The X Files: Season 4 [1994]

Amazon.co.uk Review

In Season 4 of The X-Files, Scully is a bit upset by her on-off terminal cancer and Mulder is supposed to shoot himself in the season finale (did anyone believe that?), but in episode after episode the characters still plod dutifully around atrocity sites tossing off wry witticisms in that bland investigative demeanour out of fashion among TV cops since Dragnet. Perhaps the best achievement of this season is "Home", the most unpleasant horror story ever presented on prime-time US TV. It's not a comfortable show--confronted with this ghastly parade of incest, inbreeding, infanticide and mutilation, you'd think M & S would drop the jokes for once--but shows a willingness to expand the envelope. By contrast, ventures into golem, reincarnation, witchcraft and Invisible Man territory throw up run-of-the-mill body counts, spotlighting another recurrent problem. For heroes, M & S rarely do anything positive: they work out what is happening after all the killer's intended victims have been snuffed ("Kaddish"), let the monster get away ("Sanguinarium") and cause tragedies ("The Field Where I Died"). No wonder they're stuck in the FBI basement where they can do the least damage.

The series has settled enough to play variations on earlier hits: following the liver vampire, we have a melanin vampire ("Teliko") and a cancer vampire ("Leonard Betts"), and return engagements for the oily contact lens aliens and the weasely ex-Agent Krycek ("Tunguska"/"Terma"). Occasional detours into send-up or post-modernism are indulged, yielding both the season's best episode ("Small Potatoes") and its most disappointing ("Musings of a Cigarette-Smoking Man"). "Small Potatoes", with the mimic mutant who tries out Mulder's life and realises what a loser he is (how many other pin-up series heroes get answerphone messages from their favourite phone-sex lines?), works as a genuine sci-fi mystery--for once featuring a mutant who doesn't have to kill people to live--and as character insight. --Kim Newman

Customer Reviews:

Best yet.......2007-09-06

Watching the DVDs through from season one, this is the best of the first four. Doesn't suffer with the poor attempts at comedy episodes that plagued season 3. Still has weaker ones but overall a brilliant season.

Some annoying instances of characters (usually Mulder) being very stupid just to move the plot along but that's just being picky. Good entertainment all the way through.

Firing on all cylinders.......2006-11-01

This is my favourite year of The X-Files. The average episodes are great, and the best are simply outstanding. There is serious drama, particularly for Scully's character. Episodes like Home and Sanguinarium are particularly creepy, whilst others develop the Smoking Man's character, or the possibilities surrounding Samantha Mulder's disappearance.

This season won several Emmy awards, and deservedly so. Although it remained a great show, I don't believe it was ever again quite so consistently good as this season.

Favourites:
Memento Mori, Paper Hearts, Never Again, Demons, Home, Tunguska/Terma, Tempus Fugit/Max

Episodes I remember not liking, but enjoyed this time round:
Never Again, Kaddish

Weak points:
El Mundo Gira - goatsuckers, indeed.

x-files.......2006-04-05

x-files season 4 has to be the best season of x-files i have ever seen bear in mind i have seen 5,6,7,8 or 9 yet but of the 4 seasons i have seen this is the best of all.

Another outstanding season - The show at it's peak!.......2005-05-19

Generally a very strong, mature season, a close second to Season three. The mythology storyline mostly takes a welcome break from the confusing colonisation / cloning story and takes a backseat to the stand-alone episodes. Fortunately these are mostly excellent with some great thrillers, monsters and a "back to basics" UFO story in "Tempus Fugit" / "Max". Production values and effects are excellent, and all episodes are well-crafted without being too slick. Arguably the highlight of the season is the revelation of Scully's cancer and Gillian Anderson's touching performances bring a lot of emotional depth to this storyline. Some lighter episodes are more than welcome in what is generally quite a serious and solemn season, but none are as good as Darin Morgan's genius work on season three.

Best episodes:
Gethsemane
Home
Tunguska
Memento Mori
Small Potatoes

Amazon.co.uk Review

Customer Reviews:

Not the best but OK.......2005-09-09

***

This has been slated by some reviewers and each is entitled to their opinion. Mine is that this is a worthwhile addition to the X Files, no better than the best and no worse than the worst.

The series itself can't have every episode mind blowing even though the series is a true classic.

If you are an X files fan, then you need this if only because you are an X files fan.

***

a shame to begin season 9.......2004-05-14

this was an o.k episode, one of the average type ones you saw more in season 7, when some bad or moderate directing was displayed. whilst it remained a little interesting, and certainly a strange performance from lucy lawless, i felt the lack of mulder really let it down. i mean what happened after the kiss!? he just up and left! with monica and john dashing around back and forth complaining about a erased tape. i wasnt hooked.

Ridiculous.......2004-05-04

The earlier episodes of the x files were by far the best. Towards the end it got a bit to hard to believe. The truth was so far fetched even the die hard believers of the alien phenomenon would find it hard to believe. At the end of the day i was really disappointed. Thank god for X Files repeats on Sky One!

Another X-Cellent Year.......2004-04-20

Season 4 is kind of a season of two-halves, the mythology is fantasticthroughout while the stand-alones, when their good they are at a higherquality the most other seasons but there also seems to be a higher amountof poor episodes, El Mundo Gira and Synchrony should definetly beavoided.
The year kicks of exactly to the point where Season 3 ended with thebrilliant if not confusing Herrenvolk, although Zero Sum later on in theseason clears alot of things up. Tunguska/Terma delves deeper into themysteries surrounding the black oil and shows us that a cold war of sortsis underway to create a vaccine for the alien virus. In Memento Mori wesee Scully facing her terrible illness, Mulders search for a cure andSkinner making a deal with the devil. Tempus Fugit and Max serve no realpurpous to the on-going mythology rather they seem to simply be a showcaseof how "big" The X Files had become. Finally in Gethsemene Scully's healthdeterirates and Mulder hears a shocking revalation that leads to one ofthe most sensational cliffhangers ever.
Some of the finest stand-alones this season that are worth a mentioninclude, "Home", the stroy of an incestuos family whom Mulder and Scullyinvestigate when a severly deformed baby is found to have been buriedalive, this episode is worth the money alone. "Unruhe" is a terrifing andamazingly intellegent episode, "Paper Hearts" sees Mulder tormented by aserial killer he caught years before who claims that his sister was one ofhis many unkown victims, "Unrequited", when a top ranking general ismuredered inside his locked limosine Mulder and Scully are called in tofind a killer who seems to be able to vanish into thin air and "SmallPatatoes", an hilarious case involving a janitor with the ability todiguise himself as anyone, even Mulder!
This is a truly x-cellent year, from the ongoing mythology includingScullys cancer acr, the most contrversial episode in TV histroy - Home andclassic comedy in one of the funniest episodes ever- Small Patatoes. Thisbox-set has a surprisingly large amount of extras including a 30 minutedocumentary, TV-Spots, deleted sences, interviews, behind the sencesfottage and episode commentaries that make this well worth a buy.

A fantastic season.......2004-03-14

An all round great season made better as it's the last 'real' full X-Files season, as season 8 sees the disappearence of Mulder. Stand out episodes include All Things, a fabulously gorgeous and intelligent episode written by and diricted by Gillian, finally giving Scully a chance to choose the life she leads, a very important character development. The Amazing Maleeni sees some very funny and intelligent moments. X-Cops is a great spoof documentary giving some light hearted relief. Hungry is a classic monster of the week episode about eating brains. The Sixth Extinction, Amor Fati, Millennium, Rush, The Goldberg Variation, Orison, Je Souhaite and Requiem are the other standouts, whilst Hollywood AD is the only disapointing episode with only a few worthwhile moments.

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