Paul Cornell, Martin Day and Keith Topping gave a favourable review of the serial in "The Discontinuity Guide" (1995), writing, "A good, hearty action romp, crisply written and engaging, although critics might say that it's too straight-forward. There's only one proper character (Richard Mace), which gives Peter Davison and Michael Robbins the space to turn in a pair of lovely performances. The end result is a stylish slice of pseudo-historical nonsense." In "The Television Companion" (1998), David J. Howe and Stephen James Walker called "The Visitation" "a very enjoyable story, and one of the highlights of the season". They praised the location filming, but noted a weakness was "Matthew Waterhouse's peculiar performance as Adric". In 2012, Patrick Mulkern of "Radio Times" awarded it four stars out of five. He said that the story was "pedestrian in places, Saward does execute one or two dramatic flourishes". He said that Davison was growing into the role and the companions were given something to do despite being "variable", and was mixed towards the design of the Terileptils. Reviewing the special-edition DVD release for "SFX", Nick Setchfield gave "The Visitation" three-and-a-half out of five stars. He noted that it was a "throwback" and "built on capture-escape-capture storytelling, but it's brimful of oaky, shadowy 17th-century atmosphere".