Reception
"Improbable" first aired in the United States on April 14, 2002. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 5.1, meaning that it was seen by 5.1% of the nation's estimated households. The episode was viewed by 5.38 million households and 9.1 million viewers "Improbable" was the 57th most watched episode of television that aired during the week ending April 14.
The episode received mostly positive reviews from critics. Jessica Morgan from Television Without Pity awarded the episode a B+. UGO named God/Mr. Burt as one of the "Top 11 X-Files Monsters," noting that "As imagines him, is a benevolent deity, constantly prodding his creatures to look at the patterns before them, to see the overall plan that he's laid out. He's doomed to failure, and he knows it, though it doesn't stop him from trying." 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 four stars out of five, and called the script "very witty". The two wrote that "the brilliance of Chris Carter's direction" allowed the viewer of the episode to see it "from God's point of view". Shearman and Pearson concluded that the episode "is not as as smart as it thinks it is. But it's still pretty smart." John Keegan from Critical Myth, on the other hand, gave the episode a more mixed review and awarded it a 6 out of 10. He wrote, "Overall, this episode was amusing enough, but there was nothing about it that would prompt me to rank it as highly as the more inspired “lite” episodes of previous seasons. And considering that the sixth and seventh seasons suffered tremendously from too many episodes like this, it’s a shame to see them do it again."
Read more about this topic: Improbable (The X-Files)
Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
“But in the reception of metaphysical formula, all depends, as regards their actual and ulterior result, on the pre-existent qualities of that soil of human nature into which they fall—the company they find already present there, on their admission into the house of thought.”
—Walter Pater (1839–1894)
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)