X
- FOX
- Oct 4, 1996
- FOX
- Oct 4, 1996
Summary The X-Files is a Peabody, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning American science fiction television series created by Chris Carter, which first aired on September 10, 1993, and ended on May 19, 2002. The show was a hit for the Fox Broadcasting Company network, and its main characters and slogans (e.g., "The Truth Is Out There", "Trust No O...
Created By: Chris Carter
- FOX
- Oct 4, 1996
- FOX
- Oct 4, 1996
The X-Files
Season 4
11 Seasons
Season Premiere: Oct 4, 1996
Metascore
Available after 4 critic reviews
8.7
Where to Watch
Summary The X-Files is a Peabody, Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning American science fiction television series created by Chris Carter, which first aired on September 10, 1993, and ended on May 19, 2002. The show was a hit for the Fox Broadcasting Company network, and its main characters and slogans (e.g., "The Truth Is Out There", "Trust No O...
Created By: Chris Carter
Where to Watch
Season Episodes
View All Seasons
11 Seasons
Top Cast
The X-Files' fourth season ... has been very uneven, with a few superb episodes propping up weak ones. ... Let's move the mythology along, shall we?
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 81 User Ratings
8.7
90% Positive
73 Ratings
73 Ratings
9% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
1% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
User Score
Universal Acclaim
Based on 81 User Ratings
8.7
90% Positive
73 Ratings
73 Ratings
9% Mixed
7 Ratings
7 Ratings
1% Negative
1 Rating
1 Rating
Herrenvolk A-. Home A. Teliko C. Unruhe B+.
The Field Where I Died C. Sanguinarium B-.
Musings Of A Cigarette Smoking Man A. Tunguska A. Terma A-.
Paper Hearts A. El Mundo Gira C. Leonard Betts A-.
Never Again B. Memento Mori A-. Kaddish C+. Unrequited B-.
Tempus Fugit A-. Max A-. Synchrony B. Small Potatoes A.
Zero Sum B+. Elegy B. Demons B+. Gethsemane A.
Report
SEASON 4
While it's really not much of an improvement over season three, more solid ground is covered here than ever before, thanks in part to an intriguing and involving focus on the show's basic premise.
Report
SEASON 4
The fourth season of The X-Files is a work of chaotic genius.
While the third season of The X-Files is one of the most consistently well-made seasons of television ever produced, the fourth season is a lot more uneven. There are a lot of reasons for this. Chris Carter was busy launching Millennium. Fox had decided to press ahead with The X-Files: Fight the Future. Behind the scenes, it was chaotic. Glen Morgan and James Wong hung around for half the season before leaving to work on their own pilot, a planned script from Darin Morgan fell through, Chris Carter’s attention was divided.
However, the fourth season represents something of a changing of the guard on the writing staff, a transition between two generations. The fourth season sees the permanent departure of writers Glen Morgan, James Wong and Howard Gordon. These were all writers who worked hard to give The X-Files its unique flavour and identity in the show’s earliest years. The X-Files would not be the same show without the input of those three writers. It is a shame to see them depart, although four years is a long time in the industry.
In contrast, the fourth season also sees younger talent rising up. It sees the first collaboration of Vince Gilligan, John Shiban and Frank Spotnitz. The trio would become one of the most consistent (and productive) writing ensembles on the series. The fourth season also saw the rapid ascent of Vince Gilligan, who had only contributed one script to the third season; Gilligan’s three solo scripts for the third season are iconic and influential in their own right. These are the voices that will steer The X-Files through to the end of its nine-year run.
As such, the fourth season feels transitional. It is a season that lacks the finely-honed efficiency that defined the third season, in favour of a more ambitious and even experimental style. The result is a season that feels wildly creative, a joyous cacophony rather than a harmonious symphony. The fourth season may not always hit the notes, but it is doing something very fresh and exciting. There is an energy and enthusiasm to the season that carries even some of the weaker episodes.
The fourth season is not consistently brilliant, but it is more than occasionally transcendental.
With all this going on, it seems fair to suggest that the fourth season lacks the same clear thematic through line that defined the third. The third season of The X-Files was fascinated with the legacy of the Second World War, with a surprisingly consistent arc spanning the bulk of the mythology episodes and even spilling over thematically into some of the stand-alone stories. The fourth season has no such golden thread, nothing that will help identify the bulk of the season as crafted from the same material.
Given the popularity and prevalence of conspiracy theories in contemporary American life, it was perhaps time for The X-Files to engage with these ideas on a level that did not simply use them for story fodder. After all, these beliefs had caused real and substantial harm; at a casual glance, the nineties audience might see Fox Mulder as another Unibomber or Oklahoma City waiting to happen. Of course, Mulder lives in a world where conspiracy theory is reality; where everything seems to be true. That could become problematic.
The fourth season seems to work hard to delineate and differentiate Mulder’s philosophy from those more extreme proponents of conspiracy theory. Even within the context of The X-Files, even in a world where their views are accurate, these groups are still dangerous and misguided. The cult in The Field Where I Died tragically lose their lives at the behest of a charismatic child-abusing sociopath. The militia group in Tunguska are manipulated by the same shadowy forces they claim to resist. Only Unrequited seems to be marginally sympathetic towards its subjects.
So the fourth season is quite disjointed. There has always been a sense that the show was slightly different depending on who was writing that week; the awkward execution of the cancer storyline made that all the more evident. In fact, the awkward scheduling of the fourth season caused all sorts of conflicts and differences of opinion. Airing Never Again out of order radically changed the meaning and intent of the episode – much to the frustration of Glen Morgan. If continuity did not really exist in the writers’ room, how could it possibly make sense to the audience?
The fourth season might not be the same unqualified triumph that the third season was, but it is a hugely ambitious and frequently successful piece of television in its own right.
Report
SEASON 4
