There is something irritating about the way "The X-Files" created "digest" versions of the seasons under the guise that they were presenting the essential episodes for certain aspects of the show's "Mythology." The digests were what Chris Carter and Fox Video thought were the essential episodes for various threads throughout the series, be it alien abduction stories, stories involving the Black Oil alien, and eventually the supersoldiers. For the third volume, the powers that make such decisions presented "Colonization."
"Colonization" is, to date, the worst collection of episodes of "The X-Files" in that this little boxed set tells the least cohesive story of the bunch. Out of fifteen episodes, only the first six episodes actually deal with the alien colonization plans (and that's liberally applying the concept to two of those episodes!). Indeed, after "One Son," the sixth episode in this set, there is no more alien colonization conspiracy. It is dead, that whole thread is resolved. That means nine episodes that vary from being marginally interesting extraterrestrial stories (like "Biogenesis" and the two "The Sixth Extinction" episodes) to stories that have nothing at all to do with extraterrestrial colonization ("Sein Und Zeit," "Closure," and "En Ami").
And it's about time I used this forum to rail against FOX for its laziness and the way it truly screwed fans of "The X-Files." We were loyal to the series and I can even live with the fact that Fox delayed the release of "The X-Files: The Complete Collection" (reviewed at:
http://www.epinions.com/content_409247321732 ) until they had all sorts of programming and non-programming goodies to load into the DVD set. I always figured "The X-Files" would do a complete series boxed set and I planned accordingly, then, not buying the seasons individually as they came out. But Fox showed both laziness and disdain for the fans of "The X-Files" by simply using the originally-released discs in "The Complete Collection."
Why is this issue coming up here, in the review of "Colonization?" It is simple. In its attempt to milk the fan base for every dollar possible, Fox had commentary tracks created especially for this set for six of the episodes. Vital episodes like "One Son" and "Closure" have a commentary track in this boxed set and those of us who love such things will thrill to that. But those commentary tracks are not included on the discs in "The Complete Collection," so those of us shelling out the big bucks get shafted and do not honestly get the complete collection.
Instead, we are compelled to buy into the digest formats like "Colonization" - which is not truly about "Colonization," but is more a "Best Of 'The X-Files' - Middle Seasons" set. The episodes illustrate the complete weakness of the concept and how "The X-Files" gutted itself. Establishing a ridiculous concept for the Alien Resistance in "Patient X" and "The Red And The Black," the conspiracy that was clearly not conceived beforehand comes crashing down in "One Son" and the series is - for most fans - effectively over. The episodes attempt to stave off the concept that they have jumped the shark right up until the moment Mulder gets "Closure," effectively ending anything of merit in the series.
The episodes in this boxed set are: "Patient X," "The Red And The Black," "The End," "The Beginning," "Two Fathers," "One Son," "Biogenesis," "The Sixth Extinction," "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati," "Sein Und Zeit," "Closure," "En Ami," "Requiem," "Within" and "Without." Sticklers for such things will note that the first film from the franchise, "The X-Files: Fight The Future" (reviewed at:
http://www.epinions.com/content_292246883972 ) properly belongs between "The End" and "The Beginning" and it represents a vital chapter in the colonization and Black Oil concept that is notably missing from this DVD set.
In "Patient X," Mulder and Scully essentially switch places when an incident at SkyLine Mountain leads Scully to put some stock in the story of Cassandra Spender, Patient X. In Khazastan, a group of abductees are drawn out and burned alive, a mess that Krycek arrives to "sanitize." There, he runs into Mulder's source, Marita Corrubias, who is there as part of a UN peacekeeping force (actually working for the American Conspiracy Syndicate). Krycek takes the one surviving witness to the incident, interrogates him and then infect him with the Black Cancer. He then seals up the youth's eyes and mouth in an apparent attempt to contain the alien life form within the boy.
When a similar incident occurs at SkyLine Mountain, Mulder - who has been seeking to discredit the Abductees as pawns in a more insidious government conspiracy - rejects the idea of alien involvement. Scully, however, begins to suspect that Cassandra Spender might be telling the truth - especially when her son, FBI Agent Jeffrey Spender asks her to not get involved. Scully continues to investigate, even as Krycek makes his way to the U.S. with his potentially deadly package!
In "The Red And The Black," Corrubias lays in a secret facility, infected by the Black Cancer. The Well-Manicured Man manages to capture Krycek and he proposes a bold trade: Krycek's freedom for the Russian-made vaccine to the Black Oil. The two realize that the Alien Bounty Hunter's race is the one responsible for the disasters in Russia, SkyLine Mountain and now in Pennsylvania and the mantra becomes "resist or serve!"
Scully, wounded and left with no clear memory of what happened in Pennsylvania undergoes regression hypnosis to find out why she was spared when everyone else there was killed. Convinced she had a close encounter, she and Mulder butt heads over the course of action to take until Mulder is visited by a most unlikely source, who informs him of the truth that Mulder has struggled to deny.
This, by the way, is where it begins to go wrong. The Black Oil has shown an ability to absorb through any part of the body; the Alien Bounty Hunters appearing with their eyes gouged out and mouths sewn(?) shut does not "read" as a viable solution to the Black Oil given how they were originally characterized in their first appearances. That said, the "Mythology" continues with . . .
"The End," which finds the x-files once again threatened by administrative procedures. When a chess player is killed during a world championship match, Spender is put in charge of the investigation. Mulder almost immediately undermines the investigation when he notices that the person who was shot might not have been the intended target. He begins to investigate the player's opponent, a child named Gibson Praise, who Mulder believes has the ability to read minds.
Scully soon confirms that Mulder is correct, as Mulder renews his interest in Special Agent Diana Fowley. As Fowley and Mulder get closer, Scully discovers that Gibson's ability may be even more extraordinary than it appears and an old enemy is recovered by Krycek and brought in to capture Gibson.
In "The Beginning," Mulder and Scully deal with the fallout from no longer working on the x-files and their experiences in the Arctic when a new Assistant Director (Kersch) begins to exert his authority over them. With Fowley and Spender working on the x-files, Mulder and Scully disregard orders and investigate a murder that seems to be related to the black oil. Recovering evidence of the contact they allege as a result of the film endeavor, Mulder and Scully find themselves armed finally with the proof they need.
However, when Gibson Praise resurfaces after months of heinous tests by the Cigarette-Smoking Man and his associates, Scully struggles to save him. Realizing his importance, the agents use Gibson in their attempt to track down an actual extraterrestrial which they corner in a power plant in the Southwest!
In "Two Fathers," a human is being worked on by mysterious scientists in a train car, a human who is quickly revealed to be Cassandra Spender. The scientists are killed by the Rebel Alien Shapeshifters who leave Cassandra alive in hopes that the Conspiracy's purpose will be exposed. Recovered by Skinner and her son, Jeffrey, Cassandra is not aware of what is going on. She asked for Mulder, further earning Jeffrey's ire. The Cigarette-Smoking Man (who gets a name in this episode!) reveals that Cassandra is the first successful alien-human hybrid, intended to be a slave race for the Black Oil when it comes to colonize.
Cassandra immediately realizes her life is in danger and the Cigarette-Smoking Man uses Krycek and Jeffrey to try to kill her and to get Mulder out of the way as well. Fired from the F.B.I., Mulder and Scully come to Cassandra's rescue, but the Cigarette-Smoking Man has a trump card, a new agent working for him!
In "One Son," Cassandra begs Mulder and Scully to kill her, realizing as she does that as the first successful alien-human hybrid, she represents the culmination of the Syndicate Conspiracy's plan. With the slave race ready, the Cigarette-Smoking Man confirms that the aliens will return and begin the colonization process. Sidelined, Mulder and Scully go free-lance to try to rescue Cassandra from a CDC Quarantine, though Jeffrey opposes them.
The Cigarette-Smoking Man's pawn is revealed by Scully and the Lone Gunmen to a disbelieving Mulder, who meets the Cigarette-Smoking Man. He lays out the full story of the Syndicate and while Jeffrey encounters the experimented-upon Corrubias, Krycek sides with the rebels to . . . of all things, save the planet!
Here's the fundamental problem with the conspiracy after these two episodes: it makes no sense and I finally figured out the reason it had bugged me for so long. It's the special effects. From "The X-Files" film and "The Beginning," we know that the Black Oil is essentially the blood of the Gray Alien Race. The alien-human hybrids, which we've seen from the end of the first season, have bright green blood. The Alien Shapechanger race also has bright green blood, which is toxic to humans. Why would the hybrid between humans and the Grays be - effectively - the Alien Shapeshifters? This is the final nail in the coffin of the idea that Chris Carter and his people didn't know what they were doing from the start. They did not have the conspiracy mapped out and did not know who all the players were, what they were doing and what their agendas are.
After all, Cassandra is referred to as the first alien-human hybrid, the purpose of which is to form a slave race. But we've seen alien human hybrids before and we've seen them acting as the colonist's slave race from back in "Herrenvolk." So . . . Cassandra is the first human converted to be a hybrid? So what? Who needs them?! You have tons of ova from women being used to make alien-human hybrids for the slave race ("Momento Mori"); why do you need more? The entire human population, then, can easily become the breeding stock for the new more virulent Black Oil. And on that front . . . why is Corrubias still being experimented upon?! She was given the working vaccine!
Yeah, this ends up making no sense. At least with "One Son" the conspiracy effectively dies.
In "Biogenesis," a scientist on the Ivory Coast uncovers an artifact, a fragment of a larger work that seems to be extraterrestrial in origin. Scully is, naturally, skeptical, especially when Mulder reveals that he and the scientist he was meeting at American University were involved in a fringe science that believes life was transplanted to Earth by aliens. Soon, though, Mulder is essentially crippled, driven insane from "noise" from the artifact fragments - after only seeing a rubbing!
Scully is convinced the artifact is a fake, a conviction strengthened by the revelation that the writing on the artifact is Navajo. As Mulder's condition worsens and Skinner is manipulated by Krycek, Scully squares off with Fowley who has Mulder committed to an asylum. Desperate to find the truth, Scully is given a clue as to the origin of the artifact and, with Mulder's life imperiled, she journeys to the Ivory Coast to have a revelation of her own!
In "The Sixth Extinction," Scully has gone AWOL to the Ivory Coast where she has found an alien craft embedded in the shoreline. As she struggles to translate the symbols on the craft, Skinner works to save Mulder, who is still in the psychiatric ward. Now reading minds and illustrating a powerful psychosis, Mulder requests Skinner enlist the aid of Kritschgau who has seen the exact type of psychic psychosis Mulder is suffering from. Hesitant to believe it is the work of aliens, Kritschgau nevertheless comes to the aid of Mulder and Skinner by working to properly medicate Mulder to slow his brain functions down.
As Scully faces off with an insane doctor and a strange spiritual presence, Mulder's condition worsens. Scully soon learns, though that the top of the U.F.O. apparently has the human genetic code mapped out upon its surface and the bottom contains biblical, Sumerian, and other religious passages! As Scully and another worker are detained by the crazed scholar, Fowley turns on Skinner and Kritschgau, threatening Mulder's life and health!
In "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati," Mulder is abducted by Diana Fowley and the Cigarette-Smoking Man in the latter's attempt to remove from Mulder whatever genetic material is allowing him to use his newfound mental abilities. The Cigarette-Smoking Man is convinced that Mulder represents a new ability to naturally resist the Black Oil's impending apocalypse. Skinner, compromised by Krycek is taken out of the picture when Scully finds a book that reveals all of the answers to what is on the UFO's surface. Scully, for her part, chases the clues and attempts to find Mulder to save his life.
Mulder, however, is trapped deep within his own mind. In a vision, he is offered a suburban life with the Cigarette-Smoking Man, Samantha, and Deep Throat, who Mulder has believed is dead. Soon, Mulder and Fowley are married, having children and growing old, while Mulder is oblivious to what is truly happening to him!
In "Sein Und Zeit," a woman writes out a note threatening her daughter's life and her husband checks on their daughter and is overcome with a vision of her dead. Moments later, without any apparent evidence of a break-in, Amber Lynne is abducted and disappears completely. As Skinner assigns his best agents to the case, Mulder insists on getting involved. While missing calls from his mother, Mulder recognizes aspects of the case that bear a similarity to an x-file.
As a result, Mulder goes out on a limb and tracks down a woman serving a life sentence for killing her son. She informs Mulder that she sees her son's lost soul, just as Amber's mother sees a disembodied Amber. Unfortunately, as Mulder gets closer to the truth and a resolution to his issues with Samantha's disappearance, his mother dies, apparently by her own hand!
In "Closure," Mulder and Scully investigate the suspect in the death of Amber Lynne only to become stymied that her body is not among the many present at Santaland. Distraught, Mulder embraces the offer of a psychic investigator who claims Samantha, his son and Amber Lynne have all become starlight; lost souls. Abandoning Mulder, Scully discovers a connection between Samantha's disappearance and the Cigarette-Smoking Man and she returns to California to find Mulder more certain than ever that Samantha was taken somewhere nearby.
On an abandoned Air Force base, Mulder, the psychic and Scully discover that Samantha was kept there for a time and Scully finds a Jane Doe medical report that picks up where Samantha's discovered diary leaves off. Following a final lead, Mulder is led to the answer he has sought for over thirty years.
The annoying thing about "Closure" is that it is just that. Mulder gets closure on Samantha's disappearance, but not resolution. In other words, Samantha's disappearance is not explained, Mulder simply has a moment of revelation that allows him to better accept that Samantha is now dead. "Closure" is beautifully shot, but it's hardly satisfying for fans who waited years for all of the mythology and conspiracy elements to tie back to Samantha. And rather irritatingly in the context of this DVD set, "Closure" has no relation to Colonization. None whatsoever. In this context, it is an utter waste of space (if there had been a DVD set of "The Best Of Mulder," this would have worked, especially with "Paper Hearts").
In "En Ami," Scully is contacted by the Cigarette-Smoking Man, who is dying in part from the surgery he performed on Mulder in "The Sixth Extinction II." As Scully investigates the apparent miracle of a boy who was dying of cancer suddenly going into remission, the Cigarette-Smoking Man reveals that he is behind the "miracle." More than that, he offers Scully the big prize: the cure to all cancer. Reluctantly accompanying him, Scully abandons Mulder in her pursuit of the cure for cancer by meeting with a contact of the Cigarette-Smoking Man's.
But Mulder becomes suspicious when he checks on Scully's cover story of a family emergency. Hacking her hard drive with the Lone Gunmen, Mulder learns that someone has been impersonating Scully to arrange a meeting, with the cure for cancer being one of the things they have discussed. Mulder realizes Scully is walking into a trap and works to save her, even as he and Skinner are at a loss to find her!
In "Requiem," the FBI beancounters are on Mulder and Scully once again when Mulder gets a call from none other than Billy Miles, the subject of the first case Mulder and Scully worked on together (reviewed at:
http://www.epinions.com/content_13305286276 ). The pair decides to forgo the fiscal responsibility arguments against an investigation and they journey to Bellefluer, Oregon, where Billy Miles and his father both work as police officers. Billy's father has been acting odd since the apparent crash between a government fighter and a U.F.O.
Meanwhile, the Cigarette-Smoking Man and Corrubias rescue Krycek and send him on a parallel mission. Restarting their own syndicate, the trio seeks to find the downed craft before Mulder does. Mulder, eager to keep Scully safe, sends her back to Washington and while Skinner and Mulder track the cloaked alien ship, Scully realizes it might be Mulder the aliens want and Krycek makes his move.
In "Within," Scully returns to work, with Skinner as her full ally, to discover that a manhunt has begun for Agent Mulder. Plagued by nightmarish visions of Mulder, being tormented aboard an alien ship, Scully becomes convinced that the FBI will not look in the right place. With Skinner and Scully forced to make depositions, the pair meets Special Agent John Doggett, a by-the-book agent hand selected by the newly minted Deputy Director, Kersch.
Fearing that she is being wiretapped and deeply suspicious when someone who appears to be Mulder steals her computer, Mulder's computer and files from the FBI, Scully and Skinner begin an investigation of their own. With the help of the Lone Gunmen, they trace the U.F.O. Mulder was abducted by to the Arizona desert, where Scully realizes just what is going on and who is cleaning up the loose ends!
In "Without," Doggett tracks Gibson Praise and Mulder to an edge of a cliff and is astonished when Mulder relinquishes the boy and leaps over the edge. Doggett is even more astonished when he looks at the evidence and concludes that Mulder not only survived the fall, but got up and ran away. As Scully searches for Gibson and Mulder, Skinner paints the picture for Doggett of what the new agent is meant to find and how he was meant to fail.
Tracking Scully, as paranoia among the personnel of the team in Arizona increases, Doggett comes to believe Skinner's warning and his trust in the orthodox way he has pursued investigations is shaken when a confrontation ensues with the Alien Shapeshifter. And Mulder is lost, leaving those who care most about him adrift and a new agent is assigned to the x-files!
The result of this boxed set is more a loose collection of episodes than a cohesive story and the more I write about them, the less I like this set. It is misleading in its concept (there are vital episodes about colonization not in this set) and the bonus featurette - which is included in "The Complete Collection" is hardly worthwhile. But the commentary tracks have their moments and it is upsetting that they are not available elsewhere. Still, they are not enough to recommend this set.
Rating is more appropriately a 2 1/2.
For other "Mythology" boxed sets, please check out my review of:
Vol. 1 - Abduction -
http://www.epinions.com/content_451801288324 Vol. 2 - The Black Oil -
http://www.epinions.com/content_454155996804
