There's a few episodes of The X-Files that really jockey for the place of "worst episode ever", by being bland, unoriginal, dumb or lumbering. And yet, somehow, "The Unnatural" just walks it, without apparently even trying, by finding ways to suck you never thought possible.
The story is just... it's an alien who becomes human so he can play baseball. Which is fine... except it's not. It's being told as a joke, or a fib, or a fable, by a character who doesn't really have any reason to be there (Arthur Dales just kinda appeared and disappeared, didn't he), and it's not much more than annoying, folksy Americana with some kind of social commentary about the KKK crowbarred in there for good measure. The viewer is just left to ask "why?"
I get that it's just supposed to be a bit of fun, but it's not fun, it's an endurance test. I get that it's about baseball and that, as a Britisher, it's impossible to imagine anyone from outside America liking baseball, let alone coming from another planet for it. I get that. But I still don't like it. You give it the benefit of the doubt for a while, but it just persists in being nothing but bilge, so in love with its concept - that it's just a story and that it doesn't matter if it's true, and that everything comes down to baseball apparently - that it just doesn't notice how bad it's being.
I'm amazed to find that people actually like this one.
The story is just... it's an alien who becomes human so he can play baseball. Which is fine... except it's not. It's being told as a joke, or a fib, or a fable, by a character who doesn't really have any reason to be there (Arthur Dales just kinda appeared and disappeared, didn't he), and it's not much more than annoying, folksy Americana with some kind of social commentary about the KKK crowbarred in there for good measure. The viewer is just left to ask "why?"
I get that it's just supposed to be a bit of fun, but it's not fun, it's an endurance test. I get that it's about baseball and that, as a Britisher, it's impossible to imagine anyone from outside America liking baseball, let alone coming from another planet for it. I get that. But I still don't like it. You give it the benefit of the doubt for a while, but it just persists in being nothing but bilge, so in love with its concept - that it's just a story and that it doesn't matter if it's true, and that everything comes down to baseball apparently - that it just doesn't notice how bad it's being.
I'm amazed to find that people actually like this one.