Check out all of the viewer feedback and reviews as well as the hot take from critics on the streaming debut Netflix’s new comedy BlockbusterThe show’s cast and crew must feel bad.
The shockingly low 22% score of critics on Rotten Tomatoes. An even better 42% audience score was recorded on the review site. One after another, comments along the lines: “The acting was bad, the writing was worse, but above all it was not remotely funny.”
The response to this workplace comedy is quite funny, it’s no secret. These are the two leads Blockbuster — Randall Park and Melissa Fumero — might just be two of the most impossible to dislike humans on the face of the earth. Previous projects include gems like Brooklyn Nine-NineAnd Superstore. This one could have been a huge hit on streaming giants’ television.
BlockbusterReviews
There are at least two things going on here that I feel are worth mentioning, in order to contextualize all the negative reviews.
Number one: There’s no way to say for sure how much this might have changed things in hindsight, but I suspect that placing the whole affair inside an (air-quotes) actual Blockbuster store — rather than, say, a generic video store along the lines of the big-box retailer in something like Superstore — might have worked against the series.
I believe this was because a lot of viewers were interested in the novelty of Netflix making an original show about the once-rival that it beat into the dust of irrelevance. They were perhaps surprised — or put off, even — to see that this is not It is reallyA show about Blockbuster. It’s a sitcom that just happens to be set in one.
READ MORE: Interview with Vanessa Ramos, Blockbuster creator
There are other things to consider
Number twoI’ve seen reviews from fans and critics that mention or allude to the fact they watched only a portion of the season. Along the lines of — yuck, the first episode was awful, so I turned it off.
And that’s unfortunate, because you really can’t … do that, and honestly tell yourself you’ve gotten the full measure of something. Like, let me tell you — this new book was awful. Although I have only read the first chapter of this book, my decision is made.
A Netflix fan, I was eager to see Netflix’s offerings. #BlockbusterThis show is truly one of the least funny I have ever seen. It’s so awful (or insufferable), that I couldn’t complete the first episode. #blockbusternetflix pic.twitter.com/Z0aX3aNefR
— A Holly Jolly Justin 🎄 (@IDontBeatGames) November 3, 2022
Who BlockbusterThis is the perfect place to beHaving viewed all 10 episodes, it ticked a specific box for me. It’s very much, in my opinion, the TV equivalent of comfort food, where I can zone out and just relax. It’s all you need. It doesn’t have to aspire to Game of Thrones-level excellence.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that reviews and scores from a site like Rotten Tomatoes aren’t always a comprehensive guide to sentiment about a particular title. At best, they reflect the feelings of a subset of viewers — specifically, the most passionate viewers, the ones who watched and bothered to share some thoughts on a website.
A Rotten Tomatoes viewer wrote that they loved the show but still gave it 5 stars. Other comments made were sarcastic about comedians being too awake these days. These comments seemed less directed at me. BlockbusterThe genre is more important than the individual songs. Different strokes, I suppose.
Additional Netflix news: Netflix Top 10: The top 10 most-watched shows around the globe right now