X-Files Seasons - which to get?
 

Hello

My wife made a strange request the other day by asking if I could get the X-Files DVD's. Of course we watched it religously every night in its hayday like we follow 24 and CSI today. She caught some reruns the other night and just made the comment she missed the show allot and wondered about the DVD's. SHould I grab the Season 1 and go from there or what?

Kenny J

To me the best years are season 1-5, with the last episode appropiately called The End and pick up the movie as a nice bonus. After that, season 6 and on starts the slow steady decline of the show.

And to slightly go off topic, I am still waiting for a nice complete series of the show.:)

For the most part, if you don't really care about which version you get (old style 7 disc as opposed to new style 6 disc) then I would suggest starting from Season 1 and just going for the whole set. Someone somewhere usually has them on sale and you can generally pick all 9 seasons up for about $200 total.

Someone recently had them as part of a BOGO, and WalMart had them online for $20, so it's really just a case of doing some shopping around and you'll get some good prices.

I got mine for 20 bucks from best buy, just the first season though. The dvd sets with all the special features are around 70-90 bucks I think.

I disagree with this. Season 6 was a little lighter and less dark than the first five, but there were still plenty of good episodes. IMO, Seasons 8 and 9 were the weakest, but there were still some good eps. If you're gonna watch the series, you might as well watch the whole thing. If not, watching the mythology episodes is pretty much pointless.

bestbuy.com has them all for 19.99. been thinking about picking up a couple myself. when I went to my best buy store they had all the seasons except season 1 in stock...go figure...

I just got them all even though Season 2 is the weakest of the first 6 seasons. 7 - 9 just to complete the series. They were OK

2-5 were the best though you may as well get 1 to start off. Stopping at 5 is actually also a fairly reasonable closure.

If you are a true X-Files fan then all 9 seasons are worth having. Yes, the later seasons 8 & 9 that had no Mulder where not the best but IMO all the X-Files seasons are great! Even the spin-offs Lone Gunmen and Millinium are top notch! Be a great guy and buy them all!

I have them all simply because I'm a big fan of the show. I payed a lot of money too back when they weren't practically giving them away. All the seasons have good episodes, but some more then others. Seasons 1-6 are my favorites, 7 has a few good stand alones but the mythology isn't as good. 8-9 are pretty terrible IMO especially the finally "The Truth" in season 9. I'd start with season 1 and work your way up, all the seasons have fairly decent extras, not sure how the new versions are in that regard though, I think they're missing the bonus disc. Be sure to get the movie too, which I thought was excellent.

The way the screwed with the show just to keep it going made the mythology kind of pointless anyway.

To a certain extent, they are almost stand-alones themselves if you really are trying to find any answers to some of the fascinating questions that the earlier seasons presented us with.

I still can't say with any certainty what REALLY happened to Samantha. And they screwed that up even before Mulder left.

Season 1 is pretty darn good considering they were just getting going and not even sure there would be a season 2. I believe the X-Files was the first show where the internet became a huge factor in getting fans together to chat about a show and make a studio aware that fans were watching and wanting more. "Eve" still freaks me out. I'd love to see how those girls turned out.

Reyes gets unfairly criticized, but I think her and Doggett were very interesting and brought something new. It's been said many times before, but they should have let the X-Files go and, if they were determined to try and milk the franchise, use those 2 new characters in an continuation of the X-Files in some other fashion.

Season 9 is really the only season that has less than 5 good episodes and the finale was one of the worst ever.

But they could redeem themselves in a big way by giving us a 2nd motion picture and, instead, CC disappeared, Gillian Anderson is British, and Duchovny continues to make really good movies like "Trust the Man."

I own all 9, but I find myself watching only the first 2 or 3 seasons lately when I'm in the mood. Not because 4, 5, and 6 weren't good or 7 wasn't ok and 8 average, but the old shows really have a dated feel and look now and when I watch from the beginning it almost feels new again. And no matter how many times I see it happen, I can't believe it when they kill off

As others have done, even watching the show to the bitter end, I only have seasons 1-5 plus the movie. That's about as much "closure" as you can get without enduring some of those awful episodes in the last 4 seasons. Yes, there were a few solid outings in the later years, but not enough to warrant a purchase (or shelf space).

The new slim sets have a great price reduction over the old ones. I remember paying like $90 or more per set for the first few seasons. Now you can get them for under $30 if you look around. Wow, what a difference.

I like the first five seasons the best; season 4 is probably my favorite. But if you really like the show it's well worth it to get all of them since they're so cheap now. I really the last two seasons went downhill, but are still worth watching if you're a fan.

Who let Chris Carter on the message boards?

But seriously, I own the first eight seasons. For me, the season finale of that season had very good closure. However as a whole, I found that season very weak. I just couldn't pull the trigger on the ninth season and by "pull the trigger," I mean "watch" as I watched the first few minutes with Lucy Lawless and said "I'm not going to watch this without Mulder." So I have no informed opinion on the ninth season.

Being a big X-Files fan I own all 9 sets, the movie, and both spin-off series. What I want to know is...Has anyone bought the original 9 seasons releases PLUS the 9 re-release slimcase versions? I was very tempted to go for it as the 9 new releases take up alot less room than the original sets but being the fool that I am I bought each and every original season set the day they were released and I paid alot for all 9, it makes me cringe knowing how much I would probably get for them on Ebay if I was to sell...

I concur with this and that's where I stopped buying the DVDs as well, and I was someone who watched the show on broadcast through to the bitter end. Season 5 was the show's peak, and it's all down hill from there. The Season 5 finale leaves some storylines open, but to be honest even if you watch all 9 seasons you'll never get a satisfying sense of closure. The show's mythology was so f*cked around with in the last few seasons that it constantly contradicts itself and makes no sense at all. The series finale was the worst 2 hours of television I've ever endured.

I'm such a huge fan I have the entire series, bought as released for approximately $80-90 each (and I prefer the digipak versions to the slimcases). I also have the film, of course, as well as all the later Mythology sets (for the extras). I also have all the other Ten Thirteen shows, The Lone Gunmen, Harsh Realm and Millennium.

For those that stopped watching after the fifth season and are complaining about the loose ends it left open...the Season 6 two parter Two Fathers/ One Son tied up most of the alien colonization, black oil and faceless rebels storyline. They kind of started a new Mythology at the end of Season 6 with the Sixth Extinction.

I ended up buying the whole thing. I agree that season 8 sucked. I hated it when is first aired and hated it again last year when I re-watched the whole series. But I thought season 9 showed some promise. It was a huge step up from season 8.

Of course there are those who think season 9 is worse, but I think that's because of the departure of David Duchovny. I think if you can move past his abscence, it's a decent season. Not one of the better seasons of course, but not the worst.

Oh, I certainly disagree. Season 8 had a couple of decent episodes, but all of Season 9 was completely unwatchable. Remembering the Brady Bunch episode still makes me a little queazy.

I'd go through Season 6. I agree with benh911. S6 is better than S5. The Dreamland 1 & 2 episodes alone make it worth the price of S6. Plus there are several other good to great stand alone episodes. The conspiracy episodes are a complete mess at this point, but there are plenty of stand alone episodes to make S6 worthwhile.

K&A Jones, there was a thread recently in the TV forum about whether or not the XFiles has held up over the years. You might want to check that one out too.

Wow, I didn't think X-Files had such a strong following. When I did this post I figured maybe a couple of opinions at best but this has been some great input. I still feel the early stuff was the best simply that at the time nothing was like it and it really grabbed you. But the later stuff wasn't to bad especially with the "black goo" and it's meaning. Much appreciated for all and for remembering some great TV moments.


Kenny J.

PS- On a side note we stated talking about "Millennium" tonight when we saw a preview of another "Pumpkinhead" for SCi-Fi.

The way I see it, seasons 1-5 were the best, and it's all downhill from there. Just keep watching with the understanding that each successive season will just get worse. If you really hated six, then don't bother with anything else.

Personally, to me the show ended with season seven... everything after that and it just completely fell apart...

I actually have the black oil problem with my eyes.

Anyone think drops might help?

Aye Seasons 1-5 thru Movie where perfection for alot fans. That would be save bet. If your still hooked you can watch the "dream" seasons after :)

Well I couldn't resist and with the wife's blessing we got the whole series 1 thru 9. Someone had the new slim pack series for $230 shipped and I took it. From what I've read the quality on the transfer is pretty good and with half of the set being in widescreen is great. I know almost all said season's 1 to 6 were a must and the other 3 were so-so but there's still some good stuff in there. Can't wait for our X-Files Marathon.

Kenny and Alice

Well, good decision. Believe me those who claim things went downhill after season 5 are over-stating their case. You will find much enjoyment all the way through season 7. It's simply not always up to the same level as those first 5, but better than most dramas you'll ever see. And 8 isn't terrible. Season 9, indeed, is awful, but wouldn't you hate yourself for not seeing how they ended things even if it was stupid and dull?

Just one tip before you start watching. There are a lot of characters, most of them supporting and guest characters on this show along with the main character of Mulder and Scully, but you must always remember one thing:

Trust No One

Too bad you went for the slimcases. Apart from better packaging, the digipak versions, as I understand, contain more extras, as sometimes the last disc was left off in the slimcase re-releases.

For a $30 difference per set, I'd be willing to sacrifice those extras. Of course, I'm not a die-hard X-Files fan.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but in one or two instances the slimcase versions omitting the extras disc has resulted in any episodes spilling over onto that disc being also removed from the set.

So if you are correct, some of these slim versions might not contain every episiode of certain seasons? What a crazy thing that would be.

Not true. In fact, some of the seasons, (can't remember which) still had the extra features on them.

The information should be here somewhere in an old thread, or just google it.

But if I recall, no episodes were lost, and some of the sets had all or most of the special features redistributed over the 6 discs, but there were definitely some seasons that had some missing special features.

The final episode of season 2 was accidentally removed from some Canadian sets. Other than that, they're complete. Just make sure disc 6 of season 2 has five episodes (the final episode is Anasazi).

As for bonus material, all seasons have the commentaries, deleted scenes, cast lists and international clips.

In addition to that, seasons 6-8 contain all the original bonus material.