The X Files: Season 5 DVD – Robert Patrick, Tom Braidwood

The fifth season of The X-Files is the one in which the ongoing alien conspiracy arc really takes over, building towards box-office glory for the inevitable cinematic leap in The X-Files Movie (1998). The series opener “Redux” begins with Mulder having been framed for everything going. Scully finally sees a UFO (“The Red and the Black”) before being presented with a potential daughter (the two-part “Christmas Carol” and “Emily”). By “The End”, there’s an enormous tangle of threads for the big-screen adaptation to unravel (or not, as it turned out). Cigarette Smoking Man is being hunted, playing every side against the middle, as well as chasing after information on Mulder’s sister. Krycek is back, too, as is an old flame for Mulder in the shape of Agent Diana Fowley. If that wasn’t enough to goad viewers into the cinema, there was the Lone Gunmen’s 1989-set back story (“Unusual Suspects”, with Richard Belzer playing his Homicide: Life on the Streets character), a musical number in the black and white Frankenstein homage “Post Modern Prometheus”, and scripts co-written by Stephen King (“Chinga”), William Gibson (“Kill Switch”), and even Darren McGavin (who had inspired the show as Kolchak: The Night Stalker) in “Travellers”. On the DVD: The X-Files, Season 5 extras include Chris Carter’s commentary over “Post Modern Prometheus”, which reveals the decision making behind shooting in black and white as well as the problems it caused. A second commentary is from writer/coproducer John Shiban on “Pine Bluff Variant”, where he openly admits the influence of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Across the six discs (only 20 episodes because of the movie of course) you get credits for every episode, their TV promo spots, deleted and international versions of several scenes (some with commentary from Carter), and a couple of TV featurettes. The best of these is “The Truth About Season 5”, talking to an excited Dean Haglund (Langly) amongst other crew members.–Paul Tonks