Millennium (The X-Files) - Broadcast and Reception

Broadcast and Reception

"Millennium" first aired in the United States on November 28, 1999 on Fox. The night the episode aired, FX showed a nine-hour Millennium marathon, featuring episodes that were closely related to and led up to the cross-over. The marathon was hosted by Lance Henriksen leading-up to the premiere. The episode was viewed by 15.09 million viewers, and earned a Nielsen rating of 9.1, with a 13 share, meaning that roughly 9.1 percent of all television-equipped households, and 13 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode aired in the United Kingdom and Ireland on Sky1 on April 9, 2000 and received 870,000 viewers, making it the sixth most-watched episode of the week. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "How do you kill someone who isn't alive?"

The episode received mixed reviews from critics; Matt Hurwitz and Chris Knowles referred to the episode as "controversial" in their 2008 book, The Complete X-Files. Kenneth Silber from Space.com was critical of the episode, writing that "this episode vividly demonstrates that what Carl Sagan once called 'the burden of skepticism' is no longer being shouldered by anyone in the series. Why else would Mulder's assertion that a necromancer has successfully raised the dead provoke such a languid response in a room full of FBI agents?" 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-and-a-half stars out of five, noting that the episode's premise felt, "stylistically wrong for Millennium." Furthermore, Shearman and Pearson argued the episode was "a terrible X-File" because, instead of featuring Mulder and Scully solving a mystery, the plot revolved around the two saving the world from Armageddon, which caused "the thin credibility upon which hangs the series ." Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a negative review and awarded it one-and-a-half stars out of four. Vitaris noted that, despite the teaser and first act being "promising enough", the episode "slides downhill rapidly with a storyline that crosses the border into ludicrous."

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club awarded the episode a "B". He called the entry "tired" and wrote that it was "both too ambitious and not epic enough" to bring closure to Millennium. Furthermore, he felt that the story's basic plot was too confusing and almost laughable. Despite this, he enjoyed Johnson's role as the villain, calling him "interesting", and he wrote that the scene with Mulder and Black in the cellar was "kind of cool" because of the "creepy zombie sequences". Ted Cox of the Daily Herald called the entry "creepy" and "visually captivating", particularly praising the installment's "use of light and dark symbolism". Ultimately, he noted that "it's good to once again see Mulder and Scully temporarily set free from the show's overarching conspiracy." Rich Rosell from Digitally Obsessed awarded the episode 5 out of 5 stars and wrote that "there were a lot of big, big things going on in this ep, starting with Millennium's ace profiler Frank Black reluctantly helping Mulder and Scully solve the apparent suicides of four FBI agents." Rosell ultimately concluded that the reason the episode was a success was due to Mulder and Scully's kiss, a moment he called "inevitable" although he did not that "many think really signaled the beginning of the end." Tom Kessenich, in his book Examinations: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files gave the episode a positive review and called it "highly entertaining" and "cause for celebration". He noted that, while he had never seen an episode of Millennium, the series mythology and story-arcs "integrated seamlessly into this episode" in a way that non-Millennium fans could still enjoy it.

The kiss between Mulder and Scully caused a fury of opinions. The Complete X-Files noted that many fans were "ecstatic" about Mulder and Scully's "long-awaited" kiss. David Blar from DVD Talk called the episode "shocking" because of Mulder and Scully's kiss, asking, "why they didn't lock lips sooner"? Paula Vitaris noted that the kiss "seems stuck on to the episode by a tack in its complete irrelevance to the storyline or Mulder and Scully in general." Allan Johnson from the Chicago Tribune noted that "in a way, it's too bad Sunday's episode of Fox's The X-Files is getting more attention for what happens near the end than it does for its plot." Kessenich praised the way the show worked in Mulder and Scully's kiss, noting that its lack of a "steamy, rip your clothes off" atmosphere made the sequence work "so well". Handlen wrote that the scene, coupled with Black getting his daughter back, was "the only scene which comes close to justifying the episode’s existence". Furthermore, he enjoyed the ambiguous nature of the kiss, noting that it could be "just a one time thing, or maybe it’s the start of something, or maybe it’s just a continuation of something that’s been going on for a long time now, right under our noses."