I know that the last couple seasons of X-Files didn't get the best reviews, but I disagree with them. I loved Robert Patrick's addition to the series as John Doggett, who in season 8 was partnered with Dana Scully, due to Fox Mulder's "disappearance" for several months. In season 9, Dana Scully was no longer working the X-Files, and Doggett began working with longtime friend, Monica Reyes, who had helped find the killer of his son years before.

Robert Patrick brought a fresh outlook and interesting character to the show. While having a somewhat abrasive personality (especially when it came to the paranormal), he was also a bit of a softie when it came to Dana Scully and other people he cared about. He was a breath of fresh air from David Duchovny's 7 1/2 years as dry humored Fox Mulder. Don't get me wrong, I loved the character, but you almost feel the restlessness while watching the series, that David Duchovny felt after several years on the show. The scenes between the three, eventually four, main characters (Scully, Doggett, Reyes, Mulder) at the end of season 9 were pretty spectacular. Specifically, Gillian Anderson's performance as Dana Scully was excellent, oftentimes heartwrenching, at choices she had to made.

The acting aside, the writing of each episode in the last season was excellent and kept me up late at night because I couldn't turn off the show. Now....the only question is...what am I going to do with myself after a ten season/two movie X-Files marathon, other than get more sleep??!

I always try to be open minded and most of the time disagree with negative reviews. Here i agree as well as disagree. It is not a contradiction, what i mean is i agree that it is unfortunately the weakest season, i however disagree that it was a bad season. I enjoyed the Dogget and Annebeth Gish characters and thought Doggets performance was especially good. Patrick's acting was better in the previous season though.
I was ready for them to become the main characters except there was one problem, tragedy. Each main cast member seems to be going through or had went through some sort of traumatic event with a family member to the extent of it becoming clique and strangely clique at that.
The main problem as well as the greatest thing about seasons 7-9 and especially 9 is the writing. It is as if the writers as well as directors had mentally lost it and their psychosis was being channeled through the weekly episodes.. I am guilty to say it was fun watching them lose it. You have to give it to the cast for remaining totally serious when mentioning the Super Soldiers. I have no problem with the Super Soldiers i just think they could of chose another name. It makes it seem like a child's cartoon after school special.. The Super Soldiers part 3 starring etc..
I am not trying to roast the season i loved the episode 4d and the Scary Monsters episode. The satanic episodes were good. There was definitely too much material dedicated to babies. There were at least 6 good episodes which makes it worth the buy and the bad ones were good bad as in good for stoners or people who appreciate good failures like Dune or True Detective season 2.
There is some great acting here from Anderson that goes in to the realm of absurd due to the reasoning behind her emotional moments.
It is good to see Duchovney back in the mode for his dual episode. I do not think his performances in 7-8 were bad it just seemed like he started smoking a lot of hash and seemed super stoned and with 8 borderline mad/grumpy.
Dogget's character became unintentionally funny with being over compassionate as if the writers (or Carter) was trying to overemphasize the character being totally the opposite of Moulder. This came across as funny as well as both Dogget and Reys being rendered comatose during different episodes only to be back in action the next week?
I am not complaining here. The reason i still feel this season is classic is it is just so weird. This really started with season 7. The show just started to have an offbeat feel to it. It was not bad as i personally am always down for experimentation and that aspect of the show is what i love about it.
I felt bringing up Doggets dead son over and over was so absurd. His brookly/canadian accent becomes laughable (in a good way)--that one episode where Reyas gets into some sort of mutiverse portal (good episode its called 4d)-Dogget says hotdogs and its hilarious-unintentionally. I am sad to say that for the first time there were times where i felt the show was catering to a younger audience nut absurdly again just for a few episodes. It also dives into deep serious territory about trying to break out of a coma etc.
The last double movie like episodes with Moulder were very good and again strange. Right when that episode started it was like the whole cast and crew jumped back into it. With the last few seasons 7-9 i feel 8 was the strongest--it felt like a legit drama again -minus the Moulder coming back fro the dead part --i still don't get that.
The funniest thing about the season 8-9 is there is so much drama and anticipation each time Mulder disappears only to have him return seemingly ungrateful and grumpy leading to more unintentional hilarity.
I enjoy the last few seasons for what they were and have nothing bad to say. I love seasons 2 and 3 and feel they stood alone. They were so good i could care less how they experimented in the later years. There are a lot of unexpected gems in season 6 even classics like Field Trip.
I recommend adding this season to the collection. All the seasons are entertaining it;a just 6-9 and more specifically 7-9 are entertaining in another way.

I approached Season 9 with sadness and much trepidation. I was worried about a ‘jump-the-shark’ episode. The season was good, largely to Robert Patrick’s presence as Special Agent John Doggett, Annabeth Gish as Special Agent Monica Reyes, and the continuing presence of Gillian Anderson as Dr. Dana Scully. The season starts well with the 2-part “Nothing Important Happened Today’ which featured Special Agent Doggett and the ‘super soldiers.’

Robert Patrick brought a hard-edged character to the show who deeply cared for his former partner, Dana Scully and Monica Reyes. The season did introduce some new characters and returned several recurring characters. Adam Baldwin returns as the menacing super soldier, Knowle Rohrer, Cary Elwes plays the AD Brad Follmer (Reyes’ former lover), Terry O’Quinn makes a guest appearance as the "Shadow Man", Chris Owens as Jeffrey Spender, and James Pickens, Jr. returns as Deputy Director Alan Kersh, the foil of Doggett and the X-Files. Season 9 wraps up the William Scully/Mulder storyline, the Lone Gunmen, and sees the return of Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) in the two-hour finale, ‘The Truth.” The finale saw Jeffrey Spender (Chris Owens), Laurie Holden (Marita Covarrubias) and Gibson Praise (Jeff Gulka) all come forward to help Mulder who is being set up in a ‘kangaroo court’ presided by Kersh and the FBI. The finale also featured William Devane the "Cigarette Smoking Man" (William B. Davis) in memorable cameos.

Aside from the excellent two-part initial episodes and the finale, the other solid episodes were: ‘Daemonicus,’ ‘4-D’’ ‘Lord of the Flies,’ ‘Hellbound,’ ‘Provenance,’ ‘Providence,’ ‘Scary Monster,’ ‘Jump the Shark,’ ‘William,’ and ‘Release.’ Overall, the season held a melancholy feel for me as each episode brought the initial run of the series closer to its exciting end.

Mexico : A nice place to visit but a bad place to not have your memories when it all comes down. Just ask Dogget who, in an unexplained wy, has lost everything he had. all he knows is that he has a boy and he loves him just like he loves his wife. all the other agents seem to know is that he was working a case, that he was picked up on a videocamera, and that the FBI seems to value them less and less. Such the strange world when you do not love your bosses.

Having a little insight goes a long way in a series and seeing Doggett and the way his boy comes to the surface really does have an impact. This is strengthed more when you know how it started and you know how it will play out, having seen the reast of the season and having knowledge at just how this thing is left. That said, the episode is not the best one of the bunch, with it not really hitting on all cylanders.

I like the show, love episodes, but this takes a lot of time to get somewhere. The surroundings and the people are played out and the people and the things are placed on the board for us to see. Still, this takes time. As such, I rate it lower, with a 3.5 and then a rounding motion, giving it a 4 begrudingly. I also do that because the download is nice and because the rating is not solely about the show.

Not really being an X-File until the why is finlally worked in hurts this a lot.

I will try to be succinct. As an X-Files fan I was hoping for way more than what is here. If YOU enjoyed this season, great, I'm glad you did. I did not AND I liked the addition of Patrick and Gish. Here's where the wheels came off...changing the characters at all. Any flow was utterly disrupted by this. I needed to return to the show for some closure as I gave up early in season 7, while on TV :), and I wanted to see it all before the resurrection this fall. While David Duchovny had a great support system around him, no doubt, he was the show. He was at the center of the web as it were and his loss from it irrecovably damaged it. I maintain that if this show had a beginning and end in a 5 season time-frame it would be one of the greatest sci-fi adventures ever on tv but it just over stayed and petered out. If you're a fan of the show, it may be worth the watch but you will be, at least, mildly disappointed.

The ninth and final season of THE X-FILES is easily the least of the nine. There are still some good episodes here and there, but most of the good ones are the standalone one-offs, the ones that have nothing to do with the Supersoldier and savior-baby stories that served as the mythological arc of the season.

By this point, it became clear that the mythology was running on fumes, that it was being stretched taut even though the original vast alien conspiracy seemed to have been resolved by Season 6, and subsequent loose ends tied up by Season 7. I would almost be willing to concede that maybe---MAYBE---the whole idea of a secret program to repopulate Earth with Supersoldiers might have truly gone somewhere had Chris Carter and company been allowed to develop it further in another season. But I doubt it; the air of staleness would probably remain.

So it's not that the episodes themselves are terrible. "Provenance" and "Providence"---which sees the return of those rubbings that led Mulder to nearly go mad towards the end of Season 6 and the beginning of Season 7---certainly have their moments, and at least "Nothing Important Happened Today" has the freshness of discovery to recommend it---the freshness of seeing how new X-Files agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) handle their new assignment. It's just that, at this point, the mythology has clearly been played out, and, as hard as Chris Carter tries to breathe new life into it...let's face it, the paranoia toward the government that the early seasons of "The X-Files" were able to touch upon became old hat at about the show's midway point (Season 5).

But, when it comes to "The X-Files," I'm always a pretty optimistic fan, and, as always with this show, there are some fine standalone episodes to make Season 9 possibly worth a look. My personal favorite is "4-D" for the following reason: the episode may well be the "X-Files" version of Clint Eastwood's recent MILLION DOLLAR BABY! Yeah, I know the episode was made maybe three years before Eastwood made his award-winning picture, but some of the parallels are uncanny, especially with Reyes being forced to make a decision as to whether to listen to a paralyzed Doggett and pull the plug. By itself, though, it's a pretty good, interesting episode, which involves a serial killer who can somehow walk into different dimensions to act out his sick fantasies. There are other notables: "Daemonicus," "Hellbound," "John Doe," "Underneath," "Scary Monsters." Season 9 also contains some stabs at the kind of humor and sentimentality---qualities which were basically absent in Season 8---that characterized Seasons 6 & 7; unfortunately, episodes like "Improbable" and "Sunshine Days" turn out to be the lesser efforts of the season. "Improbable" was written and directed by Chris Carter, and it's a thoroughly bizarre effort, with special guest star Burt Reynolds playing---well, playing someone who may well be God Himself. It's interesting, to say the least, but ultimately I thought it was a failure. And Vince Gilligan's "Sunshine Days" is not one of his finer episodes; its descent into bathos reminds you of Season 6's "The Rain King"---not necessarily a good reminder for most fans. On the other hand, the episode does show flashes of the kind of chemistry between Doggett and Reyes that weren't always in abundance in the rest of the season.

Doggett and Reyes are perhaps the two most controversial points about Season 9. Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish, I think, did as well as anyone could with their parts. If you found Patrick rather one-note in Season 8, watch Season 9's "John Doe" and marvel at the range of emotions he shows in playing a Doggett who has had his memory removed. As for Gish...well, she's no Gillian Anderson (who was at least a good trouper throughout Season 9, and brought her typical emotional warmth to the show), but she has her moments (see "Hellbound" and "Audrey Pauley"). Unfortunately, both actors are hampered by writers who didn't really bother to make Doggett and Reyes nearly as interesting as Mulder and Scully were in the show's first 7 seasons. If there are those that feel that Doggett and Reyes didn't show much personality, I don't think it's necessarily the fault of the actors; the writers apparently didn't find them compelling enough to shade the characters in either.

All this leads up to the finale, "The Truth," in which Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), after disappearing again (out of his own free will this time), resurfaces, accused of murder. He is put on trial for his life---a trial that he believes is a trial about the truth that he and Scully have been looking for for years. Opinions range regarding this series finale. Some were disappointed that the centerpiece trial was basically a glorified clip show (a la the sitcom SEINFELD); others were perhaps more disappointed at how it all ended (continuing Chris Carter's obsession with frustrating the audience). Still, overall I thought it was a decent finale. The trial sequences, at the very least, summed up the mythology in a reasonably satisfying way, and the episode's final scene once again loyal fans that the characters were just as important to the vision of THE X-FILES as the creepy, freaky, and paranoid intrigue. The ending really does produce a feeling of the end of an era.

Thus closes a 9-year chapter of groundbreaking television on THE X-FILES. After abandoning the show during its initial run during Season 7, it has been fun to rediscover the show from the beginning all the way to the end. This is a generally excellent television show that, even at its worst, still provides some of the smartest thrills and chills you'll ever see on TV---and, for me, not even Season 9, which is easily the least of the nine seasons, can diminish the achievements of this show. If it's not necessarily as essential as the show's first 7 seasons, Season 9 is still perhaps worth a look.

I came in late on the scene and didn't start watching X-Files until Season 3. I usually don't watch much television, but after my first viewing, I never missed another episode for the rest of the 9-year run and most weeks it was the ONLY show I watched. I had waited all of a year to finally see Scully's baby being born and was forced to spend that week on a Cruise Ship (work related) and my only concern from the time I arrived on deck was "Can we receive the Fox Network on this thing" - the answer was "No" so I made a ship-to-shore call to my Brother's girsfriend in Dallas to record the episode and I flew back through there to pick it up on the way home - that's dedication! Sure there were a few episodes that didn't quite meet the standards (a bar set by the X-Files Team themselves) over the nine years, but personally I could have taken another nine years). If the writers were running out of material there were a few episodes I could have written myself. Mulder and the rest of the cast were awesome, but I have to admit, it was Scully that kept me coming back. I confess I am a "Scully-Freak" and maybe that is why I enjoyed the last two seasons probably the most - it became more focused on Scully. By Season 9 Gillian had totally "nailed-it" - so much so that she could take the character anywhere. And as if that weren't enough, she just got better looking every year - there is a good reason to buy Season 9 in and of itself! I own ALL 9 Seasons of the Collectors DVDs which I have purchased from Amazon. My favorite DVDs are the "Behind the Scenes" discs - my only regret is for some reason the video on my Season 9 Bonus CDs keeps cutting out on my new top-of-the-line DVD Player?

Casting of Gish & Patrick is fine, they're great.
But sound design went from subtle and haunting to unnecessary horror-show horns and violins.
Script quality sunk to a level lacking cleverness or originality.
Lighting went from natural and unique to pat TV quality bounce & saturation.
It's like an new crew took over.
But most of the names are the same.
Maybe they were forced to go into mainstream methods when faced with the loss of Mulder.
Maybe it was the organic breakdown of something that ran it's course.
But it all seems desperate, right down to Scully's new penchant for leather.