The serial was recommended by Charlie Jane Anders of io9 as an example of the classic series for new viewers to watch, describing it as "a quick hit ... and still just as intense as it was 48 years ago".
Reviewing it in 2012 in io9, Jess Nevins characterized the work as "the worst science fiction novel of the 19th century", outstripping all other bad science fiction of that time in "unreadability, cliché, and thematic foulness".