star David Duchovny, and still showed signs of it's former brilliance when it's writers were allowed to abandon the show's conspiracy story arc and focus on single episodes. As season seven came to a close, Agent Fox Mulder (Duchovny) "vanished" (as did the star's career, after choosing to leave the show and only appear in a handful of episodes in it's final seasons) and Agent Dana Scully (Anderson) finally began to accept that, after seven years, Mulder may have had a point, and became a "believer".

Season Eight opens with Scully's search for Mulder, as she is saddled with a new partner, Agent John Dogget (Patrick). The two instantly mirror the Mulder and Scully of old, sans the sexual tension and charming chemistry, with Scully taking on the role of alien hunter and Doggett playing skeptic. Right off the bat, we get hints of a touch of trauma in Dogget's past that may or may not be of paranormal origin. Meanwhile, as Scully recklessly pursues any lead that will take her to Mulder, Doggett comes along for the oftentimes bumpy ride, offering up Scooby Doo-like explanations for the phenomena they come across in their travels.

While many wrote the series off with the arrival of Doggett, I, personally, enjoyed the shake-up, and found that the various avenues that could have been explored with this character (but ultimately weren't, seeing as how the series karked it the next year) were reason enough to tune in. It's actually the episodes that center around Scully and Mulder that I find to be the worst of the lot. While the majority of the X-Files eigth season sadly focuses on the long ago exhausted conspiracy arc, there are some great standalone episodes in this set that makes it a worthy purchase, especially for X-Philes.

Redrum, a sort of alternate reality/nightmare in which a man imprisoned for murdering his wife has premonitions of his own execution following a court hearing, is a great bit of fun and is unique in how it presents Doggett and Scully as sort of secondary characters to the doomed inmate.

Roadrunners is a solid piece of backwoods religeous cult horror, in which Scully investigates a murder near a Utah town (and sneaks off sans Doggett, much to his chagrin!). Scully is captured and discovers that the townsfolk worship a sluglike beastie that has them all under it's spell. This episode is especially entertaining in that it features an extremely bizarre (and rather sexy) scene in which Scully is being initiated by the cult whilst tied to a bed. The orgasmic performance by the extremely hot Anderson is something to behold, indeed!

Invocation is another corker, focusing on the mysterious re-appearance of an abducted boy several years after he'd initially went missing. When the boy resurfaces, having not aged a day, Scully is convinced it's not the same child, while Doggett's mysterious past comes taints his objectivity.

There are actually at least a dozen quality episodes in this set, while the remainder aren't exactly bad, just tired. There's simply too much emphasis placed on the conspiracy stuff that ran through the series nine year run, and I was personally sick of it by the time season four had rolled around. While much of it focuses on Scully, Mulder's return (and death and subsequent resurrection!), the burden of carrying the conspiracy torch also falls on former supporting player Skinner (Mitch Pillegi), who, in the wake of Duchovny's sort-of departure, was promoted to series regular. The Skinner episodes are rather shoddily executed, and are primarily filler in between the overall excellent standalones and the dull Mulderverse stuff.

The X-Files could have kept going for years, if it's creator, Chris Carter, would have relented on his tired pursuit of the truth, and just settled on more of a "shit happens" approach. The series was always at it's best when it skirted the Smoking Man/Krycek nonsense and simply followed the lead of The Night Stalker, the series that inspired Carter to create Files, with a monster-of-the-week formula. While it may have been hit or miss, it was certainly never dull, and was always more fun than sitting through another episode of Mulder pining for his missing sister (Hey, Fox! Get over it!).

The 8th Season Boxed Set from Fox features 21 episodes spanning six discs, and is LOADED with extra stuff, including an all new documentary/retrospective, deleted scenes, commentary tracks on the episodes Alone and Existence, and loads more.

While certainly not the X-Files best, I think season 8 gets a bad rap from diehard fans who were shaken by Duchovny's limited involvement (hey, you'll always have Evolution!) . I thought it was time for he and Scully to pack their bags a couple of seasons earlier and welcomed the prospect of a fresh new take on the series. Sadly, Carter opted to finish up his "story" (which he never really did to much effect), instead of exploring the infinite possibilities that a new cast, and a new attitude could have brought to the series.