Clockwork Orange (1971), but the rights to the footage were too expensive so the producers settled on another choice. Carter felt that in retrospect it ended up being a better fit. Mulder and Scully's fight about Mulder always driving was based on fan critiqued about how Mulder was usually the one driving the car; according to series co-star Gillian Anderson this complaint had been raised at "the beginning of the show". Mulder's joke about Scully's "little feet" was a joke that Carter had made before at a fan convention in Pasadena, California. Regarding the tone of this episode, Duchovny later explained that the show's comedic episodes were generally more ludicrous than others, saying, "There's The X-Files of the stand-alone, and then there's The X-Files of the mythology, and then there are the comedic X-Files as well, in which the characters are really not quite the characters that we know." Reception "Syzygy" premiered on the Fox network on , and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on Sky One on . The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 10.8 with a 17 share, meaning that roughly 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. The episode received mixed reviews from critics. Entertainment Weekly gave "Syzygy" an A, describing the episode as "another uproarious send-up, this time of teen venom, B-movie paranoia, and our agents' painfully restrained rapport", with praise to the villains and the discussion on why Mulder always drives, considered "one of Mulder's and Scully's funniest exchanges". Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave a B−, describing it as "an entertaining hour that never rises to the level of those other episodes" like "Humbug" and "War of the Coprophages". VanDerWerff argued that "Syzygy" was an attempt by Carter to try and emulate the writing style of Darin Morgan's scripts, without success; she noted "the laughs here are emptier than they were the week before in 'Coprophages'"—and adding that "every time you think the episode has figured out a way to plant its foot firmly in comedic territory, there's a horribly judged moment of 'drama,' like Mulder's final monologue." Connie Ogle of Popmatters listed Margi and Terri among the best monster-of-the-week characters of the series, describing "Syzygy" as a "hilarious send-up of Heathers". Not all reviews were positive. Paula Vitaris from