Kessenich, in his book Examination: An Unauthorized Look at Seasons 6–9 of the X-Files, named the episode one of the "Top 25 Episode of All Time" of The X-Files, ranking it at number 19. He called the episode "a satiric X-File at is finest." Den of Geek writer Juliette Harrisson named it the "finest" stand-alone episode of season 5 and wrote, "for sheer fun and narrative playfulness, the winner has to be Bad Blood". Not all reviews were so glowing. Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a more mixed review and awarded it two-and-a-half stars out of four. Although she enjoyed the comedic elements of the episode, she was somewhat critical of the underlying issues, most notably the way Mulder and Scully viewed each other in the episode. She wrote that, "their relationship seems to be a strangely passive-aggressive one". Vitaris also was critical of the fact that Mulder was not guilty over the fact that he may have killed an innocent boy. Gillian Anderson has described "Bad Blood" as one of her favorites of the series, commenting "Oh, yes! I loved that episode. As far as I'm concerned it's one of our best ever. I think it really showed how well David and I can work together". See also List of unmade episodes of The X-Files List of vampire television series Footnotes Bibliography External links "Bad Blood" on TheXFiles.com 1998 American television episodes Fiction with unreliable narrators Television episodes written by Vince Gilligan Television episodes set in Texas The X-Files (season 5) episodes Television episodes about vampires