The X-Files: The Complete Ninth Season

It seems somewhat unjust that a series as acclaimed and accomplished as The X-Files ended its nine-year run in 2002, garnering relatively little reaction outside of its core audience. Perhaps North America was too caught up with 9/11 and the events surrounding it to bother with a show that purported the U.S. government's complicity in every kind of conspiracy imaginable. On the other hand, the show may have been uncomfortably closer to the truth than most viewers ever believed, ending right when it was needed most. In any case, The X-Files indeed ended where it began: in search of the truth. With David Duchovny having left the show the previous year, the ninth season begins with his character, Agent Fox Mulder, missing. Having ostensibly disappeared in order to protect both his partner, Agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), and their new-born son, whom they fear is the product of government experiments, Mulder is a spectre throughout most of the season. X-Files agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) believe Mulder may be the key to the case they're attempting to build against the FBI, which implicates the bureau as being party to a secret plan to create a race of super-soldiers. While it is a consistent theme in most plot-lines of this uneven season, it is mostly explored in season opener "Nothing Important Happened Today" and the convoluted series finale "The Truth." The final season of X-Files finds loose ends remaining untied and, though the final shows valiantly try, little is explained in any plausible manner. Elsewhere there are some flashes of inventiveness in stand-alone episodes, such as the harrowing "Release," in which Doggett unravels the mystery of his own son's death, and "Sunshine Days," which explores the psyche of a suspect who is able to conjure up the Brady Bunch set for comfort. Where this final set shines is in its celebration of the series as a whole, chronicling the march to the ultimate episodes in over three hours of behind the scenes documentaries and creator/writer Chris Carter's commentaries. Plus: deleted scenes, more. (Fox)