[THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS.]  Well … it pains me to admit it, but even a diehard fan of “The X Files” has got to admit that its quality waned in the last season of its regular run — 2001’s Season 9 was pretty uneven, with great “monster-of-the-week” episodes and surprisingly disappointing final entries into the show’s over-arching “mythology” episodes.  I’d give this season a 7 out of 10, and that’s from a biased fanboy who loves this show in much the same way that others love Star Wars and Star Trek.  Frankly, I’d recommend that you peruse Wikipedia’s episode list to select the standalone eps so that you can watch only those.  Skip the conspiracy eps entirely — even if you’re a lover of the long running mythology, as I am.  (You’ll only be disappointed.)

Again, a few of the single stories really shined, and weren’t symptomatic of the creative problems that visibly plagued the show near the end of its 90’s era run.  At the top of the list is the outstanding “Release,” in which the murder of John Doggett’s son is resolved.  This episode had everything that made “The X Files” great — good guys, bad guys, and ambiguous guys all working at cross purposes; a tragic mystery; a haunted past; pathos; twists and red herrings; and great emotional interactions among key characters.  Plus … wrath and gunshots. Damn cool.

“Release” also highlighted Cary Elwes’ wonderful talent.  What a great, darkly ambiguous character he made Brad Follmer.  I liked him far better in this role than his comic caricature in “The Princess Bride” (1987) or his traumatized victim in the “Saw” movies.  This show could have taken on great new directions if it had emphasized the triangle among Doggett, Monica Reyes and Follmer, instead of belaboring past stories so much to retain fans of Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.

Other episodes shined as well.  “4D” and “Audrey Pauley” were like great episodes of the classic “The Outer Limits” (1963).  “Audrey Pauley” benefited from a fantastic actress (Tracey Ellis) in the title role.  “Hellbound” frighteningly pushed the limits of gore and shock-horror.  And “John Doe” was a pretty decent old-fashioned Hitchcock-type crime tale.

Let’s … just not dwell on “Improbable,” the utterly stupid … “numerology episode.”  They bagged an amazing guest actor like the iconic Burt Reynolds and subjected him to this?!  If anyone can tell me the significance of those two unidentified Italian men crooning in the episode’s coda, I’d be eternally grateful.

The mythology episodes … sigh.  They failed to please.  I know that many fans point to David Duchovny’s absence as the reason, but I disagree.  This is the story of a decades-old, global, inter-planetary conspiracy.  It isn’t just one man’s story, and we’d followed Fox Mulder’s quest for the prior eight years.  We can have a coherent and logical continuation of the story without him.  And the writers and actors of “The X Files” did just fine in introducing more crusaders that we care about — two great characters in the form of Doggett and Reyes.  Robert Patrick was terrific; Annabeth Gish wasn’t perfect, but had room to grow, as Gillian Anderson did in the early years.  And of course Anderson’s immense talents still made Scully a perfect heroine.  You know what would have been a daring creative decision?  Martyring Mulder to motivate the survivors.  (Duchovny wanted to leave anyway, didn’t he?)

For me, two other problems were responsible for the show’s decline.  The first was structure, and the second was the redundancies with past seasons.  Season 9 was all over the place — at this point, I’d bet the viewers had largely lost hope that the show’s long-running mysteries would be resolved.  Subplots were raised and dropped with little impact; the episodes concerning baby “William” were maudlin and tiresome.  The season moved forward with minimal clues and exposition.  Its penultimate episode, “Sunshine Days,” was … a mythology episode?  Or not?  I’m not sure — we have a new superpowered character whose unique gifts might be “the answer to everything.”  Well … that’s pretty much the same plot point with which we left off with Gibson Praise in a prior season.  It was a nebulous plot point that wasn’t well supported in the script then, and it’s even less believable now.  And the final episode was a cobbled together rush job, in which past guest stars cameoed in a literal trial for Mulder.  (Admittedly, I, for one, thought Chris Carter did a decent job of wrapping up pre-existing story arcs.)  The we leave off with a kind of … distant-future cliffhanger … which was subsequently unaddressed by the second feature film in 2008.

But the recycled story arcs were worse.  Instead of a conspiracy, we have “a new conspiracy.” Instead of superpowered Alien Bounty Hunters with a little known Achilles’ heel, we have … “super-soldiers” with a little known Achilles’ heel. (And this silly story device seems like something out of the old “Roadrunner” cartoons.)  Instead of a credulous guy and a skeptical lady, we have a credulous lady and a skeptical guy.  I’m not sure what Carter was thinking, except that he must have been consciously paralleling past seasons that had proven so popular.

Oh, well.  It’s still “The X Files.”  And it wasn’t all bad.  Check it out on Netflix and decide what you think.