The X Files: Season 5 [DVD] [1994]

Season 5 kicks off with the amazing two parter "Redux I and II" where Mulder despretlay tries to find a cure for Scullys worsening cancer while also trying to find out who inside the FBI is responsible for her cancer. These are two unbelievabley well written episodes and David Ducovhnys finest acting.
"Christmas Carol/Emily" are the next two mythology episodes and deal with what happened after Scullys abduction. Another brilliant two parter with a briliant performance by Gillian Anderson.
"Patient X" and "The Red and the Black" is the final two parter of the season and deals primaraly with the Black Oil/Syndicate story that will play a major part in the Movie. Strange to see Mulder as the skeptic but it actually works very well.
"The End" will leave you dying to see the movie and Season 6 to find out what will happen next.

The stand-alone episodes are fantastic bar the dreadfully awful "Travellers". In season five we see some very experimental episodes that work amazingly well. Most notabley the black and white "Post Modern Prometheus" and "Kill Switch".

This is the last season before the movie (as well as the last season to be filmed in Vancouver), and these 20 episodes really showcase the series at its peaks.

There are episodes written by legendary novelists Stephen King and William Gibson, as well as the return of movie director Rob Bowman (The X-Files Movie, Reign Of Fire). Not to mention an appearence by Jerry Springer!

This was also the year when the writers began to experiment and as a result we ended up with some wonderfully different hours of television including an episode filmed entirely in black and white (to a Cher soundtrack) and possibly the funniest epsiode ever in which Mulder and Scully each tell the tale of a vampire wannabe from their own unique perspectives.

The season starts out great with 'Redux' and 'Redux II' as we find out about the circumstances surrounding Mulder's apparent suicide. The themes of the season are heavy on the parent-child relationship with at least three examples of this being Mulder-CSM, Scully-Emily, and Jeffrey and Cassandra Spender. After the 'Redux' two-parter the mythology gets a bit bland and annoying, but the sheer greatness of the standalone episodes more than make up for it.

Of course there are a few dud episodes; 'Minds Eye', 'All Souls', 'Travellers', but most people would consider this the last of the great seasons of the show.

For fans still watching the show now, rewatching these old episode certainly bring a refreshing relief to what Scully used to be like when dealing with her emotions (such as her cancer).

In essense, buy this now!

In this season Mulder and Scullys relationship really evolves and the chemistry between them is buzzing. I found lots of the episodes funny.

For me this is the peak of the show, and even though the following series are good, they can't match the fun and brilliant story lines of series five.