‘Resident Evil’ Has Some Of The Worst Audience Scores In Netflix History

If you’re going to do a video game adaptation of a beloved franchise, you better make sure you do it right. Critics have not been the most kind to Netflix’s Resident Evil series, as it currently sits at a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes. But just in case you thought this was going to be one of those situations where critics hate something but the “true fan” audiences love it, the opposite is true.

Audience scores are horrific for Resident Evil. Some of the lowest I have ever seen for a major show on the service. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is a 22%, and it has a 3.4 on IMDB, both deeply terribly on a level rarely seen.

To compare this to other poorly received Netflix shows, famed superhero disaster Jupiter’s Legacy has a 41% critic score and a 73% audience score. Space Force, the controversial comedy has a 64% critic score and a 77% audience score. Hates Back Off, which frequently appears on “worst Netflix shows ever” lists, has a 50% critic score and a 76% audience score. One comparable show is the CG Resident Evil series on Netflix, Infinite Darkness, but even that scored higher, 50% with critics and 39% with audiences. I’m telling you, I have not seen another major series on Netflix come close to these scores.

So, what’s going on?

I will say up front that we cannot rule out some level of racist review bombing here. The show’s four leads are actors and actresses of color, given that the decision was made to cast the normally white Albert Wesker as Lance Reddick (who incidentally is the best part of the show). There was a lot of fuss made about that beforehand, so I cannot dismiss it as at least being a possible contributing factor here.

But the show is just…not good. Huge fans of Resident Evil are going to probably be disappointed that this is a wholly original story that only pays cursory attention to the games, and it’s not even a “stupid but fun” blockbuster like the Milla Jovovich movies (which do well at the box office, though audience scores are still middling). Many fans don’t love the idea of Resident Evil trying to “reinvent itself for a younger audience” which is what the teen-focused main plotline seems to be trying to do.

If you’re not a huge Resident Evil fan like me? It’s still not very good. Again, I appreciated a few performances like Reddick’s and main villain played by Paola Núñez, but trying to watch this as just a sci-fi/zombie show without any major connection to the source material does not make it any better. There are far, far better zombie series out there, even on Netflix itself (everyone go watch Black Summer and Kingdom). I also take offense to the fact that Resident Evil season 1 ends on about five different cliffhangers without resolving anything, supremely confident that it will get renewed for a second season, which does not seem like a sure thing with these scores and Netflix in a cost-cutting mood.

This is a miss, top to bottom. And Resident Evil fans are the most unforgiving of all. We’ll see what the fate of the show is after this, and how long it can hang around in the top 10.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.