Jose Chung's From Outer Space

Infobox Television episode | Title = Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"


Caption =
Series = The X-Files
Season = 3
Episode = 20
Airdate = April 12, 1996 (Fox)
Production = 3x20
Guests = Charles Nelson Reilly as Jose Chung
Writer = Darin Morgan
Director = Rob Bowman

-
Prev = Hell Money
Next = Avatar"Jose Chung's "From Outer Space" is the twentieth episode of the third season of "The X-Files". When a couple claims to have been abducted by aliens, Agents Mulder and Scully try to get at the truth but everyone has a different version of the story, including the "aliens" themselves.

"Jose Chung's "From Outer Space", along with "Bad Blood", "The Post-Modern Prometheus" and "Hollywood A.D.", is one of the few "X-Files" episodes that is markedly comedic in tone, in contrast to its usual strictly dramatic tone. Also like "Bad Blood", this episode is something of a Rashomon.

Plot

The episodes story is told through a series of interviews by author Jose Chung, who is conducting research for a "non fiction Science Fiction" novel about the abduction. The central event involved the abduction of two high school students and the return of one of them. While many people believe this is merely a case of an abduction and rape, Mulder believes that it involves alien abduction, mostly based on the testimony of a witness to the event. As the episode advances the narrative begins to play with the nature of narrative. Since most of the events are being related second, or even third hand, to Jose Chung, there is an inherent unreality to them that allows for multiple interpretations of what happened. The episode also involves, apart from narrative concerns, several interlocking levels of deception as there appears to be an intersection between a faked alien abduction involving government flying saucer pilots, and an actual alien abduction involving the outre Ray Harryhausen esque "Lord Kinbote." The episode also mocked several aspects of UFO folklore and the show itself, such as depicting Roswell grey aliens as merely costumed humans, and several witness descriptions of Mulder as "sinister" and even "a man in black." The episode is also notable for cameo appearances by Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek as men in black.

Cultural References

*Jose Chung mentioned he wrote a thriller about 1950s mind control called "The Caligarian Candidate". This is a reference to both "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" and "The Manchurian Candidate".Rob Bowman, Darin Morgan. Director/Writer Commentary (DVD)]
*The fake alien autopsy hosted by a prominent British ufologist is a reference to the alien autopsy film shown on the Fox Network in 1995 hosted by Ray Santilli, previously mentioned in "Nisei".
*Lt. Shaeffer molds his mashed potatoes into a mountain shape after seeing a UFO. This is a reference to a similar scene from "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".
*The name "Lord Kinbote" is a reference to the character Charles Kinbote of "Pale Fire".

ee also

*Jose Chung's "Doomsday Defense"

References

External links

*imdb title|0751147|Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"
* [http://www.tv.com/the-x-files/jose-chungs-from-outer-space/episode/559/summary.html Jose Chung's "From Outer Space"] at TV.com