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Techtite's DVD Reviews! |
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X-Files, Season 2
Click picture to order this 7-disc DVD collection A Techtite ReviewThe Film :
As I said in my review of the DVD collection for X-Files season 1, there's a lot to love about the first seasons of this award-winning series. While I had a lot to say about the series' 1999-2000, season #7 --and the downward spiral of the series-- it's still nice to see its best seasons preserved, in their entirety, on DVD. Government conspiracy theories, aliens, unsolved, mysterious mysteries; it's all here, in what is arguably the best season of the series. If anything, writers for the series now should probably buy these collection volumes themselves, to remember what made the original episodes so incredible. As of the fall season for 1994, Chris Carter had quite a phenomenon on his hands, though he also had one snag: Gillian Anderson was quite pregnant. With her lead character (Dana Scully) not in a relationship of any kind, it was important to "cover up" the pregnancy, though that didn't mean they could also use the pregnancy to their advantage. A brilliantly handled story arc had Scully --one of the lead characters of the entire show-- kidnapped, for several episodes! Such a plot arc was as bold as when Captain Picard was taken over by Borg in Star Trek TNG. Much like that popular cliffhanger, Scully's kidnapping/abduction gave the feeling that anything could happen, even to one of the leads of the series. While the thought of a possible alien abduction is not a novel concept for X-Files, what the writers and actors did with the event, afterwards, was excellently handled. On the one hand, there was Mulder (David Duchovney), who dealt with the possibility that the same thing that happened to his long-lost sister years ago, had now happened to his newest colleague and friend. Meanwhile, Scully (Gillian Anderson) would try to discern what actually happened to her, as her realistic side kept telling her she was merely kidnapped by fanatics, though her open-minded side kept looking at the evidence of an alien-assisted abduction. The performances were handled brilliantly, and Anderson was even able to have a few weeks of pregnancy leave at the same time! Talk about a win-win situation; the resulting season even won several awards. Many fans of Deep Space 9 and Babylon 5 --both struggling new shows in 1994-- would retort that their show was better than X-files. However, this is just sour grapes. After all, those syndicated sci-fi shows had to deal with ratings wars galore just to survive, while X-Files was sitting pretty on the Fox network, every Friday night, right on prime time! Call it mere better publicity if you will, but the show did win far more impressive Emmys and Golden Globes, including the coveted award for Best Drama Series on TV. Take the side of either space-station series, if you will; I'd have to agree with the voters in both awards shows, and admit that X-files, in 1994, was far more entertaining. Give me Scully and Mulder over Warp Nacelle technobabble any day of the week. The DVD : Like Season 1, the entire season is provided, uncut, without a single episode absent! 25 episodes in all, on 7 DVDs. These DVDs are put in a nice, fold-out booklet form of container, with a shiny, artistic slipcover to keep it from opening up on the shelf. Disc #7 even leaves room for some impressive bonus features, in addition to that season's finale. A documentary is included about season 2, as well as a video commentary from Chris Carter himself, about the second season. FX shots are explored in an additional featurette, and the promo spots for each episode (the commercials promoting each episode on TV) are included as well. The best bonuses, however, are the behind the scenes clips and deleted scenes. Three behind the scenes clips include building the Conning tower shown in the episode "End Game," as well as how they converted a rock quarry into the New Mexico desert for the season finale, "Anasazi," and a third behind the scenes clip of Gillian Anderson preparing to eat a bug for an episode titled, of course, "Humbug." Her cheerful demeanor is quite different than her often serious-minded character on the show, and it makes for one of the most amusing behind the scenes clips on the disc. Deleted scenes admittedly aren't that grand. Among the four deleted scenes offered is one from the episode "Sleepless," of the character named only X (Natalija Nogulich). From the episode simply named "3," you get to see Kristen Kilar talk to a fireman (Brad Loree); no big deal there. From "Humbug" is a scene where Scully and Mulder are served by a hermaphrodite waitress. Lastly, the season finale "Anasazi" had a deleted scene included here, during the moment when they capture the thinker. Admittedly, this is not the best deleted scene collection ever offered. Some might say that the deleted scenes offered from the pilot episode in the Season 1 collection were much more intriguing, even if they only involved one single episode (they involved the original pilot episode concept, that Scully would begin the series with a steady boyfriend). However, deleted scenes in a collection of 7 DVDs is completely immaterial. There's more than enough reason to buy this collection, if only as one of the best signs of why X-Files has lasted for over seven seasons.
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