Reception
"Existence" premiered on May 20, 2001 in the United States on Fox. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.4, meaning that it was seen by 8.4% of the nation's estimated households. The episode was watched by 8.58 million households and by 14 million viewers, overall. In the United Kingdom, "Existence" premiered on June 28, 2001 and received 0.65 million viewers, placing The X-Files number three in the top ten broadcasts for Sky1 that week behind Star Trek: Voyager and The Simpsons. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "Will the beginning be the end?" The episode was later included on The X-Files Mythology, Volume 4 – Super Soldiers, a DVD collection that contains episodes involved with the alien super soldiers arc.
Critical reception to the episode was mostly positive. Contra Costa Times columnists George Avalos and Michael Liedtke were pleased with the episode noting that the last scene was "beautifully written". Avalos and Liedtke also reacted positively to the death of Alex Krycek at the hands of Skinner, saying it was the best scene in the episode. Despite their praise, however, they stressed that "Existence" was not as exciting as the previous episode, "Essence," or the 1998 The X-Files feature film. John Keegan from Critical Myth gave the episode 7 out of 10, and said that he experienced a "little disappointment" with the episode when compared to the previous episodes. Jessica Morgan from Television Without Pity gave the episode an A- rating, noting that "season eight's finale goes out with a big fat juicy kiss between Mulder and Scully, at long last. Other stuff happens, but it's hard to remember what, exactly."
Not all reviews were positive. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, gave the episode a more mixed two-and-a-half stars out of five. Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a scathing review and awarded it no stars out of four. She heavily derided the plot, and wrote, "Thus endeth the Mulder-and-Scully era of The X-Files, and what a load of sanctimonious crap it turned out to be!"
Read more about this topic: Existence (The X-Files)
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