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38 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
unusual season from the final years of THE X FILES, August 22, 2006
Season 8 (21 episodes airing 2000-2001) was the most atypical of all nine years of THE X FILES for several reasons:
1. Much of the season makes due without the services of David Duchovny.
2. New characters, assuming key roles, are introduced.
3. An unprecedented percentage (nearly half) of the episodes are devoted to the mythology arc.
There is a noticeable, almost "symphonic", symmetry to the season (composer Mark Snow's haunting "Scully theme" functioning as "idee fixe") with the mythology arc divided into several well-defined sections: an opening 2-part prelude, massive 5-part mid season "adagio" and grand 2-part finale.
The loss of David Duchovny's full participation actually had the effect of re-focusing THE X FILES. Chris Carter and company were put to the test in coming up with an interesting and (somewhat) cohesive storyline that would work around the practical ( business related ) realities they faced behind the scenes. Though not without missteps, Season 8 succeeded both in revitalizing the dramatic intensity of the myth arc and maintaining the shows inexorable momentum toward a conclusion revealing much of Chris Carter's longstanding underground project.
In Season 8 Gillian Anderson became the lynchpin of THE X FILES, continuing to summon up her considerable skills in service to the show. The casting of Robert Patrick as Agent John Doggett was a stroke of genius; Doggett was written and acted in complete distinction to Mulder. This well-planned strategy allowed the imaginative landscape of THE X FILES to be viewed through the fresh eyes of a new character; in the process, some of the excitement of the show's early years was regained for longtime aficionados. Additionally, a measure of stability and strength is found in the season-long emphasis of producing truly serious scripts. The result is a consistently "dark" mood, similar to the melancholia found throughout Season 4. In fact, only in a short midseason slump did the show exhibit signs of true weakness.
The "stand alone" scripts, while certainly not the main emphasis of Season 8, were noticeable improvements over the previous season:
Vince Gilligan's ultra-violent "Roadrunners" (his only contribution in Season 8) is the single finest "stand alone" of the year, a savage parody of a religious sect ( barely disguised ) combined with an homage to the sci-fi classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". This is the first episode (aired early in the season) in which it is apparent that Gillian Anderson and Robert Patrick really "click" as a team; a most fortunate happenstance as the fate of the remaining two years depend in large part on their convincing onscreen chemistry. THE X FILES would never have maintained its integrity had the (platonic) Scully/Doggett partnership failed onscreen.
David Amann's moving "Invocation" is the first of several episodes over the course of the final 2 seasons that deal with the past event that most shaped Agent Doggett: the kidnapping and murder of his son ("Empedocles" was the other script so featured in Season 8).
Longtime staff writer Frank Spotnitz has a very prominent role in shaping Season 8; in addition to co-writing several episodes with Chris Carter, Spotnitz penned several solo scripts:
The excellent "Via Negativa", in addition to being superior on its own terms, has the additional virtue (shared with "Invocation") of allowing Robert Patrick to flesh out his character (David Lynch style cinematography adds a visually disturbing element to the storyline).
"The Gift" is one of the strangest X FILES episodes ever produced, a hallucinatory combination of "stand alone" and "mythology", all the more bizarre for the flashbacks which (purportedly) explain Mulder's pre-abduction illness.
"Alone" (aired late in the season) is essentially written for the elegiac touches of its final minutes, with Scully and Mulder humorously yet touchingly "passing the torch" on to a young and admiring FBI agent, the latter character symbolic of the legions of loyal (and often demanding) "X-Philes".
Regarding the failures in Season 8:
"Salvage", "Sure kill" and especially the execrable "Baddlea" should never have been aired. One of the most valuable aspects of this complete DVD set will be to allow the viewer to bypass inferior episodes and concentrate on the otherwise laudable unity demonstrated throughout Season 8.
Regarding the mythology arc:
The aforementioned symphonic structure of the season begins with Chris Carter's two-parter ("Within"/"Without"), which has the pregnant Scully searching for an abducted Mulder.
Carter and Spotnitz collaborate on the pivotal mid season block of mythology episodes dealing with the death and resurrection of Fox Mulder. One cannot help but notice the debt owed to the 2nd/3rd season trilogy ("Anasazi" / "The Blessing Way" / "Paper Clip" ).
Chris Carter wrote the season finale ("Essence"/"Existence"), which is the mirror image (in terms of title and plot) of the season opener. The series' philosophical (indeed, theological) underpinnings, while by no means hidden in previous seasons, are laid bare with allusions and typological references to the New Testament (as well as the metaphysics of Aquinas reflected in the episode titles).
While "Essence"/"Existence" was fashioned in such a way as to provide a satisfactory conclusion to both the 8th season and the series as a whole (should it have ended in 2001), it turned out that many of its themes would be carried over into what would in actuality become the final year. THE X FILES would eventually complete its long (9 year) run in artistic and spiritual unity; a testimony to the integrity of cast, writers, crew and (above all) creative vision of Chris Carter.
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16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The 8th season starts with a bang, March 10, 2006
Agent John Doggett (Robert Patrick)carries on the hunt for Mulder who Scully and Skinner believe has been abducted by aliens. Doggett's a firm disbeliever until some bizarre things occur during the first two episodes of the season. Robert Patrick brought much needed focus and energy to the eighth season. While the eighth season didn't match the highs of the best seasons of the show it had some strong outstanding episodes and it appeared after a wildly uneven 7th season that the show might actually be on track again. Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish)was introduced as a semi-regular during this season as well working in conjunction with Doggett and Scully.
Among the outstanding episodes are one in which Doggett and Mulder check out a oil refingery rig that's pumping something other than oil, another stand out episode involves a tense one set in the deserted subway tunnels of Boston where something is literally dissolving passengers as they ride the rails. Doggett goes underground to investigate while Scully works against the clock to figure out if there's a biological contagion. The conclusion is disappointing but the episode itself is a tense 45 minutes.
The 8th season saw a return to the spookier, darker episodes that made "The X-Files" a close cousin to "The Night Stalker", "Trilogy of Terror" and "The Norliss Tapes" (three terrific made-for-TV movies). There are those that argued that Patrick's Doggett wasn't as compelling as Mulder's character and I'd have to disagree--over the short two seasons that Patrick played Doggett he created a character every bit as memorable as Duchovny's Mulder and just as different.
The 8th season reduced cost set has commentary tracks on "Alone" by Frank Spotnitz and by Kim Manners on "Existence". There are also a couple of episodes with deleted scenes that you can watch restored to the respective episodes via the main menu. We also have more of those goofy international clips but all the extras on the seventh disc aren't included. The 8th season compares favorably to the first two seasons of "The X-Files" but not as well as when the show was in full swing with seasons 3, 4 5 and 6. Nevertheless, there's still plenty of quality episodes here.
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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A great season that many fans do not give a fair chance, March 27, 2006
The new slimpack releases of Seasons 7 through 9-which are essentially the original sets with the extras disc removed as well as many other special features-will complete the entire rerelease of all the X-FILES in affordable editions. I've been disappointed to find many of the special features missing in the first six volumes, but given that I couldn't afford the original editions, I'm all in all delighted to finally own my own copies, instead of relying on video stores and Netflix.
A huge number of fans of the first seven seasons have either failed to give Season Eight a fair viewing, or have refused to see it at all. This is a shame, because this is for the most part an enormously entertaining, marvelously produced season. No, it doesn't come quite up to the level of the first six seasons, which were astonishing for their consistency, but I have to confess that I might overall prefer Season Eight to Season Seven, which despite some great moments was subject to some inconsistency. The major reason people do not like Season Eight is the greatly diminished role that David Duchovny's Agent Fox Mulder played in the show, and indeed, for those of us for whom the interplay between Mulder and Scully represented one of the high points in television history, it was a major loss indeed. For all practical purposes, Mulder is missing from the first two thirds of the season, and even when he comes back, his presence adds less than one might have hoped. Still, for those with open minds, Season Eight remains a worthy successor to the X-FILE mantle.
The main reason Season Eight succeeds is that one performer achieved the near-impossible: Robert Patrick as Agent John Doggett steps into Fox Mulder's shoes and pretty much fills them. It is an absolutely astonishing achievement, and I can't think of another performer in TV history replacing an iconic character and more or less managing to succeed. Doggett and Scully do not have anywhere near the ying-yang chemistry of Mulder and Scully, but they end up having a nice working relationship of their own. Scully is adamantly determined not to get along with Doggett, but as she puts it later in the season, she comes to respect his depth of character, as does Mulder upon his return. Unlike Scully and Mulder, Doggett is an FBI man, a career law enforcement professional who is more of a cop than anything else. He is stubborn, loyal, courageous, and possesses a vast amount of integrity. As an actor, I love Patrick's low, gravelly drawl (without checking to see where he is from, I'd bet somewhere from the Old South, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, or Mississippi). Like many X-FILE fans, I refused to even watch the last two seasons at the time, and upon watching recently on DVD, I'm amazed at how very much I like him on the show. With increased recent talk about a series of X-FILES movies getting started (largely coming from David Duchovny, who speaks of a late 2005 start of filming for a 2006 release), I am actually happy to hear that Doggett is going to be included.
Until the end of the season, when the story arc starts that runs into Season 9 (some would say, destroyed Season Nine) begins, the season is more monster-of-the-week in format more than anything else. Whatever story arc exists focuses more on Dana's coming to deal with Mulder's disappearance and her own pregnancy, and her reluctance to accept John Doggett has her new partner. Along the way we get a series of absolutely brilliant standalone episodes that are as striking and original as most in the history of the X-FILES.
Nonetheless, the last three seasons of THE X-FILES represent in the overall context of the series a decline. This didn't mean that there weren't many, many brilliant moments and many great episodes. But Season Six had more or less stopped the long story arcs, something that hurt Season Seven to a great degree. There were not so much ongoing arcs as remnants of arcs, a problem the show suffered since the resolution of the alienation colonization arc and the demise of the syndicate. The networks, as they always do, detested anything other than the monster-of-the-week scenario. Arcs shows are less friendly to either new or occasional viewers. Monster-of-the-week shows are very friendly to occasional or new viewers. Seasons Eight and Nine tried to reintroduce some arcs, but unfortunately they were arcs that even the most faithful fans of the show have trouble enjoying. For once, the formidable skills of the X-FILES writing staff failed them. The other downside of Season Eight was the unpleasant presence of Assistant Director Kersh, unquestionably the recurring X-FILES character with the fewest redeeming characters.
But decline or not, Season Eight still presented television at its absolute best. I will admit a pang of agony the first time the opening credits ran and began not with the familiar picture of Mulder's FBI ID, but began instead with Scully's. The greatest team in television history was parted! And though Mulder would be back for a few more episodes they would not actually be a team again. All good things must come to an end. But hopefully Mulder and Scully will ride again if the films that Duchovny, Patrick, and Carter all say they hope to make soon come off.
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