"Actor: Jeff Gulka"

• The X-Files: The Truth | DVD | (27/01/2003) from £21.58   |  Saving you £-5.59 (N/A%)   |  RRP £15.99

  The guest cast list for The X-Files: The Truth runs almost to the first commercial break, suggesting how many plot strands this season-and-series finale needs to make room for, with many old characters (including ghostly appearances for the dead ones) popping up. Mulder (David Duchovny), teasingly absent for the final season, is suddenly back, accused of murdering a super-soldier who isn't supposed to be able to die. He faces a military tribunal, defended by AD Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), as guest stars trot out testimony that fills the double-length episode with explanations recapping nine years of confusion as creator Chris Carter tries to spatchcock his impromptu conspiracy theories into a real plot. Last-season regulars Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish are shunted aside as Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder get to dodge a last-scene explosion and wind up in a pretty silly clinch-with-philosophy in the face of vaguely imminent apocalypse. Seriously, if the franchise is to continue on the big screen, how about ditching the embarrassing alien conspiracy mess and doing a monster story? On the DVD: The X-Files: The Truth comes to disc with a lovely widescreen transfer, a 13-minute "Reflections on the Truth" featurette that, though it hits the self-congratulation button a couple too many times, has a little more meat than the puff pieces included on previous releases, and a bonus episode ("William") that is unfortunately another of the maudlin ones, this time resolving the plotline about Scully's super-baby. --Kim Newman