 Television Without Pity ranked "Our Town" the fifth most nightmare-inducing episode of the show. 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 two stars out of five. The two wrote positively of Spotnitz juxtapositions, praising the idea to frame the themes around cannibalism. However, they wrote that "Spotnitz pushes the metaphor too far", citing the ending scene as evidence. Shearman and Pearson also criticized both Bowman's directing, noting it lacked the flourishes to make "Spotnitz' strange black comedy work", and Mark Snow's score. They noted that Snow was on "autopilot" and that his soundtrack was "the same horn anthem he gives any character who's taken a little too much from a tribal culture." The two further criticized the series' use of the capture of Scully as a mechanism for Mulder to spring into action.
