The Unnatural (The X-Files)
Encyclopedia
"The Unnatural" is the nineteenth episode of the sixth season
of the science fiction
television series The X-Files
. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on April 25, 1999 on the Fox Network
, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on Sky1. It was written and directed by lead actor David Duchovny
, marking Duchovny's debut as a television director
. Although dealing with an alien
, the episode is largely unconnected to the mythology
of The X-Files, and functions almost as a "Monster-of-the-Week" story. "The Unnatural" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, being watched by 16.88 million people in its initial broadcast.
Arthur Dales, the brother of a retired FBI agent with the same name of a previous recurring character, tells FBI
special agent Fox Mulder
(David Duchovny
) about an alien who played baseball for the Roswell Grays in 1947. When compared to other episodes of the sixth season, it was generally well received by fans and critics alike.
. One of the players, Josh Exley, hits a towering foul ball. Some of the players think Exley has the ability to play in the major leagues, but he doesn't want to, desiring to avoid the spot light. Suddenly a group of Ku Klux Klan
members arrive on horseback, seeking Exley. Players from both teams fight back and when the mask of the KKK leader falls off, he is revealed to have the face of an alien.
In the present day, agents Fox Mulder
(David Duchovny
) and Dana Scully
(Gillian Anderson
) look through Roswell newspapers from the 1940s. Mulder spots an article showing Arthur Dales, Josh Exley and the Alien Bounty Hunter, causing him to seek out Dales at his apartment. Mulder finds Dales has moved to Florida, but meets his brother, who is also named Arthur. Dales tells Mulder of when he met Exley back in 1947. Dales, a member of the Roswell Police Department, has been assigned to protect Exley, who is hesitant to the idea. That night on the bus with Exley and his teammates, Dales sees Exley with the reflection of an alien in the window while he sleeps. The next day during a game Exley is hit by a pitch and starts uttering a strange language before coming back to his senses. Dales spots green ooze where Exley's bleeding head had been resting.
Dales looks into Exley's hometown of Macon, Georgia, finding that a boy with that name vanished about five years ago. When scouts for the New York Yankees
arrive at one of Exley's games, he purposely tanks it and denies doing so when Dales approaches him about it later. That night at the hotel, Dales, hearing noises from Exley's hotel room, breaks in and sees Exley in his true form, that of an alien. Exley tells Dales that he is forbidden from intermingling with the human race, but fell in love with the game of baseball which is why he is here. Meanwhile the Alien Bounty Hunter, who is in pursuit of Exley, takes his form and murders a scientist investigating the green ooze that Dales found. Dales warns Exley that he's now wanted, and Exley goes into hiding.
The narrative returns to that of the start of the episode. The KKK leader is in fact the Alien Bounty Hunter, who tells Exley that he now has to die. The Bounty Hunter demands he revert back to his true alien face before he dies, but Exley refuses. The Bounty Hunter kills Exley just as Dales arrives. To both of their surprise, Exley bleeds human blood instead of alien blood. Back in the present, Mulder invites Scully go hit baseballs with him on an empty field.
met with series creator Chris Carter
and the two agreed that Duchovny would write a late season episode for the show. Duchovny came up with his premise during the home run race in 1998 between Mark McGwire
and Sammy Sosa
. He had read a newspaper report about Joe Bauman
, a baseball player who never made it to the major leagues but hit 72 home runs during the 1954 season, which at the time was more home runs than any player who had played the game professionally. Bauman played for the Roswell Rockets, a team from Roswell, New Mexico, so he immediately connected the two baseball stories with the Roswell Incident in 1947. As Duchovny puts it, "I just made the association... What if this guy was an alien? and I just started working on that idea."
Duchovny merged this idea with "Pinocchio
", and made the lead guest actor black, because during the 1940s Jackie Robinson
became the first black player in the major leagues. Duchovny worked on the script over several months with feedback from Carter and additional plot points were added including the presence of the Alien Bounty Hunter and retired FBI agent Arthur Dales. Around this time Duchovny and Carter decided that Duchovny would make his directoral debut with this episode as well. "There were all these happy chronological coincidences" that Duchovny was able to use for his story. Because the story was placed in the 1940s and was mostly a flashback
based story, he didn't need to be heavily involved as an actor in the episode, along with his co-star Gillian Anderson
. The episode title is a play on the novel and movie The Natural
. The tagline for this episode was "In the Big Inning," both a change from the normal "The Truth is Out There" and a pun on the phrase "In the Beginning
."
The name of the team, and that of the Alien ball player at the centre of the story, are very loosely based on a genuine Negro League team - The Homestead Grays
and one of its players - Josh Gibson
, he felt that his portrayal had the "right feel" to portray the lead role. Duchovny has commented once in an interview that he didn't have much to do with the casting process, since the most important characters in the episode were "all" recurring characters. Two days after filming began, Darren McGavin, who played Arthur Dales suffered a stroke, forcing the producers to remove his scenes from the episode and replace them with another "Arthur Dales", played by M. Emmet Walsh
. Well known Dodgers radio announcer Vin Scully was used as a baseball announcer in this episode. The announcer, whose name was the original inspiration for Dana Scully's name, initially was unable to appear due to budgetary issues, but agreed to record his part for free. Daniel Duchovny
, David's brother appeared in this episode as a minor guest cameo as a bench jockey.
was used for the Roswell Baseball stadium. The ballfield had previously been used for spring training for the minor-league Los Angeles Angels
. The show filled the stadium by advertising in local newspapers and on local radio for fans to come to the game dressed in 1940s clothing. Costume designer Christine Peters designed the 1940s baseball uniforms after going to Sports Robe, a specialized Hollywood costume house. Dena Green from the hair department provided 1940s era haircuts to the line of people outside the ballpark. Car Coordinator Kelly Padovich rented two 1947 model Flexible buses for the scenes where the Roswell Greys were riding on a bus. Additional 1930s and 1940s era cars were also rented for the episode. The props department had to develop the Peter Rosebud Bank that Arthur Dales shows Fox Mulder
from scratch; it ended up being one of the most expensive props of the season.
The score by Mark Snow
was the first time in the series that the show recorded the score with musicians rather than synthesizers. Slide Guitar player Nick Kirgo and harmonica player Tommy Morgan assisted Snow with the score. Researcher Lee Smith worked with the Baseball Hall of Fame to ensure the accuracy of the statistics used in the episode.
Carter said of the episode "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." Gillian Anderson
said "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." David Duchovny
said "It was just a wonderful experience and something I'm forever grateful for, to be able to cut my teeth directing in such a safe environment. And yet it was difficult. Difficult because it was ambitious, but also safe in that these people were all going to do their jobs, and the show was going to get made, and it was going to look like an X-Files even if I just showed up and drooled for 24 hours a day."
of 10.1, with a 15 share. It was viewed by 10.082 million households and gathered a total of 16.88 million viewers in the United States
alone. On April 25, 1999 the episode premiered on American and Canadian television on Fox
(both nations) and Global Television Network
(Canada) the same time and day as Fox did. In the United Kingdom
and Ireland
, it made its first appearance on British television on July 4, 2001. "The Unnatural" received 87 thousand viewers, placing The X-Files number two in the top ten broadcasts for Sky1 that week behind The Simpsons
.
The episode received glowing praise from critics. Eric Mink from the New York Daily News
wrote an article two days before the episodes release, and was eagerly waiting for its premiere. Saying the premise was proof that The X-Files
was as strong as ever before. The Lexington Herald-Leader
reviewer was mostly positive to the episode, saying the writing was "clever" and further stated that the "show was full of visual delights". Cynthia Fuchs from PopMatters
called Duchovny's directing debut, "excellence". An unknown writer from the Vancouver Sun listed "The Unnatural" at their list of best stand alone episodes of the show, saying that story was "heartbreaking". Melissa Runstrom from Michigan Daily
called it a "charming independent story", but continued with "the episode, though, seems to say more about the human condition than about any extraterrestrial plot".
The X-Files (season 6)
The sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files commenced airing on the Fox Broadcasting Network in the United States on November 8, 1998, concluding on the same channel on May 16, 1999, and contained 22 episodes. The series was developed by Chris Carter, who also serves as...
of the science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
television series The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
. The episode first aired in the United States and Canada on April 25, 1999 on the Fox Network
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
, and subsequently aired in the United Kingdom on Sky1. It was written and directed by lead actor David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
, marking Duchovny's debut as a television director
Television director
A television director directs the activities involved in making a television program and is part of a television crew.-Duties:The duties of a television director vary depending on whether the production is live or recorded to video tape or video server .In both types of productions, the...
. Although dealing with an alien
Colonist (The X-Files)
The Colonists are an extraterrestrial species in the science fiction television show, The X-Files, as well as the first X-Files feature film. The mystery revolving around their identity and purpose is revealed across the course of the series...
, the episode is largely unconnected to the mythology
Mythology of The X-Files
The mythology of The X-Files, sometimes referred to as its mytharc by the show's staff and fans, follows the quest of FBI Special Agents Fox Mulder , a believer in supernatural phenomena, and Dana Scully , his skeptical partner. Their boss, FBI Assistant Director Walter Skinner was also often...
of The X-Files, and functions almost as a "Monster-of-the-Week" story. "The Unnatural" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1, being watched by 16.88 million people in its initial broadcast.
Arthur Dales, the brother of a retired FBI agent with the same name of a previous recurring character, tells FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
special agent Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) about an alien who played baseball for the Roswell Grays in 1947. When compared to other episodes of the sixth season, it was generally well received by fans and critics alike.
Plot summary
A group of white and black baseball players play a game in Roswell, New MexicoRoswell, New Mexico
Roswell is a city in and the county seat of Chaves County in the southeastern quarter of the state of New Mexico, United States. The population was 48,366 at the 2010 census. It is a center for irrigation farming, dairying, ranching, manufacturing, distribution, and petroleum production. It is also...
. One of the players, Josh Exley, hits a towering foul ball. Some of the players think Exley has the ability to play in the major leagues, but he doesn't want to, desiring to avoid the spot light. Suddenly a group of Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan
Ku Klux Klan, often abbreviated KKK and informally known as the Klan, is the name of three distinct past and present far-right organizations in the United States, which have advocated extremist reactionary currents such as white supremacy, white nationalism, and anti-immigration, historically...
members arrive on horseback, seeking Exley. Players from both teams fight back and when the mask of the KKK leader falls off, he is revealed to have the face of an alien.
In the present day, agents Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
(David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
) and Dana Scully
Dana Scully
FBI Special Agent Dana Katherine Scully, M.D. is a fictional character and protagonist on the Fox television series The X-Files , played by Gillian Anderson. She also appeared in two theatrical films based on the series...
(Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
) look through Roswell newspapers from the 1940s. Mulder spots an article showing Arthur Dales, Josh Exley and the Alien Bounty Hunter, causing him to seek out Dales at his apartment. Mulder finds Dales has moved to Florida, but meets his brother, who is also named Arthur. Dales tells Mulder of when he met Exley back in 1947. Dales, a member of the Roswell Police Department, has been assigned to protect Exley, who is hesitant to the idea. That night on the bus with Exley and his teammates, Dales sees Exley with the reflection of an alien in the window while he sleeps. The next day during a game Exley is hit by a pitch and starts uttering a strange language before coming back to his senses. Dales spots green ooze where Exley's bleeding head had been resting.
Dales looks into Exley's hometown of Macon, Georgia, finding that a boy with that name vanished about five years ago. When scouts for the New York Yankees
New York Yankees
The New York Yankees are a professional baseball team based in the The Bronx, New York. They compete in Major League Baseball in the American League's East Division...
arrive at one of Exley's games, he purposely tanks it and denies doing so when Dales approaches him about it later. That night at the hotel, Dales, hearing noises from Exley's hotel room, breaks in and sees Exley in his true form, that of an alien. Exley tells Dales that he is forbidden from intermingling with the human race, but fell in love with the game of baseball which is why he is here. Meanwhile the Alien Bounty Hunter, who is in pursuit of Exley, takes his form and murders a scientist investigating the green ooze that Dales found. Dales warns Exley that he's now wanted, and Exley goes into hiding.
The narrative returns to that of the start of the episode. The KKK leader is in fact the Alien Bounty Hunter, who tells Exley that he now has to die. The Bounty Hunter demands he revert back to his true alien face before he dies, but Exley refuses. The Bounty Hunter kills Exley just as Dales arrives. To both of their surprise, Exley bleeds human blood instead of alien blood. Back in the present, Mulder invites Scully go hit baseballs with him on an empty field.
Conception and writing
The episode's origins go back to the fall of 1998 when David DuchovnyDavid Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
met with series creator Chris Carter
Chris Carter (screenwriter)
Christopher Carl Carter is an American screenwriter, film director and producer. He is the creator of The X-Files and Millennium.- Ten Thirteen Productions :...
and the two agreed that Duchovny would write a late season episode for the show. Duchovny came up with his premise during the home run race in 1998 between Mark McGwire
Mark McGwire
Mark David McGwire , nicknamed "Big Mac", is an American former professional baseball player who played his major league career with the Oakland Athletics and the St. Louis Cardinals. He is currently the hitting coach for the St...
and Sammy Sosa
Sammy Sosa
Samuel Peralta "Sammy" Sosa is a Dominican former professional baseball right fielder. Sosa played with four Major League Baseball teams over his career which spanned from 1989-2007....
. He had read a newspaper report about Joe Bauman
Joe Bauman
Joe Willis Bauman was an American first baseman in professional baseball who played primarily in the low minor leagues, including the American Association, the Eastern League, and the Southwestern League...
, a baseball player who never made it to the major leagues but hit 72 home runs during the 1954 season, which at the time was more home runs than any player who had played the game professionally. Bauman played for the Roswell Rockets, a team from Roswell, New Mexico, so he immediately connected the two baseball stories with the Roswell Incident in 1947. As Duchovny puts it, "I just made the association... What if this guy was an alien? and I just started working on that idea."
Duchovny merged this idea with "Pinocchio
Pinocchio
The Adventures of Pinocchio is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi, written in Florence. The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio , an...
", and made the lead guest actor black, because during the 1940s Jackie Robinson
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson was the first black Major League Baseball player of the modern era. Robinson broke the baseball color line when he debuted with the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947...
became the first black player in the major leagues. Duchovny worked on the script over several months with feedback from Carter and additional plot points were added including the presence of the Alien Bounty Hunter and retired FBI agent Arthur Dales. Around this time Duchovny and Carter decided that Duchovny would make his directoral debut with this episode as well. "There were all these happy chronological coincidences" that Duchovny was able to use for his story. Because the story was placed in the 1940s and was mostly a flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
based story, he didn't need to be heavily involved as an actor in the episode, along with his co-star Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
. The episode title is a play on the novel and movie The Natural
The Natural
The Natural is a 1952 novel about baseball written by Bernard Malamud. The book follows Roy Hobbs, a baseball prodigy whose career is sidetracked when he is shot by a woman who seeks to kill arrogant athletes to "better the world"...
. The tagline for this episode was "In the Big Inning," both a change from the normal "The Truth is Out There" and a pun on the phrase "In the Beginning
In the Beginning
In the Beginning may refer to:* "In the beginning", in the King James Version of the Bible, a phrase that opens the Book of Genesis* "In the beginning was the word", the opening of the Gospel of John, the source of the conception of the Christian Logos...
."
The name of the team, and that of the Alien ball player at the centre of the story, are very loosely based on a genuine Negro League team - The Homestead Grays
Homestead Grays
The Homestead Grays were a professional baseball team that played in the Negro leagues in the United States. The team was formed in 1912 by Cumberland Posey, and would remain in continuous operation for 38 seasons. The team was based in Homestead, Pennsylvania, adjacent to Pittsburgh.-Franchise...
and one of its players - Josh Gibson
Josh Gibson
Joshua Gibson was an American catcher in baseball's Negro leagues. He played for the Homestead Grays from 1930 to 1931, moved to the Pittsburgh Crawfords from 1932 to 1936, and returned to the Grays from 1937 to 1939 and 1942 to 1946...
Casting
Jesse Martin was first considered to play the lead guest role in the episode. Duchovny first noticed Martin a few years prior to season six, and when he saw his guest appearance in Ally McBealAlly McBeal
Ally McBeal is an American legal comedy-drama series which aired on the Fox network from 1997 to 2002. The series was created by David E. Kelley, who also served as the executive producer, along with Bill D'Elia...
, he felt that his portrayal had the "right feel" to portray the lead role. Duchovny has commented once in an interview that he didn't have much to do with the casting process, since the most important characters in the episode were "all" recurring characters. Two days after filming began, Darren McGavin, who played Arthur Dales suffered a stroke, forcing the producers to remove his scenes from the episode and replace them with another "Arthur Dales", played by M. Emmet Walsh
M. Emmet Walsh
Michael Emmet Walsh is an American actor who has appeared in over 100 film and television productions.-Life and career:Walsh was born in Ogdensburg, New York, the son of Agnes Kathrine and Harry Maurice Walsh, Sr., a customs agent...
. Well known Dodgers radio announcer Vin Scully was used as a baseball announcer in this episode. The announcer, whose name was the original inspiration for Dana Scully's name, initially was unable to appear due to budgetary issues, but agreed to record his part for free. Daniel Duchovny
Daniel Duchovny
Daniel Ducovny is an award-winning director of commercials. In 1990 he founded his own production company, Cucoloris, with partner Linda Stewart...
, David's brother appeared in this episode as a minor guest cameo as a bench jockey.
Filming and post-production
Littleton Ballfield, an all wood stadium located in Ontario, CaliforniaOntario, California
Ontario is a city located in San Bernardino County, California, United States, 35 miles east of downtown Los Angeles. Located in the western part of the Inland Empire region, it lies just east of the Los Angeles county line and is part of the Greater Los Angeles Area...
was used for the Roswell Baseball stadium. The ballfield had previously been used for spring training for the minor-league Los Angeles Angels
Los Angeles Angels (PCL)
The Los Angeles Angels were a team based in Los Angeles, California that played in the Pacific Coast League from 1903 through 1957, after which they transferred to Spokane, Washington to become the Spokane Indians. Los Angeles would later become the host city to a Major League Baseball team, the...
. The show filled the stadium by advertising in local newspapers and on local radio for fans to come to the game dressed in 1940s clothing. Costume designer Christine Peters designed the 1940s baseball uniforms after going to Sports Robe, a specialized Hollywood costume house. Dena Green from the hair department provided 1940s era haircuts to the line of people outside the ballpark. Car Coordinator Kelly Padovich rented two 1947 model Flexible buses for the scenes where the Roswell Greys were riding on a bus. Additional 1930s and 1940s era cars were also rented for the episode. The props department had to develop the Peter Rosebud Bank that Arthur Dales shows Fox Mulder
Fox Mulder
FBI Special Agent Fox William Mulder is a fictional character and protagonist in the American Fox television shows The X-Files and The Lone Gunmen, two science fiction shows about a government conspiracy to hide or deny the truth of Alien existence. Mulder's peers consider his theories on...
from scratch; it ended up being one of the most expensive props of the season.
The score by Mark Snow
Mark Snow
Mark Snow is an American composer for film and television.Born in New York, he grew up in Brooklyn, graduating from the High School of Music and Art and, afterwards, the Juilliard School of Music...
was the first time in the series that the show recorded the score with musicians rather than synthesizers. Slide Guitar player Nick Kirgo and harmonica player Tommy Morgan assisted Snow with the score. Researcher Lee Smith worked with the Baseball Hall of Fame to ensure the accuracy of the statistics used in the episode.
Carter said of the episode "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." Gillian Anderson
Gillian Anderson
Gillian Leigh Anderson is an American actress.After beginning her career in theatre, Anderson achieved international recognition for her role as Special Agent Dana Scully on the American television series The X-Files. During the show's nine seasons, Anderson won Emmy, Golden Globe, and Screen...
said "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." David Duchovny
David Duchovny
David William Duchovny is an American actor, writer and director. He has won Golden Globe awards for his work as FBI Special Agent Fox Mulder on The X-Files and as Hank Moody on Californication.-Early life:...
said "It was just a wonderful experience and something I'm forever grateful for, to be able to cut my teeth directing in such a safe environment. And yet it was difficult. Difficult because it was ambitious, but also safe in that these people were all going to do their jobs, and the show was going to get made, and it was going to look like an X-Files even if I just showed up and drooled for 24 hours a day."
Reception
The episode earned a Nielsen household ratingNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
of 10.1, with a 15 share. It was viewed by 10.082 million households and gathered a total of 16.88 million viewers in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alone. On April 25, 1999 the episode premiered on American and Canadian television on Fox
Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, commonly referred to as Fox Network or simply Fox , is an American commercial broadcasting television network owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Launched on October 9, 1986, Fox was the highest-rated broadcast network in the...
(both nations) and Global Television Network
Global Television Network
Global Television Network is an English language privately owned television network in Canada, owned by Calgary-based Shaw Communications, as part of its Shaw Media division...
(Canada) the same time and day as Fox did. In the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
and Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, it made its first appearance on British television on July 4, 2001. "The Unnatural" received 87 thousand viewers, placing The X-Files number two in the top ten broadcasts for Sky1 that week behind The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
.
The episode received glowing praise from critics. Eric Mink from the New York Daily News
New York Daily News
The Daily News of New York City is the fourth most widely circulated daily newspaper in the United States with a daily circulation of 605,677, as of November 1, 2011....
wrote an article two days before the episodes release, and was eagerly waiting for its premiere. Saying the premise was proof that The X-Files
The X-Files
The X-Files is an American science fiction television series and a part of The X-Files franchise, created by screenwriter Chris Carter. The program originally aired from to . The show was a hit for the Fox network, and its characters and slogans became popular culture touchstones in the 1990s...
was as strong as ever before. The Lexington Herald-Leader
Lexington Herald-Leader
The Lexington Herald-Leader is a newspaper owned by The McClatchy Company and based in the U.S. city of Lexington, Kentucky. According to the 1999 Editor & Publisher International Yearbook, the Herald-Leaders paid circulation is the second largest in the Commonwealth of Kentucky...
reviewer was mostly positive to the episode, saying the writing was "clever" and further stated that the "show was full of visual delights". Cynthia Fuchs from PopMatters
PopMatters
PopMatters is an international webzine of cultural criticism that covers many aspects of popular culture. PopMatters publishes reviews, interviews, and detailed essays on most cultural products and expressions in areas such as music, television, films, books, video games, comics, sports, theater,...
called Duchovny's directing debut, "excellence". An unknown writer from the Vancouver Sun listed "The Unnatural" at their list of best stand alone episodes of the show, saying that story was "heartbreaking". Melissa Runstrom from Michigan Daily
Michigan Daily
The Michigan Daily is the daily student newspaper of the University of Michigan. Its first edition was published on September 29, 1890. The newspaper is financially and editorially independent of the University's administration and other student groups, but shares a university building with other...
called it a "charming independent story", but continued with "the episode, though, seems to say more about the human condition than about any extraterrestrial plot".
External links
- The Unnatural at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...