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)
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