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The X-Files - The Complete Second Season

The X-Files - The Complete Second Season

List Price: $99.98
Your Price: $74.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Nothing disappears without a trace.......
Review: Fox delivers another beautiful collector's edition on DVD. Thankfully they have revamped the packaging and have given us a much more durable box set then season one. In season two the show hits its stride and becomes a classic. With the x-files closed Mulder is assigned a new partner in Alex Krycek while Scully is teaching at the academy. X steps in for Deep Throat as Mulder's informant and Skinner becomes a major character in the series. This season had it all, suspense, mystery, horror, and comedy. Season two had some of the creepiest episodes ever like The Host, Aubrey and Irresistible. My personal favorites were Duane Barry/Ascension, Colony/Endgame, Dod Kalm and One Breath. We also get the first ever comedy episode in Humbug and a great season finale in Anasazi. With over 20 hours of material this set is well worth the price even for just the casual fan.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great episodes - disappointing extra features
Review: Unfortunately, Fox hasnt understood it yet that DVDs are here to offer some real extra features. What we do get on this otherwise fantastisc DVD collection is a mere disappointment:

1) Fox TV episode trailers: they are so short it takes you more time to click through the menue to get to the trailer than to watch it. Whats good about that? Why would i care to watch the trailer anyway, if I have the whole episode on DVD?

2) Deleted Scenes: There arent many of them and they are terribly short. Some are simply pointless and thats exactly the reason why there were deleted. Only interesting were to discover that X was in the first reason a woman and an additional funny scene from "Humbug".

3) Special effects: Ouch! 3 of them and one shorter than the next. If I remember well, Carter has exactly the time for one sentence until the the special effects clip is over. A disappointment. X-Files would have so much to offeron that ground.

4) Behind the Scenes elements: Yeah, well, the one with Gillian Anderson chewing an insect was funny, the rest useless.

5) 15-minutes documentary: quite ok, but nothing really new.

6) Behind the Truth elements: well, copied from the TV, not really spectacular

7) Comments by Chris Carter: they were already on the Video collections by Fox available in Europe.

I give it a four star because after all, the main elements are the episodes themselves which of course are great and worth the price! There is absolutely nothing to complain about those.

Maybe in the 3rd season collection we will finally find some really decent special features!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Not the best though
Review: I remember when this series started, and the hint of dissapointment was hanging in the air. I'm giving it 5 stars because it's the X Files but in all honesty it's probobaly not worth all of them. This season has a surprising amount of duds and it's a real shame that you have to look upon the grimness of a pregnant Gillian Anderson throughout the first ten or so episodes. Aside from that though it still has episodes that stand out from the rest and Gillian's pregnancy was something of a blessing for the show in the long run. Duane Barry was the first ever two parter brought on by her, and the story of her abduction that the show tended to revolve around later was written in as a result of her pregnancy too.
It's got it's gems and you shouldn't be too dissapointed with the rest of them. (They take seven any day and I won't even bother mentioning eight and nine).
The episodes of pure television genius in this season are-
Sleepless
Duane Barry
Ascension
Fire Walker
Colony
End Game
Dod Calm
The Calusari
F. Emasculata
Soft Light
Anasazi

Little Green men would have made it on but it's a little over the top and flawed. For instance, when Scully forgets to feed the fish in Mulders apartment, and the way those idiots are following her around at the air port. (They couldn't have made it any more obvious that they were following her if they had a sign saying, 'Dana Scully-were watching you.')
Anyway eleven out of 25 aint great, but you'll be glad if you buy it. It still beats most T.V today.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One step up from Season One
Review: In this second season of The X-Files, the creators realized where they could take this show, since the first season was successful enough. They started to build a mythology dealing with the plot of aliens, UFOs, government coverups, abductions, etc. And they still had wonderful stand-alone episodes as well.

The episodes that really started a mythology was the two parter Duane Barry/Ascension. Scully gets kidnapped by a man who's being controled by aliens through the alien implant in his body. Later, she gets abducted by aliens in his place. This lead to a mythology plot that lasted for 3 more years dealing with Scully receiving cancer because of this event. These two episodes were written because Gillian Anderson(Scully) was pregnant, so she had to be off the show for a couple episodes. She was actually showing at the end of the first season and the beginning of this season. This just goes to show you that what seems like an inconvenience in TV show writing can turn out to be one of the best decisions ever made.

The season finale ended with a cliffhanger that lead into the first two episodes of the third season. Watching these episodes, it really became clear that this show was a hit.

I loved this season, and it's a must have for X-Fans.

Great season, great DVD.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Can't wait for season 3
Review: Fox is doing an excellent job bringing us the X-Files on DVD. I like having a complete season in one box and not to buy every other episode separately (which is the case with Star Trek...).

Anyway, in the 2nd season, the X-Files really got going with the big arc story of the big conspiracy hiding the truth about aliens (which is also used in order to handle Gillian Andersons pregnancy at the start of the season, she gets abducted... nevertheless Gillian looks quite different before and after giving birth). This makes for the really good two-parters of the season "Duane Barry/ Ascension", "Colony / End Game" and the cliff-hangar "Anasazi" (can't wait for Season 3!).

The extras on disc 7 are nice in itself, especially the commentaries by Chris Carter. Would have been nice if these were a little bit longer.

A must buy for every fan of the X-Files, go and buy it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic
Review: I have to admit, I didn't start watching the X-Files until around season 4, actually the last half of it, and seeing the seasons coming out on DVD was a huge thing for me. All the seasons are great, there are great episodes in each one and season 2 is no different. The best episodes are:
Little Green Men: A mythology episode. Even get to see an alien!
The Host: Man worm, pretty cool.
Duane Berry, Ascension: The best episodes in my opinion of the entire season. Deals with alien abduction and is a major mythology 2 parter. Scully is abducted in these episodes.
Colony, End Game: My other favorites of the season. The Alien bounty hunter is just awesome. Mulder thinks he finds his sister. Major mythology two parter.
Irresistable: Very cool and somewhat scary episode of a demonic guy who abducts and kills women for their hair.
Anasazi: Season finale. One of the best episodes of the entire show.
The DVD's could have had better special features, I want interviews with Duchovny and Anderson. But all in all it is a great set.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: One of the Greatest Season of the X-Files
Review: This season by far is the best season of The X-Files because even though that Mulder and Scully were off the X-Files, There were some of the greates X-Files told, like Scully's Abduction that left were barren so she could not have children, until she found that out at the end of Season Seven and then we were introduced to the Ailen Bounty Hunter which had killed the Ailen Clones, and it started off with a whole new Conspiracy theory, in what led Agents Mulder and Scully to kill these Ailen Bounty Hunters that led up to the Eighth Season where they had abducted Mulder.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Indeed, one of the finest seasons ever...
Review: This was the longest season of the X-Files...25 episodes.

The opener, "Little Green Men", is a little weak. But immediately thereafter "The Host"...a memorable and great episode, and the introduction of Alex Krycek...picked up the momentum.
"Blood" is an inventive and scary little tale. "Sleepless", with the introduction of X, is another classic. "Colony-End Game" is one of the weaker mythology arc stories (though note the intro. of the Mulder family), but some of the finest stand-alones ever are here: "Irresistible", "Die Hand Die Verletzt", "Humbug" (one of the all-time classics), "Our Town" (an underappreciated gem), "F. Emasculata" (another underappreciated gem, and one of the key episodes in the Cancer Man mythology).
Fox does a great job with the packaging. Don't miss this season if you're buying them selectively. And for the devoted X-Philes, you don't need to be told how great this season is.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Maybe the best X-FILES season of the nine
Review: It was very early in the second season that I got my first whiff of THE X-FILES. I remember walking into my parents' bedroom one night and seeing my dad watching something on TV---some scary story about a human flukeworm. I am referring, of course, to the season's well-known second episode "The Host," and it was from that episode on that I was hooked on the show, with its glorious mix of the creepy, the paranormal, and the paranoid.

I recently decided to start collecting all nine seasons of THE X-FILES on DVD, and while of course the logical thing to do is to start with the very first season, I simply could not resist starting the collection off with this DVD set of the complete second season. There are just too many memorable moments in this season to count! I don't dare pick one lone favorite episode from any of the 25, since almost all of them have something stimulating or just plain freaky in them---and even comparatively weaker episodes at least have Mark Snow's brilliant (if sometimes repetitive) underscore to set a properly scary mood.

**********

So, some personal highlights from this great season:

"The Host": the first X-FILES episode I ever saw

Scully's abduction in the "Duane Barry/Ascension" mytharc, which leads to her emotional return in "One Breath" (David Duchovny affectingly portraying Mulder's anger and frustration)---certainly one of the better mytharcs, although for me it is topped by...

Mulder's sister's supposed return in "Colony/Endgame," still for me the best, most gripping two-parter the show ever conceived

"Dod Kalm" is not an episode that is mentioned a lot by fans, as far as I know, but I think its moody, contemplative, slow-moving flow---as well as some priceless interaction between our two heroes at the end---works to make this a highlight of the season (despite the cheesy make-up on the aging Mulder and Scully, although I find it to be forgivable here)

"Humbug," the first "humorous" X-FILES episode from writer Darin Morgan, and a rightful classic

"F. Emasculata" shows one of the show's best directors, Rob Bowman (he of course directed the X-FILES movie), in top form, sustaining considerable tension in a tale about a deadly plague and efforts to keep it under control (and under wraps). Sure, it's derivative of the movie OUTBREAK, and yea it's gross, but it still works

And of course the cliffhanger at the end of "Anasazi," one of the better season-ending cliffhangers of the show

**********

This was the season that expanded the popularity of THE X-FILES, and it is not hard to see why: gripping stories, consistently good acting from Duchovny and Anderson, and the fact that it touches upon a chord of paranoia that has always been an undercurrent in this country. I will always have a soft spot for Season 2 of THE X-FILES---and even though the show died out with a disappointing whimper by the end of the ninth season, the show will always have its rightful place in television history, if not all of sci-fi/horror history too.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Essential and critical season
Review: For the two-parters, "Duane Barry/Ascension" and "Colony/Endgame" alone, this compilation would be well worth the price. But considering this season was filled with so many other stand-out episodes AND that the seeds of the "intergalactic conspiracy" storyline (I don't know what else to call it) were planted here, this is the essential collection for any X-Files fan. You cannot go from the first season to the third and expect to know what's going on--you would miss too many critical details by skipping over season two. Besides that, you would be missing some of the most inspired writing of the X-Files' long history of great scripts.


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