The Unnatural (The X-Files)

The Unnatural (The X-Files)

“The Unnatural” is the 19th episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. Written and directed by David Duchovny, it first aired on April 25, 1999, on the Fox network. It is the first episode to feature the character Arthur Dales, the brother of a previously recurring retired FBI agent with the same name. The episode has been critically examined for its use of literary motifs and its fairy tale-like structure.

About The Unnatural (The X-Files) in brief

Summary The Unnatural (The X-Files)“The Unnatural” is the 19th episode of the sixth season of the American science fiction television series The X-Files. Written and directed by David Duchovny, it first aired on April 25, 1999, on the Fox network. The episode has been critically examined for its use of literary motifs, its fairy tale-like structure, and its themes concerning racism and alienation. Many of the outdoor baseball scenes were filmed at Jay Littleton Ballfield, an all-wood stadium located in Ontario, California. The KKK leader is revealed as the shape-shifting Alien Bounty Hunter, who has arrived to assassinate Exley. The Bounty Hunter demands that Exley revert to his true form before he dies. The first broadcast was watched by 16. 88 million people, and it earned a Nielsen household rating of 10. 1, and was well-liked by members of the cast and crew, including series creator Chris Carter and co-star Gillian Anderson. It is the first episode to feature the character Arthur Dales, the brother of a previously recurring retired FBI agent with the same name, who is also named Arthur. In the episode, Dales tells Mulder the story of a black baseball player who played for the Roswell Grays in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 under the pseudonym \”Josh Exley\”. Exley was actually an alien with a love of baseball and was later executed for betraying his people. In 1999, FBI agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully look through Roswell newspapers from the 1940s.

Mulder spots an article showing a youngArthur Dales —the original investigator of the X- Files division—Josh Exleys. Exley tells Dales that he was forbidden from intermingling with the human race but remained on Earth and played in the Negro Leagues to avoid attracting attention. When major league scouts appear at one game, Exley deliberately murders a scientist who is investigating the green ooze. 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 when Exley bleeds red, and the human blood bleeds, but Exley refuses to revert to human blood and dies before the Bounty Hunter kills him. Exley’s true form is revealed to be that of Josh Exley, a black man who took the form of an alien and played baseball in the Major Leagues. The Alien Bounty Hunters kill Exley and kill the scientist who found Exley in a hotel room where he had been sleeping as an alien. The story is retold in flashback by Mulder and Scully in Washington D. C. but instead of meeting Dales’s brother, Mulder seeks out Dales in Dales’ hometown of Macon, Georgia, and discovers that a boy with Exley’s name had vanished about five years previously. Jesse Martin was offered the lead guest role as Exley after Duchvny noticed him in a production of the musical Rent and an episode of Ally McBeal.