There are certain actors who enjoy writing and/or directing episodes of their TV shows. Harry Anderson comes to mind, mainly because I’m watching old episodes of Dave’s World this week. When he wrote Night Court episodes, you would see or hear something that wasn’t quite there before, probably because Harry was so close to the characters he wrote about and the actors he was writing for. It had the opposite effect on Dave’s World because Harry’s writing gave the character “Dave Barry” some range which just didn’t exist for the run of the series. So those episodes are the better written ones overall, but they feel out of character. Harry Anderson clearly knew the TV incarnation of Dave Barry was lacking. 
But let’s veer away from 1990s comedy and return to 1990s sci-fi. This week it’s David Duchovny’s turn in the writer/director chair. Most of Duchovny’s written episodes have related to Mulder’s family or the show’s ongoing mythology, the first exception being the Skinner-centric episode "Avatar" (Season 3, Episode 21). The X-Files have been around for over 25 years, but I don’t recall anyone asking, “Remember the one about the alien baseball player?” “In the big inning” ... there’s a Minor League Baseball game going on in Roswell, New Mexico on July 2, 1947. There’s a pitcher who can’t throw a strike to save his life and a batter who could become the next Jackie Robinson in the Majors. Josh Exley, played by one of my favorite triple threats, Jesse L. Martin, hits his 61st home run. (This would have occurred 14 years before Roger Maris hit that magic number.) Unfortunately, his team’s celebration is cut short by the rudest of arrivals -- the Ku Klux Klan -- and they want to kill Exley. Fortunately, the pitcher finally throws some strikes and hits the racists with the baseballs. Both teams get the upper hand and unmask some of the KKK members, one of whom looks like he was an alien from the Close Encounters of the Third Kind mothership. Does that mean there are racist aliens out there?
Back in the present, Mulder is perusing 50-year-old New Mexico baseball box scores when he manages to get a genuine laugh out of Scully. He stumbles across a photograph of Josh Exley with Arthur Dales. Remember Arthur from "Travelers" (S5E15) and "Agua Mala" (S613)? Mulder goes to see Arthur and finds his brother ... Arthur Dales. (Maybe George Foreman got his idea of naming all of his kids the same from the Dales siblings’ parents.) This time, Arthur is played by character actor M. Emmet Walsh and he is the Arthur Dales in question. The photograph shows the former Roswell police officer with Exley and one of those alien bounty hunters played by Brian Thompson. Fox pays a dime to hear Arthur’s story.On June 29, 1947 (three days before the pre-credits scene) Officer Dales, again played by Fredric Lehne, meets Josh Exley at the Roswell Municipal Ballfield. He’s been assigned to protect Josh from the KKK, so he hops on the Roswell Grays' team bus. While the players sleep, Dales sees Exley’s alien reflection in the window and is dumbfounded.
On June 30, the Grays are back at the Roswell Municipal Ballfield (so where was the bus taking them on their overnight drive?) Arthur sees two players pull out pistols, and he protects Exley by tackling him. Turns out, they were water pistols. Too bad Dales can’t save Josh from getting beaned in the head by the pitcher. Exley talks some alien gibberish before remembering who he is. Arthur sees Josh’s green “blood” on the catcher’s mitt and takes it in for testing. Dales looks into Exley’s background and inadvertently tips off the alien bounty hunter to Josh’s location. Exley sabotages his chance to impress the Yankee scouts at the next game, but he wins it after they leave. Dales later confronts Josh, assuming that Exley is lying about who he is. Later that night, Arthur sees Josh as an alien and faints. After the alien wakes him Dales faints a few more times. Exley shows his shapeshifting capability and manages to make the moment even more awkward. Mulder’s description of Arthur’s story pretty much sums up Josh’s situation.
At the ballfield the next morning, Dales and Exley see the alien bounty hunter. The chemist processing the catcher’s mitt calls Arthur, who thinks he's sending Josh over to the lab to explain the substance. Turns out, it’s our shapeshifting alien bounty hunter disguised as Exley and he kills the chemist. Dales warns Josh that Exley is wanted for murder, but Josh decides it’s time to go home. While investigators interrogate Arthur, Exley hits his 61st home run, the baseball teams defeat the KKK and that unmasked alien morphs into the alien bounty hunter, complete with silver icepick-like weapon. You know, like the ones from "Colony" (S2E16), "Talitha Cumi" (S3E24), "Emily" (S5E7), "The Red and the Black" (S5E14) and "Two Fathers" (S6E11). (I think that covers all of my previous uses of the phrase “silver icepick-like weapon.”) The bounty hunter stabs Josh in the back of the neck and escapes. Arthur arrives too late but tries to comfort Exley, who bleeds red blood, not green acid. He still dies though, so it’s a hollow victory.
Back in the present, Mulder invites Scully to the batting cage and teaches her how to bat. I feel bad for Dana that she went through her childhood without ever playing baseball. Of course, she could be faking because, frankly, Fox’s hands are all over her as he tries to show her the proper stance and swing. At minimum, he got to second base. And Mulder also managed to get another genuine laugh out of Scully. Clearly, this is foreplay for them.
Sestra Professional:
It's only natural that David Duchovny would whip himself up a baseball UFO tale for his first slide into the directorial chair. He's slipped references to Yankees fandom into the show before -- notably his consideration of getting a tattoo to immortalize the 1996 World Series victory in "Never Again" (S4E13). Duchovny eventually commemorated the 20th anniversary of that commemoration with the fictional work, Bucky F*cking Dent, in 2016. So the concept had probably been fermenting in his mind for a while coming into "The Unnatural."
One of the problems David faced while trying to put this one together was the illness of Darren McGavin. He suffered a stroke during production, hence the quick rewrite resulting in the other Arthur Dales. Kind of a weak way to handle it wrapped up in a cutesy package, but we can let that slide. M. Emmet Walsh does a fine job on a moment's notice as the cantankerous coot.I scream, you scream, we all scream for non-fat tofutti rice dreamsicles: But let's get to the important stuff -- the couple of flirty scenes between Fox and Dana. The first one is loaded with exposition and paraphrased banalities such as "Hey, it's a gorgeous day outside, why are we inside?" But call me crazy, the way they wrestle for that cone makes my insides melt more than that awkward very-early or very-late baseball present.
Now back to our regularly scheduled alien. "The Unnatural" certainly has a Field of Dreams-meets-The X-Files vibe. And I'm not one to send up flares for political correctness, but yeah, the KKK's language in the opening teaser leaves something to be desired. We go from a playful back-home twangy score supporting a host of baseball cliches to a frightening scene that could be straight out of Mississippi Burning before the opening credits. It's too much too soon.
I'm so ripe, I'm rotten: I'll buy Fox's theory that box scores might appeal to Dana as the pythagorean theorum for jocks. Maybe not so much that our new truth -- at least for this week -- is that baseball is at the heart of the mystery. I don't see anything in this episode that encompasses the almost seven years we've been following this show. No one's getting anywhere with me by saying one thing -- be it a 12-year-old chess prodigy (from the fifth-season finale and the sixth-season opener) or a baseball-playing alien -- encapsulates everything we've seen to date. To add insult to injury, our new Arthur Dales tells Mulder all the great baseball players -- from Babe Ruth to Willie Mays -- have been aliens and don't fit in any world. I'd probably be more irritated by that if the ridiculous Little Rascals castaway, Poorboy, didn't show up as Dales' door on an errand-running pretense to really make me shake my head. Throwing in everything but the kitchen sink doesn't really further the overall cause, but it's certainly preferable to watching another "Alpha" or "Trevor" (S6E16-17).
Speaking metaphorically is for young men like you, Agent MacGyver: But maybe the real point revolves around Exley's advice to Dales -- make sure you're chasing the right secrets. That's certainly something Sculder can take to heart. They shouldn't be dissuaded by the things they see or hear that might seem important but won't get them any closer to the truth ... and they should definitely need to take some time out for personal lives. In short, more tofutti cones, less Saturday overtime.Meta mashing: In The Complete X-Files, Duchovny revealed his script was inspired by a newspaper account he read about Joe Bauman, who hit 72 homers for the Roswell Rockets the same year Jackie Robinson broke baseball's color barrier and the Roswell UFO incident occurred. "I just remember thinking, 'Oh, Roswell, that's kind of coincidental," Duchovny said. ... Gillian Anderson expressed appreciation for David's efforts in the official episode guide. "I was proud of David for writing the script," she said. "I thought it was wonderful. He was kind and gentle and respectful and humble, and always tried to do his best." ... Duchovny's older brother, Daniel, played Grays' bench rider Piney. ... Vin Scully -- the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers and inspiration for Dana's last name -- is heard broadcasting a game over the radio when the agents are in their office.
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