The midpoint of what would be a nine-season show, the
fifth season of The X-Files (the first to be put on DVD in
anamorphic widescreen format) gives fans a heavy heaping of what
they love. For the mythology buffs, riveting episodes from the
season bookends "Redux" and "The End" to several episodes in between
tease with new revelations about the vast government conspiracies
and alien invasion plot lines sketched in earlier seasons. But
enough questions are left unanswered for the theatrical X-Files
movie, which was released the subsequent summer, and the seasons
that followed. Supporting characters like the Lone Gunmen, Agent
Krycek, the Pusher Robert Modell, and Fox's father and sister Bill
and Samantha Mulder are flushed out in more detail in several
episodes that occasionally jump back in time to cover the prehistory
of the X-files. New chess pieces are introduced, each raising new
questions: the clairvoyant child Gibson Praise, Agent Spender,
faceless alien resistance fighters with pyromaniacal tendencies, a
child who may be Scully's, and Mulder's old flame, agent Diana
Fowley (Mimi Rogers). All the time, no one knows who will be
assassinated next, who is or isn't dead, just who isn't potentially
a child of the Cigarette Smoking Man, and why the base of the neck
is everyone's vulnerable spot. The creature feature stand-alone
episodes vary in quality, but all are redeemed by the outrageously
funny self-parody episode "Bad Blood," a fan favorite that guest
stars Luke Wilson as a small-town sheriff who catches Scully's eye.
Finally, "shippers" (fans who would love nothing better than to
see Mulder and Scully act upon their feelings for each other) get a
heavy dose of the usual sexual innuendo and lingering, tender
glances between the attractive costars. Mimi Rogers and Luke Wilson
incite palpable jealousy between the leads; the appearance of a
wedding band on Mulder's hand in a back story hints at stories not
told; and the usual extreme and dimly lit crises illustrate just how
far Mulder and Scully will go for each other. In the end, the
complexities of their relationship may be the most tense and
intriguing of all the mysteries explored by this epic television
series. --Eugene Wei
Scully helps Mulder fake his death, but comes
under intense scrutiny; Skinner is suspected as the traitor
inside the FBI; and Mulder breaks into the Department of
Defense in a desperate bid to save Scully, but while doing
so he finds himself facing the truth about the aliens he has
been chasing.
While Scully lies on her deathbed; the
Smoking Man makes an important decision in helping Mulder.
But even as events come to a climax, Mulder finds his belief
in his crusade has all but collapsed.
Filmed in black-and-white, The Post-Modern
Prometheus chronicles Mulder and Scully’s investigation
when a letter from a single mother leads them to a small
mid-Western town where a modern-day version of
Frankenstein's monster lurks,
Jerry Springer is an obsession, and
Cher plays a significant part.
Scully takes a vacation to Maine, where she
encounters a bizarre case where the victims appear to have
inflicted wounds upon themselves — apparently at the behest
of a strange young girl. The phone conversation is similar
to the War of The Coprophages (season 3)
Though Scully is skeptical, the agents
investigate the strange death of a computer genius, only to
become targets of an unlikely killer capable of the worst
kind of torture. The episode is co-written by
cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson.
While investigating bizarre exsanguinations
in Texas, Mulder kills a teenage boy whom he "mistakes" for
a vampire. Awaiting a meeting with Skinner, Mulder and
Scully attempt to get their stories “straight” by relating
to each other their differing versions of what happened
during their investigation. Gillian Anderson voted this her
favorite episode.
Scully forms a bond with Cassandra Spender, a
woman who claims to have been abducted by aliens. While
Mulder’s disbelief in the alien conspiracy is now
questioned, he finds himself with more personal threats at
the FBI.
With Cassandra Spender missing, and her son
Jeffrey angrily attempting to push his way up in the FBI,
Mulder has Scully put under hypnosis to learn the truth. The
Syndicate, meanwhile, quicken their tests for the alien
vaccine, sacrificing their own to do so.
In 1990, a bizarre murder leads young agent
Fox Mulder to question a former FBI Agent who investigated
one of the first X-Files dating back to the 1950s — a case
which may have involved Mulder’s father.
Agents Mulder and Scully investigate a murder
that seems to have been committed by a blind woman, but
Mulder suspects that her involvement is not what it seems.
The unexplained death of a young handicapped
girl prompts Father McCue to ask Scully for her help, but
her investigation leads her to a mystery she’s afraid to
understand.
The assassination of a chess grand master
leads Mulder and Scully into an investigation that they soon
discover strikes at the heart of the X-Files when they learn
that the real target was a telepathic boy named
Gibson Praise. While Agent Spender attempts to keep the
investigation to himself, Mulder and Scully are joined by
Agent Diana Fowley, a woman with a history with Mulder, to
investigate it. What they discover leads the Smoking Man to
strike back at them like never before.
