Reception
In its original American broadcast, "The Man with Two Brians" was watched by 8.60 million households according to the Nielsen ratings. The episode acquired a 4.3 rating in the 18–49 demographic, and was the most-watched show in the Animation Domination block that night. Family Guy finished fourth in its timeslot, after NBC's Sunday Night Football, ABC's Desperate Housewives and CBS's The Amazing Race.
The episode received generally favorable reviews from television sources and critics. Ahsan Haque of IGN gave the episode 7.5/10 and said: "While it featured more than a couple of genuinely unfunny ideas, this episode succeeds for the most part. While this episode definitely won't make anyone's top ten list of great Family Guy, there was a much better balance between random humor and storytelling in this outing". Genevieve Koski of The A.V. Club gave the episode an A-, and said that Family Guy "started things out on the wrong foot with an oh-so-relevant Jackass storyline. Most of the Jackass stuff was way too stale–Peter jackknifing Quagmire into the crate of bees notwithstanding–but thankfully it was just setup for a far superior storyline, the introduction of a younger 'New Brian'".
Robin Pierson of The TV Critic was more critical about the episode, and gave it 32/100 and said: "As usual the problem with this episode is that there is no point to it. some needless jokes but others which were bearable and a logical enough story even though it addressed nothing.
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Famous quotes containing the word reception:
“I gave a speech in Omaha. After the speech I went to a reception elsewhere in town. A sweet old lady came up to me, put her gloved hand in mine, and said, “I hear you spoke here tonight.” “Oh, it was nothing,” I replied modestly. “Yes,” the little old lady nodded, “that’s what I heard.””
—Gerald R. Ford (b. 1913)
“Satire is a sort of glass, wherein beholders do generally discover everybody’s face but their own; which is the chief reason for that kind of reception it meets in the world, and that so very few are offended with it.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)
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—Walter Pater (1839–1894)