 The episode garnered a largely positive reception from critics . Entertainment Weekly wrote that the episode " Powerfully depicts both Mulder 's gnawing sense of defeat and his bond with Scully , strangely growing stronger with separation " before concluding that the episode was " fairly standard . " The site ultimately gave the episode a B. Reviewer Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club positively compared and contrasted the episode to the cartoon Scooby Doo , Where Are You ? writing that , " I used to be a huge " Scooby Doo " fan . [ ... ] Of course , none of [ the villains ] were really monsters . [ ... ] The X @-@ Files exploited a simple truth : we all want to believe . We might be afraid of what 's lurking in the dark , but isn 't there always a bit of wishing inside that fear ? A hope that what we think we know isn 't everything there is to know . That just once it might be nice to reach for a zipper and instead find nothing but cool scales . " Handlen ultimately called the episode " Essential . " Reviewer Dan Barrett from the 400 Club wrote that " The X @-@ Files is off to a stonking good start with this season 2 opening . " Bob Curtright , writing for the Los Angeles Daily News , called the episode " an engrossing chiller about potential contact from outer space . " He compared the episode positively to Close Encounters of the Third Kind and noted that the episode was " both scary and wondrous " and " offer [ ed ] no pat answers that might tend to blow the credibility . " 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 five stars out of five , writing that the episode was not " what the fans were expecting , and its reputation isn 't great . But I think this clever and claustrophobic little take , which does so much not only to refresh the show but to analyze what it 's actually about , is one of the very best . " 
