The X Files
Season Two, the 1994-95 run, of The X Files was the one where creator Chris Carter, having had a surprise hit when he expected a one-season wonder, started trying to make sense of all the storylines he had thrown into the pile in the first year. Moreover, he had to cope with Gillian Anderson's maternity leave by having Scully get abducted by aliens (back then, a pretty fresh device) for a few episodes and come back strangely altered. The season also inaugurated the tradition of opening ("Little Green Men") and closing ("Anasazi") with the show's worst episodes, both pot-boiling attempts to keep the alien infiltration/government conspiracy balls up in the air while seeming to offer narrative forward-thrusts or revelations.
But it's also a show noticeably surer of itself than Season One, with its stars reading from the same page in terms of their characters' relationship and attitudes to the wondrous. Scully's no-longer-workable scepticism finally starts to erode in the face of Mulder's increasingly cracked belief. There are fewer marking-time leftover-monster-of-the-week shows--although we do get a human fluke ("The Host"), vampires ("3"), an invisible rapist ("Excelsius Dei") voodoo ("Fresh Bones")--and the flying-saucer stories at last seem to be going somewhere. The powerful two-episode run ("Duane Barry", "Ascension") features Steve Railsback as Mulder's possible future, an FBI agent burned out after a UFO abduction who has become a hostage-taking terrorist, which climaxes with Scully's disappearance into the light. The standout episode is also a stand-alone--"Humbug"--the first and still most successful of the show's self-parodies (written by Darin Morgan, who had played the Flukeman in "The Host"), in which the agents investigate a murder in a circus freakshow, allowing the actors to make fun of the mannerisms they have earnestly built up in a run of solemn, even somnolent, explorations of the murk. Other worthy efforts: "Aubrey", about genetic memory; "Irresistible", a rare (and creepy) straight psycho-chiller with little paranormal content; and "The Calusari", a good ghost/mystery. Rising deputy characters include Nicholas Lea as the perfidious Krycek and Brian Thompson as the shapeshifting alien bounty hunters. Notable guest stars: Charles Martin Smith, C.C.H. Pounder, Leland Orser, Terry O'Quinn, Bruce Weitz, Daniel Benzali, John Savage, Vincent Schiavelli, Tony Shalhoub. --Kim Newman
On the DVD: The individual episode discs have a small selection of deleted scenes, foreign language clips and behind-the-scenes footage, but the bulk of the extra material is on the final disc. There's not a lot to get to grips with, but what there is consists of a 14-minute documentary about the making of Season Two, with contributions from Chris Carter, various directors, writers and actors (but not the two principals); Carter talking briefly about each episode in turn; a series of short TV spots and pieces about the show's FX and secondary characters; and three very short behind-the-scenes glimpses, one of which has the self-explanatory title "Gillian eats a cricket". There's also a DVD-ROM utility with Web links and a game. --Mark Walker
With the X-Files shut down, Mulder travels to Puerto Rico on a tip from his mentor in the Senate to uncover the reason behind the sudden reactivation of a remote long abandoned SETI-like communications station.
Mulder pursues a humanoid, parasitic organism that uses sewage systems as its home.
Mulder and Scully investigate a series of violent killings committed by seemingly normal residents of a small town.
Mulder is on the manhunt for a Vietnam veteran who can project his consciousness into other people's minds to kill them. Mulder and Agent Krycek try to uncover the conspiracy behind the killer's powers.
A former FBI agent who claims he was abducted by aliens takes several people hostage. Mulder agrees to be the negotiator.
Mulder and Agent Krycek are in a race against time to find and rescue abducted Scully before crazed Duane Barry can take her to what he believes to be his alien puppet masters.
While Agent Scully is still missing, Agent Mulder embarks upon an investigation involving vampires in Los Angeles, subsequently becoming involved with a sultry female vampire who yearns to escape her lifestyle.
Scully's comatose body is discovered at a local hospital and her life is hanging in the balance. When Mr. X shows Mulder the high price he'd have to pay if he truly wants justice for Scully, Mulder must choose between hope and revenge.
At a remote outpost, scientists watch as their camera picks up a moving shadow on the inside of a smoldering hot volcano, too hot for any living creature to survive. Mulder and Scully arrive and notice that everyone is acting strangely.
A vegan religious cult is accused of kidnapping local teenagers for some type of ritual. Mulder and Scully begin to suspect that a different kind of conspiracy is at play when Scully sees Deep Throat's killer in town.
Mulder links a series of violent attacks at a convalescent home, including the brutal rape of a nurse, to angry spirits beyond the grave.
A pregnant police woman experiences visions that lead her to the remains of two FBI agents who went missing in the 1940s while on the trail of a serial killer that later got caught. The killings begin again but the only suspect is now 77.
Scully and Mulder hunt down a fetishist who collects pieces of the dead.
The agents investigate a murder in a small town populated by devil worshippers.
The death of a Marine, who allegedly committed suicide, unearths a disturbing truth at a Haitian refugee camp.
When someone sends Mulder and Scully obituaries showing three separate but identical men apparently having died, the agents investigate, but things take an unexpected turn when Mulder receives a call from his father.
Mulder is forced to make an impossible choice, when the alien bounty hunter gives him an ultimatum - Scully's life for Samantha's.
In a small town in Idaho, a man is killed by what seems to be an invisible elephant. Mulder's investigation into the local zoo, its owners and a local animal rights group uncovers evidence of insidious alien experiments.
The crew of a U.S. military ship that disappeared in the Norwegian Sea is found dead from what seems to be rapid aging. Thinking it's another Philadelphia Experiment, Mulder boards the ghost ship along with Scully and a local skipper.
The agents search for a killer in a Florida town inhabited by sideshow performers.
The agents investigate when a young boy's family is plagued by a series of tragic accidents.
As Scully investigates the spread of a deadly contagion at a prison, Mulder tracks down two escaped convicts infected with the disease.
Scully's former student, Det. Kelly Ryan, asks the agents to help her catch a runaway government scientist responsible for several mysterious disappearances. Mulder realizes that the man is deathly afraid of his shadow for some reason.
Reports of foxfire on a field in Dudley, Arkansas lead Mulder and Scully to a bizarre situation regarding the townsfolk. Employees of the Chaco Chicken Corporation are displaying bizarre behavior, and the death rate is slowly increasing.
Mulder receives an encrypted computer tape containing the defense department's top secret files on extraterrestrial life and becomes a target. Scully takes him to a Navajo family that unearthed a buried secret to decipher the files.
|
David Duchovny | Fox Mulder |
|
Gillian Anderson | Dana Scully |
|
Mitch Pileggi | Walter Skinner |
|
Steven Williams | Mr. X |
|
William B. Davis | Smoking Man |
|
Nicholas Lea | Alex Krycek |
|
Bruce Harwood | John Fitzgerald Byers |
|
Tom Braidwood | Melvin Frohike |
|
Dean Haglund | Richard 'Ringo' Langly |
|
Peter Donat | William Mulder |
|
Tony Shalhoub | Dr. Chester Ray Banton |
|
Callum Keith Rennie | Cemetery Groundskeeper |
|
Roger R. Cross | Private Kittel |
|
Raymond J. Barry | Senator Richard Matheson |
|
Brian Thompson | Alien Bounty Hunter |
|
Charles Martin Smith | Dr. Osbourne |
|
Christine Willes | Agent Karen E. Kosseff |
|
Michael David Simms | Senior FBI Agent |
|
Lisa Ann Beley | Student |
|
Hrothgar Mathews | Mental Patient |
|
Steve Railsback | Duane Barry |
|
Sheila Larken | Margaret Scully |
|
Andrew Johnston | Agent Barry Weiss |
|
Maggie Blue O'Hara | Young Woman |
|
Bob Wilde | FBI Agent (in hallway) |
| Edition | Season 2 |
|---|---|
| Packaging | Custom Case |
| Nr Discs | 7 |
| Screen Ratios | Fullscreen (4:3) |
| Audio Tracks | Dolby Digital Stereo [English] Dolby Digital Stereo [French] Dolby Digital Surround [English] Dolby Digital Surround [French] |
| Subtitles | Dutch | French | Greek | Italian |
| Distributor | 20th Century Fox |
| Layers | Single side, Dual layer |
| Edition Release Date | 2001 |
| Regions | Region 2 |
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