He wouldn't kill the Gunmen, 'cause he's trying to help Mulder.'" The episode was directed by Kim Manners, who was extremely pleased with the final result. He said, "It was a lot of fun to shoot that show. It was the first show that the Gunmen carried and I had a real good time shepherding Tommy, Dean, and Bruce, 'cause they were nervous, they had the whole hour to carry." One scene with which Manners was extremely pleased was the shot in which Susanne Modeski breaks into the Lone Gunmen's hotel room and the Gunmen cower in fear in a corner. Manners was inspired by the 1939 film adaption of The Wizard of Oz, more specifically the image of "the Scarecrow, and the Tinman, and the Lion ... shaking behind Dorothy." In the end, Manners felt that the sequence "really worked out well". Reception "Unusual Suspects" premiered on the Fox network on November 16, 1997. This episode earned a Nielsen rating of 13.0, with a 19 share, meaning that roughly 13.0 percent of all television-equipped households, and 19 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. It was viewed by 21.72 million viewers. The episode received mixed to moderately positive reviews from critics. The A.V. Club reviewer Emily VanDerWerff gave "Unusual Suspects" an A−, and wrote that the episode "is a love letter to the very idea of paranoia". Furthermore, VanDerWerff argued that "as the episode moved its way to its climax, when Mr. X improbably lets the Gunmen live after seeing as much as they did ... it struck me that what we're seeing here may not entirely be meant to be taken seriously, just as 'Memoirs Of A Cigarette Smoking Man' is more about who the CSM wished he might have been than the person he actually was. This isn't a true story; it's a manifesto." 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 three stars out of five. The two compared the episode to "Musings of a Cigarette Smoking Man", but called it "throw away and charming". Shearman and Pearson criticized the episode for being "largely concerned in suggesting to the audience that the government is being conspiratorial ... five seasons into a hit series which has turned that argument into a cliche." Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique''