Nielsen’s early returns for Sunday’s heavily marketed debut are still sketchy — they need to be “time zone-adjusted” since the sci-fi drama got off to a late start on the East Coast (beginning at 10:24 p.m.). But even if you ignore the inflated first half hour and just look at 10:30 to 11 p.m. on the preliminary national chart, X-Files reportedly had 13.5 million viewers and a big 5.1 rating among adults 18–49. (Numbers will be changed due to update from Nielsen)
The network strategically put The X-Files debut right after the NFC championship game to give the series a huge potential audience. The sci-fi drama now shifts to Mondays – starting tonight – for the remaining five episodes.
Forbes shares the same numbers, stating: "That 13.5 million figure is nearly twice the 7.9 million people that watched the pilot, about half of the show’s peak viewership of 27 million viewers that watched the fifth season premiere in November of 1997, around 65% of the show’s peak average (20 million viewers in season four when Fox moved the show to Sunday), and about the same number of people who watched the show’s two-part finale in May of 2002."
Forbes shares the same numbers, stating: "That 13.5 million figure is nearly twice the 7.9 million people that watched the pilot, about half of the show’s peak viewership of 27 million viewers that watched the fifth season premiere in November of 1997, around 65% of the show’s peak average (20 million viewers in season four when Fox moved the show to Sunday), and about the same number of people who watched the show’s two-part finale in May of 2002."
Creatively, the first episode provoked divisive responses. Critics typically thought it was exposition-stuffed, sleepily acted and dull, while many fans countered that they were perfectly satisfied.