Plot
With The X-Files having been shut down, Fox Mulder (Duchovny) has been working lowly surveillance assignments while Dana Scully (Anderson) is reassigned to teach at the FBI academy. Occasionally aided by mysterious informant X (Williams), Mulder continues to search for the truth behind the government’s cover-up, despite being given a new partner, Agent Alex Krycek (Lea), whom he doesn’t fully trust. After Scully is abducted for a brief period, however, Assistant Director Skinner (Pileggi) decides to re-open The X-Files, and upon her return she and Mulder get deeper into the conspiracy than ever before…
Review
Essentially an on-par continuation of season one, the second season of The X-Files again flits between superior mythology episodes (concerned with the ongoing conspiracy arc) and disposable, self-contained investigations. Book-ended by riveting opener Little Green Men and gripping cliffhanger finale Anasazi, it also features some of the series’ best alien cover-up instalments to date, making all the monster-of-the-week cases all the more frustrating. Happily though, both Mitch Pileggi’s Assistant Director Skinner and William B. Davis’ Smoking Man are given expanded roles, while the new recurring characters (Steven Williams’ informant, Nicholas Lea’s ambiguous Agent Krycek, Brian Thompson’s Bounty Hunter) are all welcome additions. Of course, Gillian Anderson fell pregnant during filming, so it was also cleverly written in that she was abducted.
Verdict
Essentially an on-par continuation of season one, the second season of The X-Files again flits between superior mythology episodes and disposable, self-contained investigations. Thankfully though, when it comes to the former, we get some of the series’ best instalments to date.
