According to the
Nielsen Media Research, "Argus" was watched by 5.439 million households in its original American broadcast. It earned a 2.7 rating/8 share in the 18–49 demographic, meaning that it was seen by 2.7 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds, and 8 percent of all 18- to 49-year-olds watching television at the time of the broadcast. This was an increase from the previous episode, "
Khonani", which was watched by 5.182 million American viewers. "Argus" won its timeslot in the 18–34 male demographic winning with a 3.2 rating beating the competition by a 1.3 rating.
The A.V. Club's Nathan Rabin enjoyed "Argus", noting that it was "entertaining, funny and had some killer one-liners" and that it featured "all kinds of silly but in a very winning way." Rabin enjoyed all the plots featured here, and praised Will Forte's role as Jenna's boyfriend and impersonator. Emily Exton from
Entertainment Weekly wrote that the peacock storyline "felt too silly", and that Forte "was too underused as Paul", nonetheless said that despite not being the greatest
30 Rock episode of all time "there were still some hilarious lines."
IGN contributor Robert Canning liked Grizz's dilemma plot, commenting that Grizz not trying to hurt Tracy's feelings while Tracy tried to keep Dot Com away from Grizz's bride-to-be "offered up some inspired lunacy." His only complaint about "Argus" was Jack's plot as he deemed it disappointing. A review in
TV Guide by Adam Mersel said "...Fey and the gang live up to the challenge, and produce ['Argus'] a hilarious, quite snotty episode that holds up to any comedy around." Meredith Blake, writing for the
Los Angeles Times, was positive towards the episode, reasoning that the writing "is just so deliciously absurd that I can't help but giggle the whole way through", and that the plots featured here were "sublimely inconsequential. Not a whole lot happened, but it was all very funny." Nick Catucci from
New York magazine, who did not enjoy the two other stories, appreciated Jenna's, explaining that by having the character date one of her own impersonator was "outrageous and funny without relying on any cheap insults to trannies." Sean Gandert from
Paste magazine reported that "Argus" was an episode that "[took] us back to the show's roots", explaining that recapturing the "old tone" also worked to "recapture the old joke-writing expertise. It wasn't 100% consistent, but there were so many good one-liners to counterbalance the misfires that it didn't even matter. This is
30 Rock the way it should be." The
Houston Press' Daniel Carlson wrote that Grizz's wedding story was "pure filler, but everything on the show's kind of filler for the wackiness, so it mostly worked." Carlson wrote that the best part from "Argus" came with Forte's Paul as Jenna's boyfriend and impersonator.
Bob Sassone of
AOL's
TV Squad did not respond well to the episode, observing that "Argus" would go down
30 Rock history as "one of the worst episodes of the series." One of the problems he had was that the Jack character bonded with the peacock for the entire episode. "As I've said before, I hate the episodes where Jack is out of control or acting goofy or involved in some lame pursuit, and this one of the more lame pursuits." ==References==