Netflix’s ‘Blockbuster’ Is The Worst Reviewed Show On TV Right Now

Netflix, yet again, seems to have made a significant misstep with content greenlighting, this time with Blockbuster, a new comedy meant to capture the nostalgia of millennials.

Yes, we are talking about Blockbuster Video, the famous US chain of video rentals that was dismantled top to bottom when Netflix arrived on the scene, first with its mail-order DVDs, then with its streaming service that instantly made in-person movie rentals all but irrelevant, outside of the rare Redbox kiosk.

The comedy’s mere existence has been thought to be in bad taste, like Netflix dancing on the grave of a rival, and that’s certainly how the idea comes off. But it also doesn’t help that Blockbuster is a deeply terrible show and an unfunny comedy.

Currently, both critics and audiences agree that Blockbuster is pretty awful, which is something you are not likely to see all that often in this day and age. Audience scores are a dismal 44% on Rotten Tomatoes, low, but still double critic scores, which are at 22%.

On Rotten Tomatoes, TV scores generally skew higher than movies, so a 22% is exceptionally low. Looking through all the current “most popular” shows on the site right now, I cannot find anything lower than Blockbuster’s 22%. The Watcher is at 55% (Netflix), Shantaram is at 56% (Apple), Gypsy is at 40% (Netflix), The Terminal List is at 39% (Amazon). But yes, I am looking at a list of the 100 most popular shows across every streaming service right now, and I cannot find anything even close to these low scores for Blockbuster. I finally found one series, Hard Cell, from much earlier this year, that has a 20% score. Surprise, it’s on Netflix.

What exactly is the problem with Blockbuster? A few critics explain:

The San Francisco Chronicle:

“Blockbuster,” while far too ordinary to be actively offensive, is nonetheless made somehow more disappointing by its singular lack of ambition, content instead to be a clone of other, superior shows.

Slant:

“If you fed the jokes from early-2000s sitcoms into an AI generator, it would probably spit out <em>Blockbuster</em>.”

Vanity Fair:

“Given what they’re up against in Blockbuster, it’s no surprise that very talented actors who have been so magnetic in their other projects here seem like they’re operating at half speed.”

That last comment seems especially relevant, given that if anything was going to make me give this series a shot, it would be Randall Park of Fresh off the Boat and WandaVision, or Melissa Fumero of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But the cast is wasted, it seems.

Blockbuster is currently at #7 on Netflix charts after this debut. With these scores and without better viewership, it seems like an obvious and immediate casualty.

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