6
(Christian characters, allusions to Christ, sci-fi origins of man and religion)
6
(violence, mild gore, morbid concepts, sexuality)
7
(worth seeing multiple times)
The X-Files season 6 picks up directly after the Fight the Future movie. It begins in the new filming location which many fans feel steals a lot of the moody atmosphere that was present in the previous seasons. It's arguably one of the weakest seasons overall though I think it has some fantastic high points.
This time around agents Spender and Fowley are given charge of the X Files while Mulder and Scully are reassigned to A.D. Kersh, the syndicate falls apart as the new mythology is introduced, and new information about the coming alien invasion comes to light.
I'll start with a few low points. “Terms of Endearment” involves a demon trying to have a human baby. Though Bruce Campbell stars and does a fine job with the character, the story is just not very compelling. “Tithonus” tells a story about a man who cannot die. While I like the concept and the feel of most of the episode, I find the explanations to what happens lacking. The ending is rather hard to swallow. “Alpha” involves a werewolf kind of story with a final conflict that isn't satisfying. “Triangle” is interesting from a technical perspective and has a fun look-into-the-past kind of story, but I find it lacking in the surrounding present-day story. “Milagro” takes a stab at being deep and poetic but forgets that it needs to be entertaining as well.
At the same time, though, are some excellent episodes. “How the Ghosts Stole Christmas” is one of my favorite things to watch around Christmas time. It's a delightfully spooky episode full of twisted humor and fantastic guest performances from Lily Tomlin and Ed Asner. “Agua Mala” brings back Arthur Dales, one of my favorite recurring characters for a creepy water monster tale. “3 of a Kind” focuses on the Lone Gunmen once again and is a sequel to last season's “Unusual Suspects.” “Field Trip” features one of the show's most unusual “monsters” and presents a number of impossible scenes that are fun even though victims crying about the alien “tests” done to them in the series has gotten a bit old by now. “Arcadia” puts Mulder and Scully undercover as a married couple with some of the funniest moments in the entire series and a decent monster story to go along with it.
Whatever issues this season might have, acting is not one of them. The caliber of the guests I've already mentioned should be an indication of that. Michael McKean's Morris Fletcher is another one that deserves a mention. He'll come back as an important player in the Lone Gunmen series. He's slimy and detestable yet as amusing as he is outrageous.
Morality
As usual many of the episode feature some strong language. It's more or less typical of a TV show from its time.
Violence and gore remain about at the levels they have been. We see the fatal wounds on a couple of ghosts in gory detail though we don't see the wounds actually being inflicted. We see some brain surgery, bloody head explosions, vicious monster attacks, people having their hearts ripped out, and a guy getting splattered by a car.
Sexuality is tame. Scully starts getting steamy with a guy in “Milagro,” and he gets as far as opening her shirt. A guy who can walk though walls also walks through his clothes although we never see anything below the waist. Fletcher is a womanizer and we see him being a bit of a pervert. In the same episode Mulder is caught watching porn, and we see just enough of what's going on to know what he's watching.
Spirituality
The religious elements in this season are perhaps toned down a little as compared to some of the others, but there are a couple of relevant moments. In general we see various ideas about the afterlife such as a couple of ghosts left to haunt a house and drive people to violence instead of “crossing over."
“Terms of Endearment” centers on demons, but these are more like mythological creatures rather than principalities of the air or fallen angels. Rather than tempting people to sin they live out their own lives as they see fit, usually manipulating people for their own purposes. We've seen demons before in episodes like “All Souls” so I can only surmise that in the world of X Files there are different types of demons.
“Milagro,” the title of one of the episodes, literally means miracle. The general idea of heart removal connects in odd ways to the devotion “The Sacred Heart” of Jesus. While I don't know much about it since it is not something practiced by anyone with whom I am associated, it appears to be a display of Christ's physical heart as a show of his passion for humanity. In the episode it is more about a guy's obsession with a woman which results in the darkly miraculous creation of an inhuman killer stealing hearts from victims in a literal sense. As the story progresses Scully visits a church though this time it seems to be more about investigating the burning heart than for religious reasons. There is some talk about Jesus as it applies to the “sacred heart” but no real scriptural discussion.
The new mythology introduced at the end involves a different origin of man than what is proposed by evolution or scripture. We won't get the full impact of these ideas until next season, but essentially they include the notion that the Bible and other holy scriptures came from aliens who may also be responsible for the origins of man. At the same time, though, the series as a whole does put forth the idea that God is real.
Final Thoughts
I didn't get into the new mythology all that much. I think the weakness of it is probably a large part of what lead to the downfall of the series. We latched on to the Syndicate, and even though the story with them got convoluted it was a deeper and more personal story than the alien genesis idea. There are more weak episodes in this season than there have been in others, but at the same time there are some truly great ones here as well.
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