High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! "The Unnatural" is the nineteenth episode of the sixth season of the science fiction television series The X-Files, which first aired on the Fox network on April 25, 1999, and on July 4, 1999 in the United Kingdom on Sky1. "The Unnatural" was written and directed by lead actor David Duchovny, and was Duchovny`s debut as a television director. Although it deals with an alien, the episode is largely unconnected to the mythology of The X-Files, and functions as a "Monster-of-the-Week" story. "The Unnatural" earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.1 and its first broadcast was watched by 16.88 million people. The episode received overwhelmingly positive reviews from television critics and members of the cast and crew, most notably by series creator Chris Carter and co-star Gillian Anderson.