20th Century Fox presents
X-Files Season One: Disc Seven (1993)

"What is unseen, what is imagined, what is intimated is always scarier than what appears on screen."
- Chris Carter

Review By: Robert Mandel   
Published: May 17, 2000

Stars: Chris Carter
Other Stars: X-Files' crew
Director: unknown

Manufacturer: Digital Video Compression Center
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Run Time: approx. 30m
Release Date: May 09, 2000
UPC: 024543000426
Genre: television

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
C+	B+	B	C	C+

DVD Review

Documentary: The Truth About Season One
Running time: 11m:05s

Short but interesting featurette with interview snippets with crew members, highlighting the originality of the concept and special effects that helped underscore the uniqueness of this show. Even more evident is that Chris Carter had from the very beginning his fingers on the pulse of every aspect of the show from the titles to the script and plan and even the musical score. No big news for fans, but I never knew Gillian Anderson was pregnant during the second half of season one, so that was news to me.

Chris Carter talks about season one episodes:Perhaps after he took a lambasting for his full-length commentary with director Rob Bowman on the X-Files: Fight the Future DVD, he decided it would be better to skip it here. Of course, who the heck would have enough time to converse intelligently and interestingly for 24 hours anyway? The snippet interview format might be the best suited to get to the essential information. Fortunately you have the choice to play the entire lot of "interviews" at one time.

"Behind the Truth"
All of the first season's F/X 30 second snippets about different characters or aspects of the show including Fox and Dana, the Lone Gunmen, the worm from Ice, Mark Snow's theme music, the background of Fox's apartment and office, to the fun props such as wallets and watches, etc. Unfortunately, unlike with the Chris Carter interview snippets, the user is not given the option of playing all at once, and must hit enter for each snippet. Mildly annoying.

Television Spots
47 TV spots. Count 'em, that's right. Basically, two spots per show (one ten second, one 20 second) multiplied by 23 episodes, plus one sixty second commercial for the pilot. Fun and interesting, and will keep your children busy for hours!

Deleted Scenes
Sadly, this contains only the two scenes of Dana Scully's boyfriend Ethan Minette that can be found through more difficult ministrations on disc one. Still, enjoyable no matter where you find them. Also, contains a short special effects shot from the Fallen Angel episode. Amusing, but was already shown in one of the earlier supplements.

DVD-ROM
This disc also contains some DVD-ROM extras, mostly marketing and merchandising, including areas to play videos and games, a link to the static Fox DVD web page (this really needs some work!), the X-Files store, the official X-Files website, X-Files classified tapes, the X-Files: Fight the Future website, X-Files events, and disc credits. Writing of, DVD-ROM coding by Click Active Media.

Rating for Style: C+
Rating for Substance: B+

 

Image Transfer

	One	Two
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame	na - na
Original Aspect Ratio	yes	no
Anamorphic	no	no

Image Transfer Review: Well, not much to talk about here, except that the fullframe image is very clear and bright throughout the supplements, and as clear and free of artifacts as one could reasonably expect from a 1.33:1 transfer.

Image Transfer Grade: B

 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: The audio is Dolby 2.0 stereo, as if one should expect any different. Slightly better than TV sound, but the dialogue (or monologues) are completely understandable. Enough said.

Audio Transfer Grade: C

 

Disc Extras

Animated menu with music
Scene Access with 0 cues and remote access
47 TV Spots/Teasers
2 Deleted Scenes
Packaging: Alpha
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single
Layers Switch: na

Extra Extras:

1. Short special effects clip from the Fallen Angel episode.

Extras Review: Of course, this is a disc of extras, but I thought I'd separate out the informational pieces from the extras. It's fun to go through the commercials for the episodes, they are an artform unto themselves. None of the supplements come with active subtitling, which is a shame for any hard of hearing viewers. The packaging looks nice from the pictures I've seen, but this disc came in a jewel case so I can't comment more.

Extras Grade: C+

 

Final Comments

None of this information is really new and exciting, but it is a very nice touch by Fox to add it to the box set. I enjoyed most of the material, except where there was redundancy. Regardless of the first experience, I'd like to have some more in-depth discussion of the episodes, or commentary, but it's not a bad start. I can't wait for the rest.

 

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