Writing and casting

"Existence" was written during filming, which led to Kim Manners—the director of the episode—helping with the script. Because of this, several of the action scenes, such as the fight at the FBI headquarters, were Manners' ideas. According to Manners, the last scene with Doggett and Reyes in Kersh's office was the "birth" of the "New X-Files" without David Duchovny as a lead.^[3] From here on, Monica Reyes became a main character on the show.^[3] Star Trek: The Next Generation regular Denise Crosby briefly appears as Scully's gynecologist. The episode features the last appearance of Nicholas Lea, sans the series finale. Reportedly, Lea had become tired of the role and was growing weary of the ambiguous nature of the character. When Lea learned that his character was to be killed off in "Existence", he reportedly welcomed the news. The night the episode aired, Lea wrote on his personal website: "I felt that [Krycek] wasn't getting a fair shake anyway. [...] I wanted more in-depth ideas about the character and it never came to pass. It kind of stopped being fun to play."^[4]

The final scene of the episode featuring Mulder and Scully kissing almost was not filmed. Initially, the script called for Mulder to kiss Scully's forehead. Both Duchovny and Manners argued that the scene was "mundane" and that they had "been teasing and doing that bull for so long" that they wanted "a real kiss at this point".^[5] During the birth of Scully's child, several allusions to the story of the birth of Jesus are made, including Mulder following a star to find Scully and The Lone Gunmen bringing gifts for the baby, much like the Three Wise Men. Scully's child was portrayed by Jerry Shiban, who is the son of John Shiban, a producer who worked on The X-Files as well as The Lone Gunmen. He was the first of seven babies to represent the character and the only one to play Baby William for a single episode.^[3]

Effects and filming

Chris Carter included a scene with whale calls after listening to a Paul Winter album.

The episode featured several elaborate CGI scenes. The first scene with the vertebrae was entirely computer generated by visual effects head John Wash.^[3]

According to director Kim Manners, the most difficult scene to shoot was in the elevator with Mitch Pileggi and Nicholas Lea. Conversely, Manners favorite scene was the one in which Skinner kills Krycek. Manners himself proposed the uniqueness of the shot, which features a CGI bullet going straight through Krycek's head. Extra money was budgeted for Krycek's death.^[6] Mitch Pileggi was very happy when he was told he would be killing Krycek; he explained, "when they came to me and told me that I was the one that was going to kill Krycek, I was elated. Not because I wanted Nick to go away or anything, it was just from a character stand-point; Skinner just wanted to kill Krycek so bad."^[6] Manners later called it one of his "favorite scenes [he'd] ever directed" and one of the "best scenes [he's] seen in a long time on television."^[3]

The car scene with Gillian Anderson and Annabeth Gish was shot at Kanan Road, Malibu. Anderson and Gish sat in what is known as an insert car, while the crew sat in a pickup car in front of them. The birth scene was filmed at Paramount Ranch. Gish had never filmed with guns before joining The X-Files, so the producers hired a retired LAPD officer to teach her more about firearms. She also did some shooting practices before returning to the set. The FBI garage scenes were shot in Century City and took a total of four days to finish.^[3]

The episode also contains a scene wherein Reyes serenades Scully by imitating whale calls. Gish later noted that "[Series creator Chris Carter] gave me a tape of whale songs, which was hysterical to be playing in my trailer."^[6] Carter was inspired to write the scene after a friend gave him a Paul Winter album that incorporated whale sounds into the music. Carter later explained that, "I just thought it was kind of much like [Reyes'] character to appreciate that."^[7]

Ratings

"Existence" premiered on May 20, 2001, in the United States on Fox.^[8] The episode earned a Nielsen household rating of 8.4, meaning that it was seen by 8.4% of the nation's estimated households.^[9] The episode was watched by 8.58 million households^{[9][nb 1]} and by 14 million viewers, overall.^[10] In the United Kingdom, "Existence" premiered on June 28, 2001, and received 0.65 million viewers, placing The X-Files number three in the top ten broadcasts for Sky1 that week behind Star Trek: Voyager and The Simpsons.^[11] Fox promoted the episode with the tagline "Will the beginning be the end?"^[12] The episode was later included on The X-Files Mythology, Volume 4 – Super Soldiers, a DVD collection that contains episodes involved with the alien super soldiers arc.^[13]

Reviews

"Existence" received mostly positive reviews from critics. Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club awarded the episode a "B". While offering a positive opinion in regards to the finale as a whole, he felt that "Existence" dragged more so than "Essence", resulting in a less interesting episode. He also felt that the overarching mythology of the series had long ago become too convoluted to make sense, but that the "human pieces of the show still work, and that includes Doggett."^[14] Contra Costa Times columnists George Avalos and Michael Liedtke were pleased with the episode noting that the last scene was "beautifully written".^[15] Avalos and Liedtke also reacted positively to the death of Alex Krycek at the hands of Skinner, saying it was the best scene in the episode.^[15] Despite their praise, however, they stressed that "Existence" was not as exciting as the previous episode, "Essence," or the 1998 The X-Files feature film.^[15] Jessica Morgan of Television Without Pity gave the episode an A− rating, noting that "season eight's finale goes out with a big fat juicy kiss between Mulder and Scully, at long last".^[16] Gareth Wigmore of TV Zone was positive toward both "Essence" and "Existence". Wigmore gave the episodes a 9 out of 10 rating and wrote "the reason that this two-parter works is that its plot is simple enough for the audience to still have a handle on".^[17]

Not all reviews were positive. Robert Shearman and Lars Pearson, in their book Wanting to Believe: A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium & The Lone Gunmen, gave the episode a more mixed two-and-a-half stars out of five.^[18] Paula Vitaris from Cinefantastique gave the episode a scathing review and awarded it no stars out of four.^[19] She heavily derided the plot, and wrote, "Thus endeth the Mulder-and-Scully era of The X-Files, and what a load of sanctimonious crap it turned out to be!"^[19]