Bye, bye, Vancouver! Season six begins with production switching from dark, cold, and gloomy Vancouver to sunny and warm Los Angeles. The producers let us know immediately by having the first shot of the teaser be of the bright, hot sun. While the fitting atmosphere of Vancouver is missed, the producers do their best to keep the mood of the X-Files by keeping all the inside locations dark and shadowy and shooting plenty of night scenes. The van in the teaser of the episode has "Roush Technologies" on the side, a nice throw-back reference to Redux II from the previous season. Roush is the shady company for whom Blevins worked before he was outed. CSM's indifference to others is illustrated once more as he enters a sterilized operating room while smoking a cigarette. The man has no conscience. It's great to see the dramatic tension that Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender bring to the X-Files. They are characters that you love to hate, as they appear to try to thwart Mulder's work on the X-Files. A.D. Kersh's introduction I found to be eerily similar to CSM's. No dialogue, just a short cameo. Even though the scenery has changed, the writers, directors and actors are still the same, and the X-Files is as strong as ever.
8 Reviews
What happened to the alien skin evidence?
amppcguru21 February 2020
Warning: Spoilers
I love the x-files but I'm rewatching for the umpteenth time & notice how many plot holes keep bugging me. Mulder finds the alien skin in the reactor but for some unknown reason he doesn't keep it as evidence? Also how many episodes running around without a camera to document proof but instead are missing every opportunity without one. I know they had to in order to build up the tension for dramatic effect but it's frustrating watching professional investigation but failing to collect basic evidence at every turn.
Great start to series 6.
Sleepin_Dragon11 September 2022
In the words of Sheryl Crow, This is L. A. a new series, and a new era begins, so long Vancouver, welcome sunshine and blue skies.
Foolishly I picked this up before watching the movie, so initially some of it didn't make sense, but after a second viewing, and the movie, things became a lot clearer.
Excellent, it's a great start to series 6, there's a lot happening, but it's cohesive, it's thoroughly entertaining. The very X Files themselves are in dire straits, new faces, familiar cover ups.
I do have to take issue with one thing, I'm not sure if Scully's scepticism was overplayed a little bit, is she deliberately stubborn, or just a little naive, unwilling, or too obstinate to believe what's going on right in front of her eyes. There's going to come a point where they're guilty of over egging the pudding.
8/10.
Foolishly I picked this up before watching the movie, so initially some of it didn't make sense, but after a second viewing, and the movie, things became a lot clearer.
Excellent, it's a great start to series 6, there's a lot happening, but it's cohesive, it's thoroughly entertaining. The very X Files themselves are in dire straits, new faces, familiar cover ups.
I do have to take issue with one thing, I'm not sure if Scully's scepticism was overplayed a little bit, is she deliberately stubborn, or just a little naive, unwilling, or too obstinate to believe what's going on right in front of her eyes. There's going to come a point where they're guilty of over egging the pudding.
8/10.
In the beginning, there was light.
AngelLysh3 November 2011
Warning: Spoilers
I remember being 13 and deciding I was going to watch The X-Files and that would be my thing, so I watched re-runs during the summer and then I watched this with the rest of America and I was confused as heck. Now I'm going through a complete re-watch and it's nice to be an adult and back where I started again.
If you read IMDb user reviews, you get the sense from the last few episodes in season 5 that there's a pending doom for The X-Files: their move to Los Angeles. The episode starts out sunny and you can tell off the bat we're not in Kansas anymore. Even Mulder wears a short sleeve polo at one point and I thought this was Arcadia already. The story tries to tie the movie and The End together and it succeeds, but it's really grasping. There's the alien growing on the inside, the alien virus, and then the return of Gibson Praise. Diana Fowley is back and I love to hate her. I'm not even sure why...perhaps my inner Scully. And she's paired with Spender, who gets his own Luke/Vader moment with CSM. I love that The X-Files has been reopened but the FBI decides to not assign its two most eligible agents to the unit and instead puts Fowley and Spender in the basement. And I love that Mulder and Scully still try to work it anyways. Mostly Mulder, who is incredibly frustrated with Scully and her science most of the episode, but she's really trying believe and just fully can't without scientific evidence.
Overall, it's a great episode and a great open for the season. I was sure it would seem like it was all going downhill from here, and yes, it's not season 3 or 4 (imo the best seasons), but our favorite agents are still there and there's nothing wrong with a little sun.
If you read IMDb user reviews, you get the sense from the last few episodes in season 5 that there's a pending doom for The X-Files: their move to Los Angeles. The episode starts out sunny and you can tell off the bat we're not in Kansas anymore. Even Mulder wears a short sleeve polo at one point and I thought this was Arcadia already. The story tries to tie the movie and The End together and it succeeds, but it's really grasping. There's the alien growing on the inside, the alien virus, and then the return of Gibson Praise. Diana Fowley is back and I love to hate her. I'm not even sure why...perhaps my inner Scully. And she's paired with Spender, who gets his own Luke/Vader moment with CSM. I love that The X-Files has been reopened but the FBI decides to not assign its two most eligible agents to the unit and instead puts Fowley and Spender in the basement. And I love that Mulder and Scully still try to work it anyways. Mostly Mulder, who is incredibly frustrated with Scully and her science most of the episode, but she's really trying believe and just fully can't without scientific evidence.
Overall, it's a great episode and a great open for the season. I was sure it would seem like it was all going downhill from here, and yes, it's not season 3 or 4 (imo the best seasons), but our favorite agents are still there and there's nothing wrong with a little sun.
I'm sorry, Scully, but this time your science is wrong.
Sanpaco1321 November 2009
Warning: Spoilers
My main problem with this is the fact that they try to add continuity but it doesn't work. Instead of trying to make it continuous with the previous episode, they try to make it continuous with the movie that came out over the summer. They problem with this is that the movie has no continuity with the previous episode. They don't ever mention Gibson Praise, or Jeffrey Spender, or the burning of the X Files office, or any of that. Yet suddenly at the beginning of this episode we are thrown into a committee talking about the trip to Antarctica and Scully's infection with the virus and Mulder saving her etc. I do think the movie is important to the story, it just seemed like they were trying to make the premiere more of a continuation of that than of the previous episode where we get a feeling of "To Be Continued..." Oh well, the episode at least has some decent explanation into the alien virus for anyone who didn't get what was going on in the movie. And we also learn more about Gibson Praise and his ability. In fact they tie in together. The alien virus turns into the evil alien monster thing when it is born but we learn that after some time it then turns into a gray. Also the alien DNA found in the virus is also found in the alien monster, and it is also found in the human genetic makeup as "junk DNA". This junk strand is active in Gibson Praise which is what gives him his ability. The other important revelation with this is that human are by definition extra terrestrial. Or at least, we are related to the alien species in some way or another. Almost as if to say we evolved from little green men rather than little hairy men. I also have a slight problem with Scully in this episode. Usually I can back her zeal to find scientific proof before accepting something as true, but if I were Mulder I too would have been angry with her unwillingness to believe what I had seen as I rescued her from a giant UFO filled with thousands of bodies, gestating alien monsters. Give Mulder some credit Scully. Its OK to say even at the very least, "I believe you but I still want to find scientific proof of it." She is basically calling Mulder a liar by not accepting something he saw with his own eyes as she was hanging uselessly over his shoulder. Anyway, I don't have much else to say. 8 out of 10 again.
The Beginning of a great season
koalablue_19939 August 2008
This episode picks up where the film "Fight for the Future" left off. Even though the X-Files are no longer filmed in Vancouver, they are as good as ever. L.A had its downside, since the gloomy and creepy atmosphere of Vancouver is completely gone it doesn't quite feel the same. The cinematography is just as good as a feature film. I love the teaser for this episode, it reminded me of the movie "Alien" and the gore was similar too. Cigar Smoking Man is as evil as ever, when he starts talking about breaking the human spirit gave me chills. Overall a great season opener to a fantastic X-Files season. And Scully is as hot as ever.
"I'm a very special lab rat."
classicsoncall22 July 2017
Warning: Spoilers
The opener for Season Six does a credible job of picking things up from both the prior season cliffhanger and "The X-Files Movie: Fight the Future". Mulder's in front of an FBI committee headed by Assistant Director Maslin (Wendie Malick) trying to defend the credibility of what he's experienced in the Antarctic, while both he and Scully are being replaced on the X-Files by Special Agents Spender (Chris Owens) and Diana Fowley (Mimi Rogers).
If you really pay attention to these stories, you can see how the writers gloss over certain aspects of previous events by waving sort of a magic wand. Like Mulder stating that he can recover most of his prior X-Files work by introducing moisture to the damaged documents and reassembling a lot of the data in bits and pieces. What??? It should be that simple. Or how about a virus being responsible for the introduction of a completely foreign body inside a human, and an extraterrestrial biological entity no less. At least with "Alien", you had a larval introduction into a host body explaining how it managed to grow and evolve into a chest-burster. Scully might have been right about the lack of science here.
With the chess wunderkind Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka) back, the story line now takes an ominous turn, with the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) rising to new levels of villainous larceny. You know, when Scully remarked that Gibson's doctors did a good job of stitching up his head, I had to wonder what a bad job looked like. Man, the kid really did take on the appearance of Frankenstein. Anyway, Gibson is revealed to have the same virus in his body that Scully experienced, and a link is suggested between alien DNA existing in suspended form in all humans, though it's 'on switch' has been activated in Gibson.
Aside from all the alien/extraterrestrial stuff going on, what's really threatening in this story is the Cigarette Smoking Man confronting his son Spender with the suggestion of 'simple but extreme solutions' by way of handling Mulder, who's been officially barred from intervening in X-Files related cases along with Scully. Equally ominous is his qualifier - "You can kill a man, but you can't kill what he stands for". In setting up Season Six, you couldn't have asked for a more mysterious and mind bending introduction.
If you really pay attention to these stories, you can see how the writers gloss over certain aspects of previous events by waving sort of a magic wand. Like Mulder stating that he can recover most of his prior X-Files work by introducing moisture to the damaged documents and reassembling a lot of the data in bits and pieces. What??? It should be that simple. Or how about a virus being responsible for the introduction of a completely foreign body inside a human, and an extraterrestrial biological entity no less. At least with "Alien", you had a larval introduction into a host body explaining how it managed to grow and evolve into a chest-burster. Scully might have been right about the lack of science here.
With the chess wunderkind Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka) back, the story line now takes an ominous turn, with the Cigarette Smoking Man (William B. Davis) rising to new levels of villainous larceny. You know, when Scully remarked that Gibson's doctors did a good job of stitching up his head, I had to wonder what a bad job looked like. Man, the kid really did take on the appearance of Frankenstein. Anyway, Gibson is revealed to have the same virus in his body that Scully experienced, and a link is suggested between alien DNA existing in suspended form in all humans, though it's 'on switch' has been activated in Gibson.
Aside from all the alien/extraterrestrial stuff going on, what's really threatening in this story is the Cigarette Smoking Man confronting his son Spender with the suggestion of 'simple but extreme solutions' by way of handling Mulder, who's been officially barred from intervening in X-Files related cases along with Scully. Equally ominous is his qualifier - "You can kill a man, but you can't kill what he stands for". In setting up Season Six, you couldn't have asked for a more mysterious and mind bending introduction.
What does it take SCULLY!
james-797029 December 2018
Does it take an alien to bite you in the a$$ SCULLY!!! Seriously, She wrecked my nerves with this science junk! How much more do she have to see to at least say "Yes I Believe"!
Over 5 years of seeing the most unbelievable with her eyes and she acts completely brainwashed! When agent Fowley came into the scene at least she believes! Yet Scully is VERY jealous of this lol
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