Broadcast and Reception
"Per Manum" premiered on the Fox network on February 18, 2001 and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on June 9, 2002. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 9.4, meaning that it was seen by 9.4% of the nation's estimated households. It was viewed by 9.61 million households and 16 million viewers, making it, at the time, the highest-rated episode of The X-Files to air during the season. "Per Manum" ranked as the 30th most-watched episode for the week ending February 18. Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "How did Scully get pregnant?" 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.
"Per Manum" received mostly positive reviews from critics, with one detractor. Writing for Television Without Pity, Jessica Morgan rated the episode a B+, deriding some of the episode's plot points, such as the hospital's locking doors, and questioning the villainy of the antagonistic doctors. Tom Kessenich, in his book Examinations: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6-9 of 'The X-Files', noted that the episode typifyes the basic themes of the series—"dark, foreboding terror, overriding sense of paranoia" and "the fear of the unknown" among others. 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 five stars out of five, calling it a "return to form" for the series. Shearman and Pearson also felt that the episode gave the character of John Doggett a chance to be accepted by the series' other characters; and praised the "subtle" writing of the episode's emotional dialogue. Writing for The Vindicator, Eric Mink felt that the episode was "intense, unsettling, sometimes gross, and suspenseful to the point of nerve-racking ", feeling that its plot would "resonate instantly and ominously with viewers". Meghan Deans of Tor.com felt that, while the episode did unfortunately reduce Scully down to a traditional idea of feminine identity for part of its run, it was "one of the most emotional Scully-centric episodes the show has ever given us." Furthermore, Deans reasoned that the episode was an example of "what The X-Files would have been, had Scully been the believer: a woman being told that she is hysterical, a woman being told that she imagined it all a woman being told that the evidence of her own body is invalid", a direction that would have been "startling ".
Not all reviews were positive. Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a scathing review and awarded it no stars out of four. She heavily derided the plot, noting that Haskell's role as an "undercover operative" was not convincing. Furthermore, she reasoned that because the plot twists were so expected, Scully came off as "a moron". Vitaris also criticized the use of flashbacks, noting that they were "the only way The X-Files writers could figure out to use David Duchovny".
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