dhmac

The episode that I like best from the generally terrible Season 9 is the one titled "Lord of the Flies" - but mainly because of the nice little added feature where the main character in the episode is a mega Syd Barrett fan (i.e. the original member of Pink Floyd who basically lost it mentally and had to leave the band early on). That cool little aspect of the episode alone made it stand out for me.

(Also, Aaron Paul is in the episode in his pre-Breaking Bad acting days)

dhmac

I think Season 6 is an overall great season and Seasons 7 & 8 were where the show hit the skids (though with some highlight episodes here and there).

However, I do think the final episode of Season 8 would have been a decent series finale and then the entirety of Season 9 was a mistake that should never have happened. Without Season 9, I think the view that the X-Files took a major dive at the end would be less common.

Boba Fett

Yep. I marveled at how cinematic the show looked, even in the early year.

For me I'd rank the seasons from best to worst:
Third
Second
Fifth
First
Sixth
Fourth
Seventh (despite a low ranking, the first two episodes and X-Cops are some of my favorites)
Eighth
Ninth

lisadoris

I just rewatched the entire series too and it holds up really well. Though most folks think the show begins to tank when Duchovny left, I actually trace it a little earlier than that when the series wrapped up the conspiracy in S7. It amazes me that the Scully seemed to lose like 50 IQ points in seasons 8 and 9 which got really annoying after awhile. Don't even get me started on the series finale.

Shannon Nutt

As many have noted, the series actually got worse BEFORE David left the show...the move to Los Angeles was the nail in the coffin...the series lost all its creepiness and visual appeal when it left Canada. Of course, it lost a lot of quality staff in the move as well, which probably attributed to it.

I never thought David leaving was the biggest problem - I thought Robert Patrick did a great job as Doggett (although I was less thrilled with Annabeth Gish).

Nick Danger

The show lost its spark when it moved from Vancouver. But I think that it was really because everyone was done with it, and were only there for the money. I remember Chris Carter saying that he was ready to stop the show, and a couple of months later saying that he was continuing because Fox was giving him a lot money.

Robert Patrick was giving a great performance, but he was trying to push the show by himself.

hanshotfirst1138

Didn't Carter have the series planned out for five or six seasons and Fox pushed it beyond?

PhantomStranger

I think Carter blew his wad with the theatrical movie. I don't think he had much of a plan after it. Like the sad last season of Lost, I don't think he ever had concrete solutions mapped out to the series' most important questions. No one ever thought X-Files would become as huge as it did, so everything was made up as they went along. It worked until it didn't work.

lisadoris

Yeah that's what I read. Carter had it planned out for five seasons and Fight the Future was supposed to be the beginning of a film franchise. FOX realized that the series was a huge cash cow and wanted to keep it on the air so film got retooled and series ran far longer than it probably needed to. There are good episodes in all the seasons but there was an overall steady decline starting in S5 and 6.

robin2099

I actually thought the show was still pretty fresh when David left. Doggett was a goo substitute and it was interesting having the roles reversed where Scully was the believer and the male was the skeptic. But when Anderson was going to leave the fact that they tried to keep the show going was really ridiculous since Anabeth Gish brought nothing to it.

superdeluxe

Agree with everyone that says the show lost its steam when it left Vancouver. It felt like also that after the movie things just started to fall apart.

madcougar

I saw season 9 used at a bookstore for $8. Even though I have the other 8 seasons, I couldn't pull the trigger.

Why So Blu?

Reading this thread made me want to dust off my seasons and start from the beginning again.

superdeluxe

That is how I jumped back in again, I think someone here was doing a X-files rewatch. Inspired me enough to get through 5 seasons.

Setzer

I just watched the first 3 episodes from Season 1 that were aired on German TV in HD and it looked AMAZING! Can't wait for it to be re-aired here in HD or at least available on Blu.

Josh-da-man

The only reason I have seasons 8 & 9 on DVD is because I bought the complete series boxed set for a good price.

dhmac

I disagree with the view that the move from Vancouver to L.A. is where the show went downhill because Season 6 (the 1st season filmed in L.A.) was a great season of the show. It even had a 2-parter mid-season ("Two Fathers" / "One Son") that "as-is" could be seen as the wrapping up of the whole alien invasion mythology storyline (in that 2-parter, the rebel aliens trying to prevent alien colonization won decisively).

If Season 6 had actually been the final season of the series (and also had a decent finale tying it up just for that purpose), I think the popular view now would be that The X-Files was one of the few shows that never declined and ended well, and not (as most see it) that the show took a dive in the end.

Greg MacGuffin

Kumail Nanjiani recently started a podcast called The X-Files Files in which he works his way through the series. I haven't been keeping up with it, but I listened to the first episode and it was a lot of fun.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/...885275285?mt=2

Michael Corvin

I agree. It wasn't the move that killed X-files (it forced the writers to get more creative). Once Duchovny became more of a guest star than star, was when it took a dive. Having to write as if Mulder is still around but not on the show but every 5th episode was completely absurd. Similar to Scully in season 9.

Nick Danger

I only bought seasons 1-6 on DVD. So far as Mrs Danger knows, the conspiracy ended with Two Fathers / One Son.

hanshotfirst1138

Mrs. Danger has never heard of Google ?

Did they ever do a third repackaging which restored the omitted extras that were left off for whatever reason?

DaveyJoe

It looks great, I'm really hoping Fox puts it out on Blu soon:

hanshotfirst1138

Wouldn't they have to manually go through and scan all of the footage to get it a release on Blu?

superdeluxe

Blind or has he seen them before?

Would be fun if someone that has never watched the series do something like this.

superdeluxe

I picked up the original large sized TV seasons (the ones with the extras) then went to the slim packs when they stopped with the extras (Season 7-9?)