episode, due to concerns over animal rights groups. The art crew tried to create a faux-dead cow, but it did not look real. Consequently, the producers reached out to a slaughterhouse and were able to use a real corpse. During the filming of this episode, director Kim Manners' best friend was killed. Due to the horrific nature of this turn of events, the production crew were willing to replace him with another director, but he insisted on completing the episode. Reception "D.P.O." was first broadcast in the US on October 6, 1995, on Fox. The episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.9, with a 20 share, meaning that roughly 10.9 percent of all television-equipped households, and 20 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. The episode was watched by 15.57 million viewers. Entertainment Weekly gave "D.P.O." a B+, considering that despite the lack of action, it managed to "keep you glued" for the photography and "truly hilarious sociopathic high jinks". Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the same grade, praising Ribisi and Black's performances and "sequences that confidently walk the tricky line between horror and broad comedy", and marking it as the point where "the show's direction, always good, made the leap from consistently interesting to look at to consistently cinematic." Jane Goldman, in The X-Files Book of the Unexplained felt like the combination of Howard Gordon's "acutely observed dialogue" and Ribisi's "compelling performance" made Darin Oswald "one of season three's most memorable characters". Writing for Den of Geek, Nina Sordi put "D.P.O." only behind "Clyde Bruckman's Final Repose" as the best standalone season 3 episode, praising Ribisi's "all quiet, creepy power that eventually explodes into homicidal rage" and Jack Black's "weary and ultimately doomed sidekick". The plot for "D.P.O." was also adapted as a novel for young adults in 1996 by Neal Shusterman, under the title Voltage and the pseudonym Easton Royce. Footnotes Bibliography External links "D.P.O." on The X-Files official website Novelization 1995 American television episodes Television episodes set in Oklahoma The X-Files (season 3) episodes