the correct accent and stresses. Malcolm Stewart, who portrayed NASA scientist Dr. Sacks in the episode, had previously appeared in several earlier episodes of the series, including "Pilot", the second season episode "3", and the third season's "Avatar". Carter has called "Terma", along with its companion piece "Tunguska", "an action piece from beginning to end". Reception "Terma" premièred on the Fox network on , and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on . The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.6 with a 15 share, meaning that roughly 10.6 percent of all television-equipped households, and of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. A total of viewers watched this episode during its original airing. Writing for The A.V. Club, Zack Handlen rated the episode a B−, finding that it contained too much "vamping for time", without enough focus on any of the individual plot threads. Handlen felt that the plot thread based on the murder of the Well-Manicured Man's doctor friend should have been the episode's focus, and derided the "pomposity" of the dialogue elsewhere in the episode. Based on an advance viewing of the episode's script, Entertainment Weekly rated "Terma" an A−, praising the "arms race" plotline. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, rated "Terma" one star out of five, comparing it unfavourably with the previous episode. Shearman and Pearson described the episode as "awful", noting that there "is virtually no structure to it at all". The episode's dialogue was described as being "dreadful, boring and facile", with its long, clumsy lines and "ever more complex and ever less interesting" speeches. Footnotes Bibliography External links 1996 American television episodes Television episodes written by Chris Carter Television episodes set in Canada Television episodes set in Florida Television episodes set in Maryland Television episodes set in New York (state) Television episodes set in North Dakota Television episodes set in Russia The X-Files (season 4) episodes Television episodes set in Virginia Gulag in literature and arts