Rating: 
Summary: Strong season for "The X-Files"
Review: A strong sixth season as "The X-Files" continued to stroll along in top form. Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz, Vince Gilligan and the rest of the writing/directing/producing crew created a number of strong memorable episodes during season six. While the mythlogy episodes are pretty terrific, the ones that stand out in my mind are the individual stand alone episodes. "The Beginning" manages to fit events from the movie into the series quite neatly so if you haven't seen the film, you'll be able to keep track of much of the action.
Among my favorites this season included "Terms of Endearment (featuring Bruce Campbell as, well, kind of a devlish guy),the unusual "Triangle" where suddenly Mulder finds himself as a Nazi officer during World War II in a time warp where all the various characters from the series show up. The Duchovny penned "The Unnatural" where we discover that the best player in baseball didn't quite fit into any league at all. M. Emmett Walsh guest stars (Darren McGavin wasn't available to reprise his part). The tongue-in-cheek two parter "Dreamland" is charming and funny. Here Mulder switches bodies with a government agent who's in charge of black ops (and who suspiciously looks like Michael McKean from "Spinal Tap") The Lone Gunmen make an appearence in "Three of a Kind" revisitng where Byers finally meets up with the mysterious Suzanne again (by the way "The Long Gun Men" 13 episode first season is coming to DVD shortly as well).The Suspenseful "Drive" and cliff hanger "Biogenesis" where Mulder seems to be losing his mind and the only clue is an alien artifact uncovered along the coast of Africa. This fine episode leads into the two part conclusion of season seven.
With season six Scully moved from role of doubter to a believer of sorts. While season seven had its high notes (most notably the two part opener), season six was the last most consistent season of the series (although season seven was exceptionally good as well).
All in all, a great season that continued to keep audiences spellbound.
Rating: 
Summary: Of all 9 seasons, 6 was probably the most disappointing.
Review: After five years filming in Vancouver, the X-Files shifted to Hollywood for arguably it's worst season. Some may say it was later in seasons 8 and 9 that the show died, but the presence of Robert Patrick helped pick the show up then, at least in my opinion. There were still some great episodes however in season 6, my personal favorites being "The Beginning", "Drive", "S.R.819", "Two Fathers", "One Son", "Aqua Mala", "Alpha", and "Biogenesis". So why was this year the worst? Because even with all of those great episodes, the rest of the season wasn't even decent. "Rain King", "Terms of Endearment" and "3 of a Kind" were downright awful. In the middle of the season is where the conspiracy with the syndicate finally resolved, and in Biogenesis the new one began. Hopefully FOX will load it up with extras to compensate for some of the more lacklustre episodes.
Rating: 
Summary: Great... But not the best
Review: Although season 6 of the X-files provided many laughs and entertaining episodes, it is not the series finest. The move from Vancouver to L.A. gave the X-files a sort of phony look. When the show was in Vancouver it always had a sort of creepy look to it, but in L.A. it just looked like all other shows. But it still remains to me the best shows ever created. And season 6th is definetly an excellent addition to any collection.
Rating: 
Summary: Horrible DVD video quality!
Review: Enough has been said about the quality of the X-Files TV show. But what about the quality of the video on this DVD box set? IT [is weak]! Yes, it is 16:9 anamorphic video. But like the previous 5 box sets, it is riddled with errors in the DVD stream for flagging progressive content and film cadence. Whomever is responsible for mastering these DVDs was drunk or incompentent or both. The video was not transferred from the original film, but seems to be a horribly mangled transfer from the broadcast video. If you have a 16:9 widescreen TV and progressive scan television and DVD player, you will be aggrivated by the quality as I was. Obviously the folks at Fox were only interested in how the X-Files looked on an [inexpensive] 19" 4:3 interlaced TV. The worst of the worst is the transfer on Disc 1 of the episode "Triangle". This episode has blurry video that looks like bad VHS.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good, but not up to the first five seasons
Review: For five seasons, The X-Files was one of the best shows on television, and the feature film "Fight the Future" was similarly excellent. With the sixth season and the show's move to LA, however, The X-Files became merely good, not great. In my opinion, the chief problem with Season 6 (and 7, for that matter) is the prescence of some poorly executed "humorous" episodes. In the early seasons, there would every so often be an episode that was funny and tongue-in-cheek, without losing that X-Files feel. With Season 6, however, such episodes ceased to be genuinely funny, and became simply silly and wacky, providing little laughter that isn't forced. This season's worst offender is "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped on Christmas Eve in a haunted mansion, whose ghostly residents wish to goad the FBI agents into a murder-suicide - by spouting pop psychology at them. Episodes that aren't mainly spoofs are also harmed by the silliness. "Agua Mala," in which a hurricane lets a sea monster loose in an apartment building, could have been a genuinely creepy episode, except for the fact that the building's tenants are all trite stereotypes. While there were problems, the good outweighed the bad in this season. The mythology episodes continued to be superb, especially "Two Fathers"/"One Son," a two-parter which essentially brings closure to the "Mytharc" running through the past five seasons. The season's only successfully humorous episodes are also mythology-related, namely the two-part "Dreamland," in which Mulder and an Area 51 operative switch bodies, and "The Unnatural," which tells the story of a star baseball player who is in fact an alien. The season finale "Biogenesis," which introduces a new stage of the mythology, is an intriguing episode, but its continuation in Season 7 is sadly disappointing. This season also featured some excellent stand-alone episodes. Especially good are "Drive," in which a mysteriously ailing man must keep driving - or his head will explode, "Alpha," a werewolf story with a twist, and "Field Trip," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped by a hallucinogenic giant fungus. Casual viewers may wish to stick with the first five seasons, which constitute the best of the series. Season 6 does, however, contain some really excellent episodes, and true fans will find plenty to enjoy. For the X-Files, "not quite as good" is still most definitely good enough.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good, but not up to the first five seasons
Review: For five seasons, The X-Files was one of the best shows on television, and the feature film "Fight the Future" was similarly excellent. With the sixth season and the show's move to LA, however, The X-Files became merely good, not great. In my opinion, the chief problem with Season 6 (and 7, for that matter) is the prescence of some poorly executed "humorous" episodes. In the early seasons, there would every so often be an episode that was funny and tongue-in-cheek, without losing that X-Files feel. With Season 6, however, such episodes ceased to be genuinely funny, and became simply silly and wacky, providing little laughter that isn't forced. This season's worst offender is "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped on Christmas Eve in a haunted mansion, whose ghostly residents wish to goad the FBI agents into a murder-suicide - by spouting pop psychology at them. Episodes that aren't mainly spoofs are also harmed by the silliness. "Agua Mala," in which a hurricane lets a sea monster loose in an apartment building, could have been a genuinely creepy episode, except for the fact that the building's tenants are all trite stereotypes. While there were problems, the good outweighed the bad in this season. The mythology episodes continued to be superb, especially "Two Fathers"/"One Son," a two-parter which essentially brings closure to the "Mytharc" running through the past five seasons. The season's only successfully humorous episodes are also mythology-related, namely the two-part "Dreamland," in which Mulder and an Area 51 operative switch bodies, and "The Unnatural," which tells the story of a star baseball player who is in fact an alien. The season finale "Biogenesis," which introduces a new stage of the mythology, is an intriguing episode, but its continuation in Season 7 is sadly disappointing. This season also featured some excellent stand-alone episodes. Especially good are "Drive," in which a mysteriously ailing man must keep driving - or his head will explode, "Alpha," a werewolf story with a twist, and "Field Trip," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped by a hallucinogenic giant fungus. Casual viewers may wish to stick with the first five seasons, which constitute the best of the series. Season 6 does, however, contain some really excellent episodes, and true fans will find plenty to enjoy. For the X-Files, "not quite as good" is still most definitely good enough.
Rating:
Summary: Quite good, but not up to the first five seasons
Review: For five seasons, The X-Files was one of the best shows on television, and the feature film "Fight the Future" was similarly excellent. With the sixth season and the show's move to LA, however, The X-Files became merely good, not great. In my opinion, the chief problem with Season 6 (and 7, for that matter) is the prescence of some poorly executed "humorous" episodes. In the early seasons, there would every so often be an episode that was funny and tongue-in-cheek, without losing that X-Files feel. With Season 6, however, such episodes ceased to be genuinely funny, and became simply silly and wacky, providing little laughter that isn't forced. This season's worst offender is "How the Ghosts Stole Christmas," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped on Christmas Eve in a haunted mansion, whose ghostly residents wish to goad the FBI agents into a murder-suicide - by spouting pop psychology at them. Episodes that aren't mainly spoofs are also harmed by the silliness. "Agua Mala," in which a hurricane lets a sea monster loose in an apartment building, could have been a genuinely creepy episode, except for the fact that the building's tenants are all trite stereotypes. While there were problems, the good outweighed the bad in this season. The mythology episodes continued to be superb, especially "Two Fathers"/"One Son," a two-parter which essentially brings closure to the "Mytharc" running through the past five seasons. The season's only successfully humorous episodes are also mythology-related, namely the two-part "Dreamland," in which Mulder and an Area 51 operative switch bodies, and "The Unnatural," which tells the story of a star baseball player who is in fact an alien. The season finale "Biogenesis," which introduces a new stage of the mythology, is an intriguing episode, but its continuation in Season 7 is sadly disappointing. This season also featured some excellent stand-alone episodes. Especially good are "Drive," in which a mysteriously ailing man must keep driving - or his head will explode, "Alpha," a werewolf story with a twist, and "Field Trip," in which Mulder and Scully are trapped by a hallucinogenic giant fungus. Casual viewers may wish to stick with the first five seasons, which constitute the best of the series. Season 6 does, however, contain some really excellent episodes, and true fans will find plenty to enjoy. For the X-Files, "not quite as good" is still most definitely good enough.
Rating:
Summary: The Beginning of the End
Review: Hot on the heels of the big-budget movie, the sixth season marks the beginning of the down turn in the X-Files series. Much of the suspense of the first five seasons is gone here as the sci-fi (as opposed to sf) aspects of the show really come to dominate the mythology. The fun of pondering the main mystery up to this point was the scary possibility that the government is involved in deceiving us. This season it becomes merely annoying due to inconsistencies in the stories and the beginning of the less scary idea that it's just aliens and their human dupes, not the government, who are running the conspiracy. Meanwhile the Monster of the Week eps vary widely. There are a few very good stories ("Drive", "Monday", "The Unnatural", "Field Trip") that successfully comment on Mulder & Scully's relationship by exploring their interactions with the one-time characters whose lives they intersect. Several other episodes are amazingly bad, however, in terms of story, character, and/or (surprisingly) special effects. Check out--or rather, don't--"Arcadia" for an episode that acheives the hat trick. Also in this latter category are "Terms of Endearment", "Agua Mala", and "Alpha". Too many episodes try to be funny when they can't be suspenseful, or the when the MoW is too poorly developed: "The Rain King", "Arcadia", "Three of a Kind". The requisite two-parters are exactly that--requisite sweeps week "movies" that Ten-Thirteen had gotten into the habit of making. "Dreamland" and "DL II" is a character-switch story that rehashes some of the themes of season 4's "Small Potatoes". "Two Fathers"/"One Son" seems to have been made solely to tie up much of the mythology so that any new viewers brought in by the movie wouldn't get bored by the sheer weight of accumulated plot strands. These longer stories do little except make fans fondly recall the great 2-part epics of seasons 2, 3 and 4. In between are a few other decent-to-standout (opinions vary) singular episodes such as "Triangle" and "How The Ghosts Stole Christmas" and again, "The Unnatural" (written and directed very well by David Duchovny), and the Scully-centric episodes in this season--"Milagro" & "Tithonus"--are at least much better than season 5's "Chinga" and "All Souls" at exploring Scully's role apart from Mulder, and Gillian Anderson shines in both episodes. "S.R. 819" gives Mitch Pileggi's A.D. Skinner a chance to get directly involved in a tantalizing aspect of the mythology, but this subplot is dropped after season 6, and literally shot down at the end of season 8, without any further exploration. Don't know the details on the bonus material, but the last disc is usually packed with interesting mini-documentaries, deleted scenes and special effects, and lately there have been some good commentary tracks as well.
Overall, if you're a fan you've already made a decision to buy this set, and at least the ratio of good-to-bad is higher here than in season 5. Unfortunately if you're looking for the really good episodes on DVD, there are only a few here, and this is the only (legitimate) way to go.
Rating:
Summary: Still worthy of high praise
Review: I am a huge fan of the X-Files but I do agree that the move to film the X-Files in California did remove the gloomy, eerie, and downright scary look to the show. Even so, I did enjoy this season, though not nearly as much as I enjoyed the previous seasons (especially Seasons 1 - 3). The pros: The Unnatural (Baseball player is an alien. M & S have normal conversations. "Hips before hands." Written and directed by Duchovny--much better than Hollywood A.D. from Season 7. Very sweet lesson to learn with baseball.), Milagro (Serial killer (maybe or maybe not) has the hots for S. Insight into Scully. "Scully's already in love."), Triangle (This one might be my favorite episode of the season. M steps into a time warp on a cruise ship. Filmed with as few cuts as possible. Great job by all the actors! Insight into Mulder: What he thinks of Scully and everyone else in his life. Mulder is at his most exuberant and Scully is antsy. Kiss between M & S is great but the scene was poorly lit. Is it reality or Mulder's dream? Hmm....), Monday ("Groundhog Day" look-alike. M has a waterbed? M in wet pajama bottoms!), Dreamland I & II (M & Lenny from Laverne & Shirley switch bodies. M & S interaction. Lenny's M tries to seduce S. Episode does have some dumb moments with M & Lenny dancing in the mirror.), and How the Ghosts Stole Christmas (M tricks S into investigating a haunted house. Insight into M & S. Many funny lines--"...left cheek sneak."). Chris Carter messed up another mythology factor, though: getting rid of the Syndicate in this season (Two Fathers/One Son). (I won't even get into how he messed up the Samantha mytharc in Season 7--the starlight people?!) I am kinda biased against the mytharc episodes. I like the stand alones better. The cons: Field Trip (confusing episode with M & S sharing the same hallucination...right! I really do not know why this episode is so popular with fans.), The Rain King (Guy can control the weather--stupid. Episode has one of the old Saturday Night Live Players in it.), and Three of a Kind (The Lone Gunmen episode. I do love those guys but they cannot carry an episode. But...you do get to see S act like a bimbo.). Overall, good quality season--on par with Seasons 4 - 5. Season 7 is the problem child of the series. Season 6 is still great. However, check with Fox about Season 6. There is a rumor out there that a replacement disk will be sent to people who purchased this season because of the poor quality of Triangle. I will still call Fox but Triangle looks great to me.
Rating:
Summary: Passed the Threshold
Review: I am not going to elaborate on the technical details of the DVD collection of Season Six, since more nit-picky people have already gone in depth into that area. My review is going to focus solely on the episode quality in terms of characters and plot. This season really marked a turning point in the X-Files series. Notably, the filming had been moved from Vancouver to California, which removed some of the dark grittiness that fans had come to expect and love. Following the success of the movie and presumably an influx of new fans that had not followed the previous five seasons, the writers/producers opted to wrap up the conspiracy mythology (episodes "Two Fathers" and "One Son") and replace it with a more ambiguous plot ("Biogenesis"). We bid farewell to the members of the Syndicate and the "human controlled" government subterfuge. This sudden change of track upset many hardcore followers of the series. As far as the recurring characters go, we see surprisingly little of the fan-favorite Cigarette Smoking Man. The character of Mulder's informant Marita Covarrubias continues to atrophy with only one appearance this season. We also see little development of the newly introduced FBI Agents Diana Fowley and Jeffrey Spender who succeed Mulder and Scully at the X-Files. Alex Krycek makes a few appearances, but little is done with his character. The only shining point is the introduction of the character of Assistant Director Kersh, who will continue to be a thorn in the sides of Mulder, Scully, and Assistant Director Skinner until the last episodes of Season Nine. In this season, the groundwork is being layed for the eventual departure of Fox Mulder (most notably "Biogenesis"), that will continue to build throughout Season Seven until it culminates in Season Eight. Scully's character is paid tribute in many episodes including "Milagro" and "Tithonus". The weakest aspect of this season is the downturn in writing quality. The gritty tension and suspense of former seasons seem to be almost gone in the episodes of this season. We see the writers turning away from scary and often thought-provoking plots to the most inelaborate forms of humor. Stemming from this comes the WORST X-FILES EPISODE EVER: "The Rain King". This is the perhaps the first time that I could not wait for commercials simply because they were more entertaining than the episode itself. The writing quality also changed in presenting stories with a modicum of credibility. That was what made the X-Files great...just enough reality to make an otherwise preposterous story believable. And scary things that are somewhat believable are almost always ten times more frightening. That philosophy departs the series towards the beginning of the season with "Dreamland I" and "Dreamland II" that, although amusing, are nothing more than a rehash of a plot twist that has been used time and time again in science fiction. Despite its shortcomings, this is still the X-Files and I love it for its good and its bad. Well, maybe I don't love "The Rain King" episode. The episode "The Beginning" does well transitioning from the X-Files movie and the Season Five finale. "S.R. 819" builds an interesting Skinner subplot with technology that few realize exists. "Two Fathers" and "One Son" do a tidy wrap up of the former mythology episodes with a satisfying conclusion. Fans of the Lone Gunmen will adore "Three of a Kind". And "Biogenesis" does an adequate job initiating the new mythology episodes and sparking the beginning of Mulder's departure. As a fan, I believe that all the DVD box sets are a "must own", but bare in mind that this season definitely marks the "passing of the threshold".
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