An Error in Chemistry

Reviewing the episode for the New York Herald Tribune, John Crosby wrote, "this may have been the best television drama I have ever seen" (a fact he attributes equally to all parties concerned),^[4] while Hollywood Reporter critic Milton Luban's equally emphatic thumbs-up focuses primarily on Brown's "beautiful directing job, from both performance and acting viewpoints, his crowd handling being masterful," and on O'Brien's "brillian[ce]."

O'Brien has turned in far too many brilliant performances to call this his best, but it certainly ranks close to it, [...] getting every nuance out of the role yet maintaining a certain inscrutability that keeps his motives a complete mystery until the bitterly ironic climax.^[3]

Time magazine likewise singled out O'Brien's performance but deemed the story's climax "too forced and too trifling to support an hour show."^[1]

At the Seventh Annual Emmy Awards, adaptor David Dortort's script received a nomination for Best Written Dramatic Material.^[5]

• An Error in Chemistry at IMDb