Certain Sides to Every Story - "Jose Chung's From Outer Space"

How about a parody of The X•Files done by The X•Files as only the X•Files could do it?

Chung, played by Charles Nelson Reilly, is writing a book on a UFO abduction and his key sources are Scully, quite a fan of his, and a young man with desires to be taken by aliens from the earth so he won't have to work (!). Mulder wants nothing to do with Chung or his book, afraid a dismissive work undermining their cause for the truth further by provoking his readers to consider alien abduction worthy of scorn and unbelief. A young couple are out on a date when they supposedly​encounter a flying saucer and grey aliens from inside. The teenage boy is quite sure they were abducted by them, while the girlfriend thinks it could have been suits and the military, using hypnosis to "rob her memories". Scully, after her and Mulder learn the teenagers had sex, believes it is possible the decision to do so compromised their stories about what happened to them, making their accounts questionable. Then there are the Men in Black (Jesse Ventura and Alex Trebek!) who seem to be anywhere evidence might exist to implicate the military, whose two pilots seemed to have donned alien costumes and crashed their plane, designed as a UFO, or possible proof of extraterrestrial life.

There's fun to be had here as a cop investigating the so-called abductions curses like a sailor although the screenplay cleverly substitutes "bleep" or "bleeping" for any profane word. The kooky alien abduction video sequence, edited to avoid showing Scully discovering it is a suit with zipper containing a dead pilot, provided by the Men in Black to a conspiracy theory show to discredit the recording as a hoax. William Lucking as Roky, a witness of the teenage abductions, with a supposed encounter with Men in Black Ventura who told him to keep his mouth shut and avoid publicity, writes a "manifesto" about his experience which includes a trip to the Earth's core, guided by a third monster alien named Lord Kinbote (!). Roky heads to Cali to start a cult! And Allan Pinyk as the nerdy "abduction pursuer" who offers his own dubious accounts, which include amusing descriptions of Mulder (a robotic man who squeals when eyes what he thought was an alien!) and Scully (she is shown grabbing him aggressively by the coat and warning him to kip a lid on it or harm would come to him!).

There's the dual diner stories, one account from Mulder which details conversation with a pilot about what he encountered and how fragile his grasp of reality was and another from the counterman who says Mulder was alone asking him about UFOs while downing pies! Perception and how the truth can be determined differently through different people, skewing what might have happened so that nothing is for sure, I thought this episode beautifully toys with us as each account offers possible facts undermined by falsehoods and extravagant contrivances.

Scully's account, once again pragmatic, clinical, and skeptical, is probably the most accurate while eyewitness testimony endure lapses in logic, alternative recollections that include a grey alien smoking while rocking nervously, saying, "This is not happening", oddball behavior that could offer glimmers of truth but because the messengers  are so off-the-wall what they say can hardly be taken altogether seriously, and different people proclaiming totally separate experiences rendering them worthy of scrutiny and question.

And Reilly, feverishly involved with Scully's interview, penciling away and attentive to her account of the experience, is so welcome. His face and voice perfect as this obsessively attune master novelist, with this light hung on his face as if in an interrogation room, the intensity of his interest alive as he listens. He's riveted and ready to pen a moneymaker. Mulder's plea for him not to write it leads to a not so flattering view of his character in it. Scully, however, for being so forthcoming, is considered saintly with great affection painterly written!