A rchive Date
[ 21-02-2005 ]
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[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Mass Media ]
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[Duchovny strikes out
By STEVE TILLEY -- Edmonton Sun
Saturday, 24 April, 1999
Any time The X-Files brings in a high-profile guest writer for an episode, the results can vary from the reasonably watchable (sci-fi author William Gibson) to the absolutely brutal (horror scribe Stephen King).
But tomorrow's X-Files steps up to the plate with what could be the grandest ego stroke of all time, or simply a bizarre and risky bit of stunt writing and directing.
David Duchovny - Fox Mulder to you - writes (gasp!) and directs (double gasp!) this week's episode, titled The Unnatural. It airs tomorrow at 10 p.m. on Fox.
Hear that keening sound in the distance? That's X-Files fans howling over Duchovny's cavalier savaging of the show's mythos in what has to be one of the goofiest plots in the history of the series.
But the thing is, if this hadn't been an X-Files episode - if all the otherworldy elements (which we'll talk about in a second) had been removed - The Unnatural wouldn't have been all that bad.
The show opens with a friendly baseball game being played in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947, between the Negro Baseball League's Roswell Grays and an all-white minor league team, back in the days before men of colour were allowed to join the majors.
The game is broken up when a group of KKK ride in and attempt to get at star batter Josh Exley (Jesse L. Martin, Ally's doctor love interest on Ally McBeal), the player many assume will be the first black man allowed to play in the big leagues.
During the ensuing melee, one of the clansmen is revealed to be a real Gray - one of the wide-eyed, pale-skinned aliens that pop up in X-Files lore from time to time. Cue opening theme music.
The rest of the episode flashes between the present, where Fox Mulder is investigating the strange case of Exley and his connection to the infamous Roswell UFO crash of '47, and the past, where the story moves along in flashbacks related by Arthur Dales (Darren McGovern), who was a cop assigned to protect Exley.
Duchovny, obviously a baseball fan, does a fine job of capturing the atmosphere of the game in a decade when players swung the bat for love, not money.
But when Exley's true nature - and the true nature of all gifted ball players, apparently - is revealed, things get so ridiculous you may feel like winding up and pitching your remote at the screen.
X-Files mainstays like aliens, alien bounty hunters and green goo are here, but Duchovny has treated them so lightly, fans who once loved the serious aspect of the show will pray that this is its final season.
If that wasn't bad enough, the Mulder-Scully interplay seems forced and out of character, and Duchovny has taken it upon himself to toss in a dose of sexual playfulness at the end that seems just wrong, somehow.
Are these two sleeping together now or something?
Don't quit your day job, David. We don't need any more foul balls like this.
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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