region 2. pub: 20th Century Fox F1-SGB 16555MDVD. 7 DVDs 1056 minutes 24 episodes with extras. Price: £ 10.25 (UK) if you know where to look) stars: David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson.

check out www.foxtvdvd.com

Do I really have to tell you what 'The X-Files' was about? The only thing I had to remind myself watching season one was that it was filmed some fourteen years ago. No matter what you might think of the latter seasons, the early ones still stand up as being brilliant TV.



The premise is straight forward enough. Fox Mulder, an FBI agent let loose on ignored X-Files where there is no ready answers is given a sceptical partner, Dr. Dana Scully, to keep an eye on his activities but who becomes increasingly on his side even if she thinks there are logical terrestrial answers. Over the course of a year, the assignments tracked include off the rails test pilots, alien abduction, cloned girls with a perchance for homicide not to mention trips out to Alaska and deep forests. If you didn't think something was going on before you would be at the end.

Part of the reason for getting this boxset, apart from price, was to have a look at the extras. This is the kind of series that could so sorely have done with some audio commentaries with the episodes. This isn't to say what is given isn't worthwhile although the Carter interview is mostly a re-hash of what went out with the video boxset, just that I wish there was more. It's rather interesting seeing chunks of different language versions dubs and I learnt very early on to double-check them in off each episode in case anything was hidden away. Only one item from 'Fallen Angel' and that was repeated on the extras DVD. I agree with creator Chris Carter's sentiments regarding giving Scully a boy-friend was a bad idea even without seeing those particular out-takes. The mini-featurettes covering aspects of the episodes and so forth was interesting although unlike the Carter interview there was no 'play all' option.

With the way the video recorder is heading towards obsolete in the next decade, if you haven't got your copy of the first season of X-Files squared away, now is as good a time as any. Can't be any more truthful than that.

GF Willmetts