Reception
"Alone" debuted on Fox on May 6, 2001 in the United States. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 7.5, meaning that it was seen by 7.5% of the nation's estimated households. The episode was viewed by 7.56 million households, and 12.7 million viewers. The episode ranked as the 35th most-watched episode for the week ending May 6. On June 14, 2001, the episode premiered in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 and received 480,000 viewers making it the sixth most watched episode that week, behind Star Trek: Voyager and The Simpsons. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "Don't watch alone."
The episode was met with mixed to positive reviews. Television Without Pity gave the episode an B– rating but slightly criticised the way Fox was using Duchovny, sardonically writing, "I don't know if you're aware of this, but David Duchovny stars in The X-Files. Did you know that? Because they've really been keeping it under wraps at Fox." John Keegan from Critical Myth gave the episode a 7 out of 10 rating. Keegan called the episode a "homage to fandom" and described the tone as "warm fuzzy." Because of this, he concluded that "verall, this was an episode that dealt with the emotional needs of the audience in a way that was less effective than it might have been." 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 three and a half five stars out of five and called the it "an exercise in nostalgia". The two called the episode "touching" and noted that many of the in-jokes in the script, such as Harrison asking the agents how they got back from Antarctica, were "very funny". Shearman and Pearson, however, did slightly critique the way the X-Files were presented noting that the case was comparatively a "rather low-key humdrum affair". Tom Kessenich, in his book Examinations, gave the episode a positive review, writing, "The future of The X-Files is unsettled, but 'Alone' served as a pleasant reminder of what has come before and why the journey to this point has, for the most part, been so wonderful."
Not all reviews were positive. Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a largely negative review and awarded it one star out of four. She derided the plot, writing "Why? Who knows? Who cares?" Vitaris further criticized the episode incorporation of the fandom and suggested that some of the questions asked by Harrison were meant to be "making fun" of "fannish questions".
Read more about this topic: Alone (The X-Files)
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