AIR DATE:  April 25, 1999
Written by David Duchovny
Directed by David Duchovny

	Baseball has been very good to us in the form of "The Unnatural".
It is always hard for the X-Files to get an episode to work whenever
Scully and Mulder are not in it or focus on other characters.  Who knew
David Duchovny could savage the Arthur Dales character after the episodes
"Travelers" and "Aqua Mala" when afterwards if we never saw the Dales
character again it would make us all happy since his character didn't add
anything to the mythology. Why couldn't more of last season's episodes
have been like this? Sharply written with Scully and Mulder acting like
partners who work together in the few scenes they appeared in this
episode, and making us care for Josh Exley and Arthur Dales.  "The
Unnatural" was a rare oasis in a season where we felt left out in the
desert too often.

	"The Unnatural" is a story of an alien who leaves his people
because he fell in love with the game of baseball.  In order for him to be
able to play the game he had to leave his old life behind and start a new
one.  That's a common theme in American life where one leaves one's old
life behind to do what one believes in, but as it is in life, your old
life catches up with you and you have to make a decision to either go back
or stay with the new life you have chosen no matter what the consequences
are.  This is what Josh Exley decides when he goes to play one more
ballgame to get the homerun record and in doing so he sacrifices his life,
but becomes more human in the process.  All Exley wanted was to be left
alone to play baseball even though his actions meant it could expose the
whole alien conspiracy.  "The Unnatural" also gave us a little bit of
insight into Mulder and how his passion hasn't completely disappeared by
his pushing Dales into telling him what happened back in 1947.  Can we see
the future Mulder in the two Dales?  Both Arthur Dales are grouchy old men
who have gone their own way and don't care what anyone thinks of them.  
It was just great fun to see Mulder seeming to enjoy life again and having
fun investigating the conspiracy which is something we haven't seen too
often on the X-Files.  He was having fun with Scully and for the first
time I didn't feel it was the X-Files writers trying to pull our strings
by messing with our heads on how Scully and Mulder feel about each other.
This time the things Scully and Mulder experience really happen and it's
not the it didn't really happen universe that was too common this season.

	Some miscellaneous comments on "The Unnatural":

- Those had to be the fakest cactus I've ever seen on TV. I have never
seen one in real life but I can't believe they look like that after a
baseball gets stuck in one.

- I'm fairly sure that last homerun by Exley won't count because he didn't
run around the bases.

- Is it me or does anyone else think these aliens when we see them in
their natural state are about as scary as Jabba the Hutt.  I always felt
one snack in the face and they'll be out cold.  No wonder they have to
shape shift into actor Brian Thompson otherwise no one would take them
seriously.

- The stairs make an appearance in this episode.  Maybe there should be an
X-Files on the stairs that keep disappearing and reappearing from episode
to episode.

- I'm with Mulder on that so-called ice cream Scully was eating.  Yuck,
you want to eat ice cream, eat the real stuff and enjoy yourself.

- Are Scully and Mulder going for the Oscar Madison award when neither one
of them rushes to clean up the ice cream that fell on the newspaper?  Or
was Mulder leaving Scully to clean up the mess and that's why he left
quickly? It was nice of Scully to give up her weekend and search the
archives for Mulder and as always Mulder doesn't tell her why.  What a
gal.

- After hearing how boxer George Foreman named all his kids George I'm no
longer surprised to hear someone has named a few of their kids the same
name.  Plus, anyways it explains why it was E. Emmett Walsh and not Darin
McGavin.

- The conversation between Dales and Mulder about their passion for the
truth and being ripped for it was excellent.  A fine brief explanation of
Mulder's search for the truth and what one's passion can do to oneself.

- Yup, those are ballplayers since they were smoking, drinking, gambling,
spitting and travelling by bus.  Now all they had to have them do was to
touch their crotch and they would be real ballplayers.

- I don't know why I still get a chuckle everytime the theory of all the
great sports players being aliens.  It would sure explain some things
about sports.

- The kid actor, Jesse James, who played the Poorboy in "The Unnatural"
was in the movie "Message in the Bottle" and I still can't tell whether
James is a boy or girl though if he is identified as the Poorboy he must
be a boy, but he sure doesn't look like one.  This kid must be having a
fun childhood having the same name as a famous Old West villain.

- Couldn't help thinking that everyone in the Grays is going to get throat
cancer as we see them taking a big wad of smokeless tobacco.

- It sure is good to know the Alien Bounty Hunter hangs around the local
P.D. department in case someone calls about Josh Exley.  Though why Exley
would keep the same name he was given by the aliens is a mystery because
if he didn't they wouldn't have found him so easily when Dales called up
about him.

- If Dales is supposed to be protecting Exley why does he leave during the
middle of a game to go down to headquarters.  Oh yeah, I hope Dales had
someone pick up his police car that he left behind at the baseball park
where he met up with the Grays and went off on the bus with them.

- Was there really any reason why Exley didn't revert back to his human
self after Dales faints at seeing him in his alien body.  He could have
easily convinced Dales that he dreamed it all.  But the story wouldn't
have worked if he did because Dales had to figure out Exley was not as he
appeared to be.

- This episode confirms that these aliens are no fun since Exley was being
punished in part for hanging out with humans and having fun playing
baseball. It's no wonder all they want to do is take over the world.

- Somehow I don't think everyone would have run away once Alien Bounty
Hunter changed back to his normal alien self.  One of the men would have
stayed around to investigate.  Once again the story wouldn't have worked
if one of them did.

- Why would Exley just stand there and let the Alien Bounty Hunter kill
him?  A little backbone wouldn't have hurt, but we could see throughout
the episode it wasn't in his character and he still accepted them as his
family and would take their judgement against him.

- Wasn't Scully according to Mrs. Scully in "One Breath" supposed to have
been a tomboy as a kid which should mean she played sports as a kid and I
assume that would include baseball.  So she should have known how to hit a
baseball, but if she did then we wouldn't have that final fun scene of
Mulder showing her how to hit a one.  Scully could have been nice to
Mulder by not saying anything or that she just wasn't a good baseball
player and never learned the game.

	An all around excellent episode and even if Scully and Mulder
weren't promptly in it they were in it enough to make it a satisfying
episode.  It was just good to know the X-Files still has the touch and
Duchovny still is in touch with his character.  "The Unnatural" shows one
can never truly get away from one's family no matter how hard you try.  
Anytime Scully and Mulder work together and a mythology episode makes
sense it means we have a good episode.


Claudia
E-Mail:  Claudia.Cauchon@unh.edu

6/22/99