TV - The X-Files Season 8, The Top 5

As we draw towards the end of Steve Taylor-Bryant's X Files odyssey, we find him at Season 8...

Season 8 was a lot better than Season 7, but to be fair, so are half the videos on YouTube and, although eight is nowhere near a perfect season, it is certainly a lot more underrated than maybe it should be. The changes in personnel make for an interesting dynamic shift and, whilst it isn’t the finest writing in the show’s history, there are still seven or eight great efforts that I have tried to boil down into a Top 5.

5. Via Negativa.

John Doggett: "I'm not sure I'm awake."

While Scully tends to her secret, Doggett and Skinner team up to track a cult leader who may be a psychic assassin.

4. Deadalive.

Scully: "Mulder... Hi."

Mulder: "Who are you?"

Scully: "Oh, my God. Don't do that to me. Do you know...? Do you have any idea what you've been through?"

Mulder: "Only what I see in your face. Anybody miss me?"

Billy Miles, thought dead, is found alive and Scully still thinks the still-dead Mulder can come back to life; meanwhile Skinner comes in contact with Krycek who may have a clue as to what exactly is happening with these dead-alive abductees.

3. This Is Not Happening.

John Doggett: "It's why I can't stand here and listen to all this mumbo jumbo about spaceships."

Jeremiah Smith appears out of nowhere and formerly dead abductees are coming back to life, giving Scully and Skinner the idea that Mulder may have a shot at still being alive.

2. Essence/Existence.

Mulder: "We call it the miracle of life. Conception - a union of perfect opposites - essence transforming into existence - an act without which mankind would not exist and humanity cease to exist. Or is this just nostalgia now? An act of biology commandeered by modern science and technology? God-like, we extract, implant, inseminate... and we clone. But has our ingenuity rendered the miracle into a simple trick? In the artifice of replicating life can we become the creator? Then what of the soul? Can it, too, be replicated? Does it live in this matter we call DNA? Or is its placement the opposite of artifice, capable only by God. How did this child come to be? What set its heart beating? Is it the product of a union? Or the work of a divine hand? An answered prayer? A true miracle? Or is it a wonder of technology - the intervention of other hands? What do I tell this child about to be born? What do I tell Scully? And what do I tell myself?"

The X-Files team must protect Agent Scully and her unborn child as groups of Super Soldiers try to stop her pregnancy. Agents Mulder, Doggett and Skinner investigate (along with Alex Krycek) the Super Soldier conspiracy, while Scully goes into hiding to have her child.

1. Within/Without.

John Doggett: "How far would Agent Mulder go?"

Scully: "For what?"

John Doggett: "For the truth."

New Deputy Director Kersh has Agent John Doggett investigate the missing Mulder case. Doggett's skeptical treatment of Mulder's disappearance puts a thorn in Scully and Skinner's sides. Scully leads Skinner and an unhappy Doggett to Arizona to protect Gibson Praise from an Alien Bounty Hunter disguised as the missing Mulder.

Image - XFiles Wiki.

Quotes and synopsis - IMDb.