blocking the photographers and protecting their co-star. Reception "Unrequited" premiered on the Fox network on February 23, 1997. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 10.9, with a 16 share, meaning that roughly 10.9 percent of all television-equipped households, and 16 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. "Unrequited" was seen by 16.56 million viewers on first broadcast. The episode first aired in the United Kingdom on January 7, 1998, on BBC One. Emily VanDerWerff of The A.V. Club gave the episode a "B−". She wrote that "Unrequited" "isn't a very good episode" of the series, but that it is "a potent one all the same" due to its "great ideas" that are unfortunately never expanded upon. VanDerWerff felt that the episode's biggest problem was that it started in media res and revealed the episode's conclusion, writing "it's a pretty great starting point for an episode. Instead, it's actually the endpoint". Despite the negativity towards the plot, she wrote that the entry was "a good episode for Skinner" in that it gives him a mission and hints at his past without being heavy-handed. Furthermore, VanDerWerff also applauded the way the show used the Vietnam War in a way that felt "fresh". Independent reviewer Sarah Stegall awarded the episode a two out of five and derided it as a "pseudo-political story". She was negative towards the "lack of emotional investment", which she felt was what damaged the episode; she called Teager a cipher who was portrayed as a "Twitchy Vet" rather than a "Tragic Hero". 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 two stars out of five. They heavily criticized the episode for taking place before the events of "Memento Mori", circumventing the need to deal with Scully's cancer. Furthermore, the two criticized the episode for being "thin stuff" and heavily padded; Shearman and Pearson note that the long teaser is replayed in the episode "to no new dramatic effect" and that Covarrubias's appearance offers no new information. Paula Vitaris, writing for Cinefantastique, rated "Unrequited" one star out of four, writing that it "collapses under the weight of its message" and that it "fails to bring to life any of its guest characters". Furthermore, she criticized the reusing of the teaser, noting that it "just comes off as a