The X Files-Providence (2002)

This review is sponsored by

BUY IT

General		Extras
Category	Science Fiction	Featurette-Providence Featurette-Brad Follmer Profile-"Brad Follmer Revealed"
Rating
Year Of Production	2002
Running Time	83:48
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (44:51)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Kim Manners
Studio Distributor	Twentieth Century Fox	Starring	Gillian Anderson Robert Patrick Annabeth Gish Mitch Pileggi Cary Elwes James Pickens Bruce Harwood Tom Briadwood Dean Haglund
Case	?
RPI	$31.95	Music	Mark Snow

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) German Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s) Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 (384Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	Unknown	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	Dutch English English for the Hearing Impaired French German for the Hearing Impaired Italian French Titling German Titling Italian Titling	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	Yes
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Half way through Season 9 X-Files fans were treated to another magnificent 2-part episode which has allowed the writers additional time to grow this particular storyline. The first episode is Provenance and the second episode, and also the disc's title, was Providence. As with the previous two-part story I reviewed, Nothing Important Happened Today, the episodes have been spliced together to form a telemovie, without any breaks or credits in the middle to spoil the feature.

    The word Provenance means "where something originated or was nurtured in its early existence. (i.e. the birthplace of civilization)". Combine that with Providence which literally means "foresight". Or to take the biblical slant it is generally used to denote "God's preserving and governing all things by means of second causes". By working with these meanings we have an interesting story which not only has us asking questions about our own beliefs, be they the biblical or scientific, but also casts a link back to the Biogenesis episode in Season 6.

    Provenance begins with the local border patrol in North Dakota conducting their nightly watch. They notice a motor bike rider heading across the hills. As they begin the chase to intercept, the rider heads off across some rugged terrain, flies off a cliff and crashes. When the border patrol arrive they notice paper with pencil rubbings and strange markings strewn across the side of the hill.

    When Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) is asked her impression of the markings she immediately remembers similar etchings when she investigated a crashed spacecraft with Mulder (David Duchovny). The FBI won't provide her with any explanation as to the location of these markings; instead they keep all parts of the investigation hidden from the X-Files. Dana decides to keep her knowledge of the previous spacecraft secret. She passes the news onto Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Agent Reyes (Annabeth Gish) who decide to investigate further.

    The investigation leads the agents to a cult who say they have found, and worship, the spacecraft the pencil markings were taken from. It becomes clear that Scully's son William (James & Travis Riker) plays a pivotal role, and has some mysterious link to the space craft. The cult members will stop at nothing to capture William and bring him back to the ship.

    It is up to the agents to weave their way through the lies and deceit within the FBI, and to help Scully protect her son from harm.

Video

    It took a long time for the series to move away from Full Frame but the whole of Season 9 is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced.

    The transfer is clear and extremely sharp, with a lot of detail being visible at all times. There are several close-up camera angles that show off the level of detail well. Just look at the scene between AD Brad Follmer (Cary Elwes) and Doggett at 11:00 - you can see every blemish and marking on their skin. Maybe the makeup people were away that day? The shadow detail was handled well, which is lucky, as there are a lot of dim scenes, or scenes that were shot at night. The border patrol night scene at the start of the episode is one place where you can see the level of detail. At 36:24 there is a lot less detail available, but the main focus of the dialogue or action does contain enough light for me to speculate that this was intentional, rather than a problem with the transfer. There is no low level noise

    The agents in the X-Files always wear dull and unassuming coloured clothing, no doubt an FBI requirement. The skin tones and scenes always looked realistic, and true to life, with nothing leading the eye to think there was too much colour or a washed-out appearance. The wide shots taken at 30:06 showed realistic colours of the hills and valley with the large white dome reflecting the sunlight perfectly.

    There were no MPEG artefacts seen. Aliasing is very rare, but it has not disappeared altogether, it only appears mildly in a few scenes. Film artefacts are extremely rare, and I only found one distracting: there was a hair on the bottom of the screen midway between the centre and far right that sat there for the whole scene.

    This disc is an RSDL disc, with the layer change placed between Chapters 9 and 10 at 44:51. This is where one episode ends, and the next begins. It was noticeable, not visually, but audibly, as there was some mild background music playing that dropped out briefly during the layer change. Mainly due to music there is nowhere either side of this mark to make the layer change that would not have been worse. I think it was the best placement under the circumstances and certainly more enjoyable than having to leave the seat for a few seconds.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    I know that I have said in past reviews that the X-Files would not really benefit from a full Dolby Digital 5.1 transfer, but I'll admit that I was wrong. The extra dimension that is now available on these two-episode releases does make for a more enjoyable episode acoustically. While the Pro Logic II did a good job of splitting the rear channels there is definitely more precision available with this particular soundtrack, and with a .1 track dedicated for the sub.

    There are four audio tracks on this DVD. The default is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There are also French Dolby Digital 5.1, German Dolby Digital 5.1 and Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 tracks as well. I listened to the English soundtrack for this review.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand at all times, but Robert Patrick does mumble on occasions.

    Audio sync was not a problem at all with this transfer, and was completely spot on.

    As always, the music from the X-Files episodes sets the mood for the show and provide a magnificent backdrop to the action. The peaks and troughs of sound, together with the way they have been mixed across the 5.1 channels, suited the scenes well. The volume levels did not drown out the dialogue at any point during the movie.

    The surrounds are well used and there are numerous examples of this. At the subtle end of the scale: at 18:49 Doggett knocks on a door, and as the camera is pointing at the closed door, you hear a subtle echo across the wooden floor passing behind you. Then we move up to 20:17 with more directional use, and even more aggressive is 42:30 with gunfire perfectly placed across the rear sound stage.

    The subwoofer gets a nice workout, but always within the realms of realism, to provide a natural edge to the on screen action. The peaks of perfection from this disc would have to be 3:30 and 43:51.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Menu

Featurette - providence (3:19)

Featurette - brad follmer revealed (3:30)

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on:

• Nothing

• Nothing

    This was a fabulous feature to watch, made even more enjoyable by the two part episodes being spliced to run the full length without interruptions.

    The video quality is of a high quality with practically no problems.

    The audio quality was also wonderful, and a real pleasure to the ears.

    The extras are minor. At least one, but probably both, should have been expanded to offer more value to viewers.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall