5th season was trash.
I mean, overall the show is not that great. It was "good enough" when I was a kid, since it had action scenes, high morals and looked good compared to quite a few other shows. But if you look closely at the story... Or rather stories, since as quite a few Si-Fi shows back in the day it focused mostly on standalone episodes, and unlike the rare few did not try to implement an overarching story for each season. There are arcs here, but they span maximum 4 episodes.
But standalone episodes by themselves are fine. I mean, The Simpsons are standalone, for example. Or Futurama. Or dozens if not hundreds of thousands of shows. The problem with X-Men is that most episodes feel quite shallow and rushed, and probably should have taken 2 episodes, at least. And in those cases, when story takes 2 episodes it usually feels a tiny bit better, but still rushed. Those stories, that span across 4 episodes suffer of the reverse issue: there is too much padding, based mostly on pushing as many characters on screen as they could.
Again, back in the day this was fine, we did not expect much from TV, let alone from something based on comic books. Don't think it aged well. Especially 5th season, which also looks atrocious with simplified style, and has butchered opening theme. And don't start me with that final episode. "Beyond Good And Evil" truly should have stayed as the end of the show, as it was planned.
