Saw a post about a show with 97% on Rotten Tomatoes that nobody watched

I was scrolling a movie forum and someone mentioned a series called 'Patriot' on Prime that has a 97% critics score but almost no one has seen it. I binged the first season in two days and the whole thing has this weird dry humor that hooked me. Anyone else stumble onto a show that's critically adored but completely under the radar like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

jessica1304h ago

Wait, are we sure the critics are actually rating the same show the rest of us are watching? I feel like sometimes these high scores come from a small batch of reviewers who really dig a specific niche vibe, while the general audience just misses it entirely. Like with Patriot, the tone is so weird and specific that it either clicks or it doesn't, and the people who love it really love it, so the reviews get inflated. But then the streaming algorithm buries it because it doesn't have the massive viewership numbers to push it to the front page. It's almost like the show is too weird to fail with critics but too weird to succeed with normal people.

stellaperry1h ago

ok wait hold on, "too weird to fail with critics but too weird to succeed with normal people" i almost choked on my drink when i read that lmao. that is literally the most accurate description of so many streaming shows i've watched and then never heard anyone talk about again. like i remember watching this one show that had a 90 something percent on rotten tomatoes and i was so excited and then i told my coworker about it and she was like "whats that?" and i realized i was the only person on earth who had even heard of it. its wild how critics can build up this whole hype bubble around a show but then the streaming platform just lets it die in the algorithm graveyard because nobody outside of a tiny group is actually watching it. and you're totally right about patriot too, that show is the perfect example because it hits so hard for a specific type of person but everyone else just stares at the screen confused.

bennett.evan3h ago

That line about the show being "too weird to fail with critics but too weird to succeed with normal people" hits the nail on the head. It's like there's this whole ecosystem of niche streaming shows that get rave reviews but have zero cultural footprint outside of tiny online fanbases. The algorithm basically punishes anything that doesn't have mass appeal right out of the gate, so those shows just get buried and forgotten.