Rating: 
Summary: it's got it...
Review: X-Files is a show that just has what it takes to captivate you. from the minute the show came on air it showed so strongly how brilliant it was that know one could stop it...The show may be over now, but movies is still in the workings... This show will never die... and every season of X-Files is worth every penny.... Simply brilliant
Rating:
Summary: Get Off The Bus & Get On The X-Files Mobile
Review: This compilation is reason enough to purchase a DVD player. I have never encountered such sheer volume & quality in a media package as the X-Files Season Box Sets. Although I own Season 1 on Video, the DVD purchase is fantastically packaged as a momento of the ground-breaking first serise of Mulder & Scully's forray into the world of the unknown & includes some excellent episodes including Beyond The Sea, Gender Bender, E.B.E, The Erlenmeyer Flask & Tooms to name but a few. 24 episodes, all the TV teasers, behind the scenes interviews, this is an outstanding package which will be hard for another DVD manufacturer to emulate. Fox cares for its audience & with the X-Files having some of the most loyal fans in the world, Chris Crter & the boys have gone all-out to ensure that said fans (including myself) remain that way. Go on, relive those early daus with Dana & Fox, & remember the initial frisson that TVs premiere sci-fi show gave in digital quality. I can't wait until season 4 onwards are released............
Rating: 
Summary: Strong first season has only a few missteps 4 1/2 stars
Review: Chris Carter clearly has found his niche as a writer. "The X-Files" combines elements of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" (a series I loved as a kid) with other elements (including David Lynch's "Twin Peaks" where Duchovny appeared as a cross dressing FBI agent during the first season)to create a unique, scary and fun television series that captured the media & public's attention for 9 years. Having purchased the first and second seasons when they first became available on VHS back in the 90's, I'm a happy camper that they finally appeared on DVD at a reasonable price. The first season looks exceptional on DVD. I had forgotten how good "Ice", "Deep Throat", "Squeeze", "Tooms", The Erhlanger Flask", the outstanding "Beyond the Sea" and many of the other outstanding episodes were here. Some weren't all that great to begin ("Space" being a prime example) but they only served to highlight how good the show was when it was firing on all cylinders. The extras aren't quite as extensive as on later sets. We get a couple of deleted scenes from the pilot, international clips where we get to hear what Mulder and Scully sound like in other countries. We also get an 11 minute featurette on the first season where Carter and the other producers/writers/directors comment on the series and its formative first year. There's also a number of clips that were used for promos when "The X-Files" was being exclusively shown on FX network. These include segments were we meet some of the folks behind the scenes on the series including the special effects make up guy (who has always done a great job on helping to fashion a quality show that held its own against the best of TV and movies) and others. If you're buying this for the extras, it's the wrong purchase as they aren't as extensive here as later sets. The original uncut episodes (including the deleted scenes of Scully's love interest)make this set worthwhile. While the price is a bit more reasonable than before, I'd like to see this set come down to the same price as "Buffy", "Gilmore Girls", "Dead Like Me" and other popular series. It seems only fair to make the show available to the mass audience that always supported it.
Rating:
Summary: Groundbreaking first season of this classic TV series
Review: I caught up with the first season of THE X-FILES via these DVDs recently, and as ever I am struck by the freshness of the chemistry between David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson as Mulder and Scully. Even in some of the lesser filler episodes you rarely get a sense of the two phoning in their performances like they were sometimes wont to do in later seasons. Already in the "Pilot," you sense these two clicking along wonderfully, and it continued on for quite a few more episodes afterwards. It's quite refreshing. Overall, this first season was quite good. Inconsistent, maybe, but that can be forgiven as creator Chris Carter was still trying to find the show's distinctive voice. It may not be quite a match for the second or third seasons, which have many great moments and episodes among them, but there are still some very entertaining and creative episodes to be found here, most of which admirably emphasize intelligent horror over hollow shock value. As for the so-called "mythology" episodes of the season, they are quite refreshing to watch too: episodes during a time when the mythology wasn't so convoluted and overblown, when it was all simply a matter of touching upon our embedded paranoias about extraterrestrials or our government instead of degenerating into the bloated sci-fi soap opera it was to become in later seasons. Back then, the paranoia was fun, as you can probably sense in wonderful early episodes like "Deep Throat" and "E.B.E." ********** Thus, some highlights and other random comments on this first season: The first four episodes of the show really set the wheels in motion for THE X-FILES. The "Pilot" skillfully introduced us to our two main characters, and "Deep Throat" went further with themes touched upon in the previous episode (as well as introducing Mulder's first secret source in Deep Throat). "Squeeze" was the first "standalone" X-FILES mystery, and it set an early standard for creepy effectiveness and sheer creativity of concept (admit it, the idea of a genetic mutant who can squeeze through almost anything is kinda scary). And "Conduit" was an emotional mystery that showed us just how much Mulder's experience as a witness to his sister's abduction had truly affected him. All four were near-great episodes that set the show up quite nicely. I am going to respectfully dissent with those who bash "Ghost in the Machine" as one of this season's lowlights (although I won't extend the same empathy for the truly lame "Space"). It is by no means great (it has its unintentionally funny aspects, like the computer program itself, a poor man's HAL 9000), but it's hardly as bad as others might lead you to believe. It has a good, creepy premise---in which a computer program suddenly gains human consciousness and starts trying to preserve itself---and at least it shows an attempt by the writers to craft good, intelligent horror instead of yet another sci-fi retread. I think it works, in parts. Writers Glen Morgan and James Wong really distinguished themselves in this season as the best writers on the show. Their first collaboration was the chilling "Squeeze," and if their subsequent "Shadows" was not on the same plane (a little too soapy for my taste), they came back brilliantly with the classic "Ice," which truly put Mulder and Scully's relationship to the test as a parasite threatens to destroy them both. In later episodes such as the powerful "Beyond the Sea" and "E.B.E." they showed an attention to character detail that really made their scripts stand out among the pack (although "Tooms" was not quite successful at matching "Squeeze" for creepily effective scares). With one or two exceptions, Morgan and Wong crafted episodes that were not to be missed. And of course the season finale, "The Erlenmeyer Flask," which insinuated that the government might have a bigger role in things than previously believed, and set things up nicely for a new season. ********** Thus the first season of the X-FILES, not the show's greatest (the next two seasons qualify strongly for that honor), but a wonderful reminder of how new this show must have felt to many who first tuned in, if more in execution than in concept. Of course other sci-fi TV shows had shown us aliens and government conspiracies before, but never with this degree of intelligence and attention to scientific detail. This first season truly set the tone for the show that Chris Carter sustained remarkably in most of the later seasons, and for that reason alone this is the place to start if you want to get into this wonderful series. Recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Trust ... Me ... On This One
Review: I first became a casual viewer of "The X-Files" late into its second season. This DVD set appealed to me because I thought it would be interesting to follow the development of the show and its characters during its first year, and because I was curious to see how a television series would look and sound in the DVD format. I could not be more pleased on either count. The program content is uniformly outstanding, thanks to consistently fine performances by David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson, intriguing scripts, great visual effects, clever editing, and of course Mark Snow's brilliant musical score. There were episodes I especially enjoyed ("Eve", "Darkness Falls", "Shapes", "Tooms"), but that's simply a matter of personal taste; in fact, each of the 24 segments offered its own distinctive pleasures. The DVD presentation is consistently outstanding, with sharp, crisp visuals and clean sound. What a pleasure to enjoy the stories without commercial interruptions, breaking news pre-emptions, and/or annoying "visual noise" like station logos or weather warnings superimposed in the corner of the screen. The DVD extras (commentary by cast members and creator Chris Carter, promotional spots, etc.) are simply icing on an already perfectly baked cake. I've already pre-ordered the 2nd season packaged on DVD (scheduled for November 2000 release), and am looking forward to revisiting the early adventures of Scully and Mulder.
Rating:
Summary: The best Season Relived
Review: For most of people who know X-Files thoroughly, know that the first Season was perhaps the best ever season, the rest of followup seasons were good but they werent as fresh and as vibrant as this one was. If i dare, i may call it the best season of all the TV series present in history. Deep throat was perhaps the best of them...with Fox MULDER an FBI agent chasing UFOs with scientific Dana Scully despite being warned repeatedly.The episode sums up the life of a believer in general.on the other hand Dana scully plays the contrary to perfection.She forms an important buffer in mulder's chases as she repeatedly keeps mulder on the earth in his lift off ideas.
Deep Throat was the most fresh episode of not only X-Files but was also important for charracters to develop and story to move on.
I recommend its a must for all believers as well as non-believers and off course x-files fan would want to have this classic anyway.The pilot episode starts it with a usual sense(without music though)...
Rating:
Summary: Great show, poor DVD quality
Review: If the X-Files had stayed true to its form of the first three seasons, I wouldn't hesitate to call it the best show that has been on television. Even though it degraded over time, it's thrilling that the show that we came to love and obsess over has been preserved on DVD in its entirety. Episodes like Ice and Eve are better than most movies -- and this wasn't even my favorite season. In this first season we see more personal background and the development of the relationship between Mulder and Scully, even if some of the episodes are less polished than in the subsequent two seasons, which are really the best of the series.
The only hang-ups I have with these DVDs is the apparent lack of effort put into producing them, as if Chris Carter decided to just push them out knowing we would buy them regardless. The documentary and "extra" material is inadequate and much of it came straight from the video sets that were out years ago. The DVDs also tend to pause or skip slightly multiple times during the episodes (this also happens with the third season DVD set that I have). When comparing these to the huge amounts of thought and effort put into, for example, the making of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition DVDs, the lack of effort and quality here is appalling, considering the fantastic efforts put into the direction and production of the episodes themselves.
The X-Files deserves better. But for a true X-Phile, it's still more than worth the buy. :-)
Rating:
Summary: The beginning of a new era
Review: When the first season of X-Files premiered, I was finishing high school. Already, I found myself bored with the teen dramas, medical shows and cop shows that dominated television. Having always been a "little out there" among my friends, I longed for something to watch that appealed to my inner sci-fi geek.
And I found it.
Aliens, government conspiracies, genetic mutants, UFOs, vampires... Mulder and Scully seemed to find it all. And it all wove into a complex story-arc that spanned multiple seasons.
This show used pop-culture to generate its own sub-culture. Say "small potatoes", "Spooky Mulder" or "ratboy" to an X-Phile and watch their expression. They'll know what you mean. Suddenly, it was cool again to be a geek, to wonder about the Rainbow Project or Area 51.
And from there, a new era. Millenium, Roswell, Buffy, Angel, Charmed, Dark Angel, Smallville - all shows that I honestly don't believe would have seen the light of day had something not paved the way back for the extreme to get back into the American mainstream.
Season One was certainly not the best season. Definitely, the acting and dialogue could have used some help, but absolutely necessary to understand later seasons.
Rating:
Summary: Learning that the Truth is Out There...
Review: When Dana Scully is assigned to the F.B.I.'s X-Files department, it mostly to keep an eye on agent "Spooky" Fox Mulder. While Agent Mulder has a keen investigative mind, he also believes in paranormal phenomenon and U.F.O.'s, and the Department brass suspect that his questionable investigations will only embarass the Bureau. What no one suspects is that the skeptical Scully will become Mulder's staunchest ally. The first season of The X-Files, while uneven, perfectly showcases the potent energy of the pop culture juggernaut to come. The classic episodes balance between alien agenda conspiracy ("Deep Throat", "Fallen Angel", etc.) and monster-of-the-week creepiness ("Squeeze", "Tooms", and "Ice") while the less successful ones ("Shadows", "Space") still showcase the concept's potential quite nicely. Just about every genre show airing since The X-Files hit big has attempted to copy its style or format on one level or another, so it is hard to believe that there was no show like BEFORE it came along - so powerful is the trend that it created. While the show bloomed to genre brilliance in season two, the seed was expertly planted here, where Dana Scully first learned that the Truth was Out There.
Rating:
Summary: Great TV, in a world of bad TV
Review: Let's be honest, most TV now is just bad. Now yes there are exceptions, but the majority of TV shows just don't compare with the X-Files. I loved season one, because it hinted at bigger things to come. The episodes are great, some better than others. This isn't the best X-Files season, I believe the sixth is, however this is the foundation. Highly reccomend it.
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