The Unnatural (The X-Files)
"The Unnatural" | |
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The X-Files episode | |
Episode no. | Season 6 Episode 19 |
Directed by | David Duchovny |
Written by | David Duchovny |
Production code | 6ABX20[1] |
Original air date | April 25, 1999 |
Running time | 45 minutes[2] |
Guest appearances | |
| |
"The Unnatural" is the 19th episode of the
The series centers on
Among other things, the episode was inspired by the history of baseball in Roswell, as well as the infamous 1947
Plot
In 1947, a mixed group of black and white men play baseball in Roswell, New Mexico. A group of Ku Klux Klan (KKK) members arrive on horseback, seeking one of the players: Josh Exley (Jesse L. Martin), a talented black baseball player. Men from the team fight back against the KKK, and when the mask of the clan's leader is taken off, the leader is revealed to be an alien.
In 1999, FBI agents Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) and Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson) look through Roswell newspapers from the 1940s. Mulder spots an article showing a young Arthur Dales (
In flashback, Dales tells Mulder about first meeting Exley in 1947. Dales, a member of the Roswell Police Department, has been assigned to protect a hesitant Exley. Dales travels with Exley and his teammates on their bus, and one night sees that the sleeping Exley is reflected in a window as an alien. The next day, during a game, Exley is
Dales decides to investigate Exley's hometown of
The Alien Bounty Hunter, who has been pursuing the renegade alien, takes Exley's form and murders a scientist who is investigating the green ooze that Dales found. Dales warns Exley that he is now wanted by the police, and Exley goes into hiding. The narrative returns to the events at the start of the episode. The KKK leader is revealed as the Alien Bounty Hunter, who has arrived to assassinate Exley. The Bounty Hunter demands that Exley revert to his true form before he dies. Exley refuses and the Bounty Hunter kills him. However, Exley bleeds red, human blood.[3]
Production
Conception and writing
"The Unnatural" was the first episode of The X-Files that Duchovny wrote by himself. (He had previously co-developed the stories for the second season episodes "Colony" and "Anasazi" - both with series creator Chris Carter, and received teleplay credits for the third season episodes "Avatar" and "Talitha Cumi".)[4] Prior to the show's sixth season, Duchovny felt that he did not have the skills necessary; he said, "I didn't have the surety, the confidence in my mind, that I could write a teleplay ... It took me to the sixth year of the show to actually sit down and write one of my ideas."[5] In late 1998, Duchovny eventually felt secure in his abilities and approached series creator Chris Carter about working on an episode; Carter agreed to the request, and a late-season installment was slated for Duchovny to write.[6]
While both Duchovny and Carter had wanted to write an episode about baseball for several years,[5] Duchovny first conceived the basic premise for "The Unnatural" during the home run race in 1998 between Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa when he read a newspaper report about Joe Bauman. Bauman was a baseball player who, despite hitting a record 72 home runs during the 1954 season, never played in the Major Leagues. Duchovny immediately connected the story of Bauman, who played for the Roswell Rockets, with the 1947 Roswell Incident, saying "I just made the association ... What if this guy was an alien? and I just started working on that idea."[6][7] Duchovny later said that "these happy chronological coincidences" facilitated the development of the story.[8]
Inspired by the story of Jackie Robinson (who was the first black player who was accepted into the Major Leagues in the 1940s), Duchovny decided to make the lead character black and set the story before the integration of the baseball leagues.[5][7] After Duchovny finished his first draft, Carter added additional plot points, such as the inclusion of the Alien Bounty Hunter and retired FBI agent Arthur Dales.[6] Duchovny largely worked on his ideas alone—a fact that he was later very proud of.[5] The episode title is a play on the novel and movie The Natural.[6] The tagline that appears in the opening credits for this episode is "In the Big Inning", which serves as a pun on the phrase, "In the beginning".[6][nb 1]
Casting
Jesse L. Martin was the first actor considered for the part of Exley. Duchovny had first noticed Martin in a production of the musical
Originally, Darren McGavin was set to reprise his role as Arthur Dales; the character had previously appeared in the fifth-season episode "Travelers" and the sixth-season episode "Agua Mala".[6][9][10] Unfortunately, two days into filming, McGavin suffered a stroke, forcing Duchovny and the producers to scrap the few scenes he had shot, rewrite the script to explain his absence, and replace his character with M. Emmet Walsh.[6] Because many of the scenes featuring a younger Dales had already been shot, Duchovny was forced to give Walsh's character the same name as McGavin's character; this was justified in the episode as a quirk on behalf of the two brothers' parents.[3][6] The two scenes that were filmed with McGavin included the sequence in which Mulder asks Dales whether all great baseball players are aliens, and a scene in which Mulder asks Dales why he joined the FBI. McGavin eventually recovered and allowed his scenes to be included on the sixth season DVD as bonus features.[11] Executive producer Frank Spotnitz later called it a "great sorrow that" the show had to replace Darren McGavin because the series' producers were "huge fans" of his role in the 1972 film The Night Stalker and television series of the same name.[11]
Actor Fredric Lehne had previously appeared in "Travelers," playing the younger version of McGavin's character.
Filming and post-production
"The Unnatural" was the first episode of the series to be directed by Duchovny,[12] which had been decided when Duchovny was working on plot points with Carter. As the episode, made up mostly of flashbacks, did not heavily feature his character, Duchovny was able to focus on pre-production.[5][6] This narratological method also gave Anderson a minor respite from her work.[7] While Duchovny later expressed gratitude that "The Unnatural" enabled him to get a feel for directing,[8] he also experienced severe anxiety during the production process because of the stress that helming an episode produced.[13] However, when the episode was finished, Duchovny was pleased, calling the results "great."[13] He later noted that his stress was largely uncalled for because the episode would have been made even "if [he] just showed up and drooled for 24 hours a day."[8]
The first five seasons of the series were mainly filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, but production of the show's sixth season was based in Los Angeles, California.[14][15] Jay Littleton Ballfield, an all-wood stadium located in Ontario, California, was used as the setting for the Roswell Baseball Stadium. The show's producers advertised in local media for fans to attend the game dressed in period clothing.[6] During filming, a raffle was held between takes, and signed copies of The X-Files' movie, soundtrack, and film poster were given away.[16] The scene featuring Mulder teaching Scully how to play baseball was filmed at Cheviot Hills Park in Los Angeles. The park was later used in the eighth season episode "Three Words" and the ninth season episode "Lord of the Flies".[17]
Themes
Near the beginning of the episode, Mulder uses one of William Blake's "Proverbs of Hell" from his 18th century book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell in an argument with Scully: "The road to excess leads to the palace of wisdom."[18] Sharon R. Yang, in her essay "Weaving and Unweaving the Story," writes that Mulder is using affluent literature to "justify his passionate dedication to questing for knowledge in arcane areas scorned by mainstream intellectual authority".[18] In addition, Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, argue that the episode functions as a fairy tale, and that its conclusion, while sad, is nevertheless an example of a happy ending; Exley bleeds red blood as he lays dying, granting the alien his wish "to be a man."[19][20] In addition, the two mused that the meta nature of the episode is similar to the way fans of the series reacted to new episodes of The X-Files.[19]
Ideas of racism and segregation also permeate the episode. Sara Gwenllian-Jones in her book Cult Television argues that, throughout the entry, "the blacks are equated with aliens," turning them into a certain type of "other" that is "never allowed to fit in or feel safe".[20] Gwenllian-Jones highlights the scene in which Dales, late one night on the team bus, wakes to see Exley's sleeping body being reflected as an alien in a window as an example of the racial comparison. She points out that, despite coming to Earth, Exley has moved from one segregated society—that of the aliens—into another. She points out that Exley, after revealing his true form to Dales, says that "my people guard their privacy zealously. They don't want our people to intermingle with your people".[20] This quote expresses a similar sentiment to the segregated mentality of the 1940s.[20]
Broadcast and reception
Ratings
"The Unnatural" originally aired in the United States on the Fox network on April 25, 1999, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on
Reviews
The cast and crew of the show were complimentary towards the finished episode. Carter said, "I think that David, a person who has a very intimate understanding of the show, made the best of his opportunity to tell a very different kind of X-File, and expand the elastic show that it is." Anderson was also pleased, saying, "I was proud of David for writing the script. I thought it was wonderful. He was kind and gentle and respectful and humble, and always tried to do his best."[6]
Initial reviews were positive. Eric Mink from the
Paula Vitaris from
Recent reviews have also applauded the episode. Shearman and Pearson rated the episode five stars out of five, describing it as "[a] delightful ... comic fable".[19] Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club awarded the episode an "A−" and wrote that it "works because it takes this very silly idea and proceeds to take it seriously."[31] She criticized the program for its "corniness" and its reliance on the "magical black guy" stereotype, but concluded that "The Unnatural" was successful "because it embraces this side of the show’s profile [that] could do something sweet and lovely and moving".[31] VanDerWerff also complimented Martin's performance, calling his acting "terrific".[31] Cynthia Fuchs from PopMatters wrote that Duchovny's directing debut was excellent.[32]
Since its debut, the episode has been ranked as one of the best episodes of The X-Files. Kessenich named it one of the "Top 25 Episode of All Time" of The X-Files, ranking it at number six.
See also
- "Hollywood A.D.", the second episode of The X-Files written and directed by Duchovny
- "William", the third episode written and directed by Duchovny
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ a b c Manners, Kim; et al. The X-Files: The Complete Sixth Season (booklet). Fox Home Entertainment.
- ^ "The X-Files, Season 6". iTunes Store. September 10, 1993. Retrieved August 28, 2012.
- ^ a b c d Meisler (2000), pp. 253–61.
- ^ Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), pp. 236–40.
- ^ a b c d e f Vitaris, Paula (April 2002). "Creating Episodes that Re-Think The X-Files". Cinefantastique. 34 (2): 54–55.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Meisler (2000), pp. 262–63.
- ^ a b c d e f Morris, Peter (2000). "David Duchovny Interview". BBC News. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ a b c Hurwitz and Knowles (2008), p. 167.
- ^ a b Meisler (1999), pp. 198–211.
- ^ Meisler (2000), pp. 170–80.
- ^ a b Spotnitz, Frank (1999). Deleted Scenes with Optional Commentary by Frank Spotnitz: Scene 17A—Darren McGavin Instead of M. Emmet Walsh. The X-Files: The Complete Sixth Season (DVD). Fox Home Entertainment.
- ^ Shapiro (2000), pp. 229–40.
- ^ a b Weintraub, Joanne (September 8, 1999). "'X-Files' Star in Character for Interview". The Washington Times. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
- 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
- ^ Vitaris, Paula (October 1998). "X-Files: A Mixed Bag of Episodes and a Feature Film Pave the Way for Season Six". Cinefantastique. 30 (7/8): 27.
- ^ Fraga (2010), p. 84.
- ^ Fraga (2010), p. 82.
- ^ a b Yang (2007), pp. xii–xiii.
- ^ a b c d Shearman and Pearson (2010), pp. 184–85.
- ^ a b c d Gwenllian-Jones (2004), pp. 136–38.
- ^ a b Meisler (2000), p. 294.
- ^ "Prime-Time Nielsen Ratings". Associated Press Archive. Associated Press. April 27, 1999. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
- ^ "BARB's multichannel top 10 programmes". barb.co.uk. Retrieved January 1, 2012. Note: Information is in the section titled "w/e June 28 – July 4, 1999", listed under Sky 1
- 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment.
- New York Daily News. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ "X-Files Hits a Homer". Lexington Herald-Leader. April 30, 1999.
- ^ a b Stegall, Sarah (1999). "Straight Over the Top—Review of 'The Unnatural'". The Munchkyn Zone. Archived from the original on August 24, 2013. Retrieved September 14, 2012.
- ^ a b Vitaris, Paula (October 1999). "Sixth Season Episode Guide". Cinefantastique. 31 (8): 26–42.
- ^ Runstrom, Melissa (November 27, 2002). "'X-Files' DVD Showcases Highs, Lows of Season Six". The Michigan Daily. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ Kessenich (2002), p. 59.
- ^ a b c VanDerWerff, Emily (October 20, 2012). "'The Unnatural'/'Seven And One' | The X-Files/Millennium | TV Club". The A.V. Club. Retrieved September 16, 2019.
- ^ Fuchs, Cynthia (April 15, 2005). "House Of D". PopMatters. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- ^ Kessenich (2002), p. 219.
- The Vancouver Sun. July 25, 2008. Archived from the originalon January 18, 2012. Retrieved August 9, 2009.
- The Mobile Register. Retrieved September 15, 2012.
References
- Fraga, Erica (2010). LAX-Files: Behind the Scenes with the Los Angeles Cast and Crew. CreateSpace. ISBN 9781451503418.
- Gwenllian-Jones, Sara (2004). Cult Television. University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 9780816638314.
- Hurwitz, Matt; Knowles, Chris (2008). The Complete X-Files. Insight Editions. ISBN 9781933784724.
- Kessenich, Tom (2002). Examinations: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files. Trafford Publishing. ISBN 9781553698128.
- Meisler, Andy (2000). The End and the Beginning: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 5. Harper Prism. ISBN 9780061075957.
- Meisler, Andy (1999). Resist or Serve: The Official Guide to The X-Files, Vol. 4. HarperCollins. ISBN 9780061073090.
- Shapiro, Marc (2000). All Things: The Official Guide to the X-Files Volume 6. Harper Prism. ISBN 9780061076114.
- Shearman, Robert; Pearson, Lars (2009). Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen. Mad Norwegian Press. ISBN 9780975944691.
- Yang, Sharon R. (2007). "Weaving and Unweaving the Story". The X-Files and Literature: Unweaving the Story, Unraveling the Lie to Find the Truth. Cambridge Scholars Publishing. ISBN 9781847182395.
External links
- "The Unnatural" at IMDb