"Island of Dreams" received positive reviews. The A.V. Club's Kevin McFarland gave the episode a "B" grade and wrote, "I'm now willing to accept just how average Grimm can be as a positive. There are a great many television shows on the air right now that use the same kind of structure as this one. But honestly, I'd rather watch Grimm over Bones, any part of the CSI franchise, and pretty much anything other than Psych on USA. That isn't because of humor, or character chemistry, but because Grimm has to build a world, and I find the slow widening scope of Nick's forays into the Wesen world more interesting than the standard male/female cop pairing that slowly builds into romance, or the usual ripped-from-the-headlines case structure."
