The 7th season of "The X-Files" found the stand alone episodes as
the stand out episodes as well. The best episodes did what the
series always did best. "Hungry" told the story of a creature that
sucks out brains to live and regrets every minute of it. It's a
compelling episode because for the first time we see the point of
view of the monster. "The Goldberg Variation" about a guy with all
the luck in the world and disaster for anyone who messes with him.
"X-Cops" plays as a witty parody of the Fox TV show "Cops". Shot in
the same style as "Cops" it perfectly captures both the absurdity
and sense of danger in that show. Although "Hollywood AD" written
and directed by David Duchovny has its moments it just doesn't gel
for me personally but does have fine performances. Garry Shandling
and Mrs. Duchovny Tea Leoni are cast as Mulder and Scully in a movie
version of one of their cases. It's a clever parody of why so many
Hollywood projects that look so promising go bad.
"The Sixth Extinction" and "Amor Fati" have a compelling stories at
their core but are overcome by some hamfisted writing by Chris
Carter. Still, the show is visually impressive and features some
strong performances. In this particular episode Scully goes to an
excavation site along the African coast to uncover the meaning of
strange markings on an alien spaceshift buried under the beach in
order to save Mulder. He has been infected by an alien virus
triggered by the rubbings from the craft's exterior that is burning
out his brain by increasing synaptic activity at breathtaking speed.
"Sein Und Zeit" and "Closure" are more successful episodes. The
first episode deals with the disappearence of a girl with an odd
note left behind apparently by her own mother. In "Closure" Mulder
discovers what truly happened to his sister after all his years of
searching. The latter episode is moving particularly if you've
followed the series from the first episode. In "En Ami" the
Cigarette Smoking Man returns seeking Scully's help; he claims to be
dying and he also claims that he and Scully can save the lives of
others that, like Scully, have been abducted and returned. To this
he needs her help and she must trust him. Actress Gillian Anderson
writes and directs the marvelous "All Things". The season closes the
way the show began with a follow up to an episode from the first
season involving abducted teenagers. The aftermath of these events
set up another story arc involving another nasty alien plot.
This set comes with commentary tracks on "First Person Shooter by
Chris Carter, Gillian Anderson on "All Things" and writer Vince
Gilligan on "Je Sohaite". A couple of episodes have deleted scenes
that you can integrate into the episode by going to the menu and
activating it. There are also a number of international language
clips as well but the last disc that featured the special effects
featurettes and documentary are NOT included here as part of this
set. Image and sound qualtiy are extremely good as they feature the
original transfers done for the previous set.
Skinner and Michael Kritschgau work
desperately to attempt to discover what is wrong with Mulder,
who is imprisoned by his own frenetic brain activity, but
they are unaware of Agent Fowley’s duplicity. Meanwhile, in
Africa, Scully and a professor unravel the secrets of the
spaceship buried on the Ivory Coast, which may prove that
life originated elsewhere, and all religion was based on the
Navajo contact with alien life.
Returning to Washington to find Mulder gone,
Scully joins Kritschgau and Skinner - who is still being
forced into betrayal by Krycek - to find her partner.
However, the Cigarette-Smoking Man has taken Mulder to a
place where all his problems are gone...or so it seems. And
Diana Fowley is forced to make a choice about her loyalties.
In a unique episode told from the
point-of-view of the “monster”, a fast-food employee with
unusual cravings becomes the focus of an FBI investigation.
The victims appear with no brain and a suction hole in the
forehead.
The head of the
Millennium Group, which believes the apocalypse will
happen on the new year of 2000, resurrects the dead for use
in the bringing about of the apocalypse, and Mulder and
Scully have to ask the help of criminal profiler Frank
Black, a man with former experience with the shadowy group.
When a school student becomes the prime
suspect in the bizarre murder of a police officer, Mulder
and Scully are sent to investigate. They discover that the
boy and a couple of friends have been playing with the
ability to accelerate their movements to a frequency the
human eye can’t perceive.
Mulder and Scully meet Henry Weems, who
appears to be the luckiest man in the world. But - if he’s
so lucky - why is he on the run from the mob, and why is
everyone around him so unlucky?
Reverend Orison releases Donnie Pfaster,
Scully’s former kidnapper ("Irresistible"
Season 2), from jail in the hopes of passing judgement
on him. What he discovers instead is that he has released
pure evil, and it’s headed for Scully....
The Amazing Maleeni, a small-time magician,
performs an amazing feat to impress a heckler - he turns his
head 360 degrees. So when he is later found without a head
at all, Mulder and Scully arrive on the case and discover an
angry ex-con, an unimpressed rival, and Maleeni’s twin
brother all seem to have something to do with the plan to
rob a major bank.
When a small town church is the site of a
number of ritualistic-like murders, fingers are pointed to
the Church of God with Signs and Wonders, a church where the
Bible is read literally, and punishment is dealt deftly. But
soon the agents realise that the difference between the
peaceful religious and the fanatics may not be very much at
all.
While investigating the bizarre disappearance
of a young girl from her home, Mulder becomes obsessed with
the number of children who have vanished in similar ways.
Scully’s fears that he is emotionally involved due to his
sister’s disappearance 27 years earlier are heightened when
Mulder’s mother dies, apparently of suicide.
As Mulder is forced to accept that his
mother’s death was by her own hand, he is led by a man whose
son disappeared years earlier to another truth - that his
sister may be among the souls taken by ‘walk-ins’, saving
the souls of children doomed to live unhappy lives.
Together, they embark on a journey that will reveal to
Mulder the truth about his sister’s disappearance.
A filming of an episode of
COPS gets in the way of the investigation by Mulder
and Scully of a monster that feeds on fear. While Mulder
embraces the publicity, Scully is not so sure...
The Lone Gunmen summon Mulder and Scully to a
virtual reality firm when the new game they have helped
design is thwarted by a bizarre female computer character
whose power is much more than virtual.
After a prominent doctor discovers his
father-in-law dead, the word ‘Theef’ written on the wall in
blood, Mulder suspects hexcraft may be the source of threats
against his family.
After a young boy with cancer, whose parents
don’t believe in medical treatment because it is against
God’s will, recovers miraculously, Scully is intrigued. What
she soon discovers is that his cure is not miraculous, but
scientific - the work of the Cigarette-Smoking Man. Eager,
if wary, to learn of the truth behind his secrets, Scully
agrees to travel with him to get the cure to all mankind’s
diseases... but the catch is that she can’t tell Mulder.
On two separate stakeouts, Mulder and Scully
search for elusive killers - Scully in an abandoned
warehouse in a dirty neighbourhood, and Mulder in cosy
suburbia.
While Mulder is away in England, Scully is
led by coincidences, chance, fate and possibly a higher
power to a married man whom she had an affair with during
medical school, and a look at the life she didn’t choose,
forcing her to make choices about her future.
While protecting a man due to testify against
the
Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the
witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is
that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret...
An entrepreneurial Hollywood producer, and
college friend of Skinner, picks up the idea for a film
based on the X-Files, however the agents find that the level
of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat
questionable.
In Je Souhaite — French for “I wish” —
Mulder and Scully find a man and his dim-bulbed,
wheelchair-bound brother who choose three wishes which
backfire increasingly. The cause of which is an indifferent
genie whose willingness to grant wishes belies a deeper
motive.
Mulder and Scully return to the site of their
first investigation together when a series of abductions
take place. However, Scully’s failing health, and Mulder’s
concern that she is in danger, cause him to take her off the
case. Meanwhile, the Cigarette-Smoking Man - on his deathbed
- reunites with Marita and Krycek in an attempt to revive
the project, unaware that the tables are about to be turned;
Scully is stunned by a medical revelation; and Mulder and
Skinner take a trip to the woods in Oregon, which ends in
tragedy...
