First Person Shooter (The X-Files) - Broadcast and Reception

Broadcast and Reception

"First Person Shooter" first aired in the United States on February 27, 2000. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 9.3, with a 13 share, meaning that roughly 9.3 percent of all television-equipped households, and 13 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 15.31 million viewers. The episode aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on June 11, 2000 and received 0.67 million viewers, making it the third most watched episode that week. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "Tonight, Mulder and Scully must track down a video game killer whose killing spree is real."

Todd VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club awarded the episode a "D–" and largely panned it, calling it "legendarily bad". He likened the overall experience of watching “First Person Shooter” to "feeling as if the show is slowly but surely letting the air out of its own tires." VanDerWerff's main criticisms of the episode were that the concept of the episode was not fleshed out enough, and that the plot was "utterly sexist—toward both men and women" which he called "some sort of feat." He was, however, moderately pleased with the performances of Duchovny and Anderson, writing that they both were "really trying". Kenneth Silber from Space.com criticized the lack of emotion in the episode, writing, "'First Person Shooter' achieves considerable mayhem but remarkably little drama. There seems little reason to care what happens to any of the characters, whether virtual or real, regulars or guests. Even as a man's hands are cut into bloody stumps, one never gets the sense that anything important is going on."

Rich Rosell from Digitally Obsessed awarded the episode 2.5 out of 5 stars and wrote that "this Chris Carter-directed ep oddly enough doesn't center on the series mythology arc, but instead opts for a stab at the tired ol' virtual reality genre. The only saving grace here is the appearance of hip conspiracy buffs The Lone Gunmen, who always brighten up any episode they appeared in." Cyriaque Lamar from i09 called Maitreya one of "The 10 Most Ridiculous X-Files Monsters". Lamar derided the plot, calling it "Scully And Mulder Do Doom", and expressed disappointment that the episode was written by William Gibson. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated the episode one star out of five and called the episode "boring, stupid, and actually offensive, this is one of the very worst X-Files ever." Regardless of the negative press, "First Person Shooter" became one of Gillian Anderson's favorite episodes, despite "its reliance on big guns and raging testosterone." Anderson explained that she enjoyed the opportunity "to show Scully wearing heavy metal and firing oversized weapons."

Although "First Person Shooter" was not as well-received as the first episode written by William Gibson and Tom Maddox, "Kill Switch", the episode later won Emmy Awards for Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Drama Series and Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series, and received a nomination for Outstanding Sound Editing for a Series.