731 (The X-Files) - Broadcast and Reception

Broadcast and Reception

Scully finds some of the answers she's been looking for, and Mulder gets as close as he's ever gotten to the truth, and both of them are the driving forces behind the story. In the end, when all is said and done, neither can walk away from what happens here, not in the same way they can from their other cases.

"731" premiered on the Fox network on December 1, 1995, and was first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on October 30, 1996. The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 12 with a 21 share, meaning that roughly 12 percent of all television-equipped households, and 21 percent of households watching television, were tuned in to the episode. A total of 17.68 million viewers watched this episode during its original airing.

In a retrospective of the third season in Entertainment Weekly, "731" was rated a B. The review noted that the episode was "Strangely tension-free", though it derided Scully's stubbornness to believe what the series had established as truth. Writing for The A.V. Club, reviewer Zack Handlen rated the episode an A, calling it "terrific". However, Handlen felt that the version of events told to Scully in this episode was perhaps a better explanation for the series' mythology than its eventual resolution, noting that it might have offered "a conclusion whose emotional impact would've lived up to the intensity of early mythology episodes" such as this.

Director Rob Bowman called the episode one of his all time favorites. Actor Steven Williams felt that his portrayal of X in this episode helped endear him more to the show's viewers. Director of Photography John Bartley earned a nomination for "Outstanding Achievement in Cinematography in a Regular Series" by the American Society of Cinematographers for his work on this episode.