The Rocky Horror Glee Show "Slant Magazine" called it a "travesty" and criticized "the arms-length treatment of the Frank N. Furter character", and Amy Reiter of the "Los Angeles Times" deemed the episode flawed through its sanitization, despite initially having found the two shows "a particularly promising match". "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" received several favorable comparisons to previous themed episodes; Erica Futterman of "Rolling Stone" deemed it the best yet. Both "Entertainment Weekly" Tim Stack and Jarett Wieselman of the "New York Post" preferred it to the Britney Spears tribute episode "Britney/Brittany"; Wieselman hailed it as a "run-away success" that would satisfy "Rocky Horror"
The Rocky Horror Glee Show criticized, with VanDerWerff deeming it a "series lowpoint", and "a muddled, terrible message, particularly in an episode that seems to have an uneasy relationship with "actual" outcasts, transsexuals." Both Reiter and Aly Semigran of MTV questioned the resolution, with Reiter stating that it was unclear what message the creators were attempting to convey, and Semigran finding it disjointed, suggesting "The Rocky Horror Glee Show" to be a "rare "Glee" misstep". Seven "Rocky Horror" songs were covered in the episode. The opening number of "Science Fiction/Double Feature", performed by Rivera and represented by a disembodied pair of red lips, mirrored the