in which the character is levitated through the door of an airplane, was achieved by pulling the actor out of the airplane rig with a harness; additional coverage was achieved by repeating this with a stuntman, who Scott Bellis notes was pulled out of the rig "a lot harder". The beam of light seen shining from beneath the UFO in the episode was achieved by compositing several shots together, with elements including a crane carrying a spotlight—borrowed from the Canadian Coast Guard—and the spray from an aerosol combined to create the final shot. Broadcast and reception "Max" premiered 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 11.6 with an 18 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 to positive reviews from critics. Emily VanDerWerff, writing for The A.V. Club, rated "Max" an A−. VanDerWerff was unconvinced that the episode, along with "Tempus Fugit", merited being stretched over two parts; however, she felt that the character of Fenig was "a simultaneous paean to the many, many lives lost in this fictional war and a very real story about someone who could very well live on the edges of our society, driven mad by visions that are only real to himself, visions the rest of us would immediately disregard as unbelievable and surreal". Paula Vitaris, writing for Cinefantastique, rated "Max" one-and-a-half stars out of four. Vitaris praised the episode's visual effects; however, she felt that the two parts of the story would have better served as "a taut one-hour episode". Vitaris also felt that the episode's final act, featuring Mulder on an airplane, saw Mulder uncharacteristically putting civilians at risk and was an example of "out and out bad writing". 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 four stars out of five, describing it as "tighty, satisfying, witty and touching". Shearman noted that the second half of two-part episodes in the series tended to "drop the ball", but felt that the story arc of "Tempus Fugit" and "Max" was "very solid", calling them "the most satisfying "event" multiparter