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Why Don't We Care About The Rotten Tomatoes Scores Of TV Shows? (digg.com)
Why do we never utter sentences like "'Cobra Kai' has been certified 100% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes?" or "'Stranger Things'" was rated 8.9 out of 10 on IMDb"? It's not because the reviews of TV shows aren't aggregated by these websites -- they are. Contrary to what you might think of IMDb, given that its name is Internet Movie Database, TV shows also occupy an essential, if relatively smaller, place than movies there. And the same thing goes for Rotten Tomatoes. An exploration: So if the lack of availability of TV rating sites isn't the issue, why is it that we hardly use critical or audience scores as a way to measure the quality of a TV show to our peers? Here are a few of my theories:
There Are Too Many Good Shows Out There
It's an odd dilemma to have, but it's true that when it comes to TV shows, there are so many high-quality programs for us to consume. People have been talking about Peak TV for a few years now, and a quick scroll through Rotten Tomatoes' website would seem to confirm that we've been offered an embarrassment of riches. [...]
The Price Of Admission Is Higher For Movies
Another reason why viewers might care less about a TV show's critical scores than a film's might be the high price of moviegoing. Tickets in metropolitan areas in the US can be extremely expensive, costing up to $25.49 if you're going for an IMAX screening in New York City unless you're subscribed to a service like Moviepass or AMC's new subscription program.
Networks And Platforms Market Emmys More Than Critical Scores Compared to critical scores on review websites, networks and platforms seem to place more stock on the Emmys when it comes to the marketing of TV shows. Despite the fact that the Emmy, arguably the best TV award, might not offer shows as big of a ratings boost as it did decades ago, the awards still play a crucial part in helping create social buzz around television shows, especially for shows with smaller audiences.
There Are Too Many Good Shows Out There
It's an odd dilemma to have, but it's true that when it comes to TV shows, there are so many high-quality programs for us to consume. People have been talking about Peak TV for a few years now, and a quick scroll through Rotten Tomatoes' website would seem to confirm that we've been offered an embarrassment of riches. [...]
The Price Of Admission Is Higher For Movies
Another reason why viewers might care less about a TV show's critical scores than a film's might be the high price of moviegoing. Tickets in metropolitan areas in the US can be extremely expensive, costing up to $25.49 if you're going for an IMAX screening in New York City unless you're subscribed to a service like Moviepass or AMC's new subscription program.
Networks And Platforms Market Emmys More Than Critical Scores Compared to critical scores on review websites, networks and platforms seem to place more stock on the Emmys when it comes to the marketing of TV shows. Despite the fact that the Emmy, arguably the best TV award, might not offer shows as big of a ratings boost as it did decades ago, the awards still play a crucial part in helping create social buzz around television shows, especially for shows with smaller audiences.
My theory is that when a movie is bad, you still watch it until the end and feel entitled to evaluate it. For a TV show, on the other hand, if you don't like the first episode, you don't continue with the following episodes and feel then not entitled to evaluate the entire series.
This is true on Metacritic at least: check out critic reviews for any given weekly-broadcast TV show, and invariably you'll find that the review covers the first 1 or 2 episodes. In other words, they're judging the entire show based on just seeing one or two episodes. If it's a serial, that means not all of the main characters have likely been introduced, the premise hasn't even been fully revealed, and the story arc is just starting to develop and who knows where it's going or if it'll ever pay off.
Notice that the second season of a TV show will usually have a far higher critical review score than the first, simply because those reviewing the second season are actually reviewing the entirety of the first. If you want more accurate reviews of these shows (particularly the first season), wait until the season is done and then read user reviews.
The reason it is done this way is obvious: new stuff gets reader attention, since it's being currently heavily marketed; the reviewer doesn't have access to later episodes; people want to know if something is any good before they start watching it; and lack of reruns of weeks-old-episodes means you have to jump on board within a week or so of the show first airing.
Of course, with the Netflix-style releasing of a whole season at once, this upends the above, and makes critical reviews more useful.
Personally I rely on word of mouth, then research something I hear about. Read a variety of reviews -- for the worst drek imaginable, someone somewhere will say it's a masterpiece, just as surely as someone will say something is drek even if it's my favorite.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
My "price of admission" is the time I have to invest to work out something is rubbish. A movie could be as long as three or four hours, so do I really want to completely waste that time? A 20min TV show is a small (potentially wasted) investment.
A tip for others: TV shows are generally rated more generously than films. On IMDB for example, a film with a rating of 7 or higher is generally very good. For TV shows, I would say the same level of quality requires at least a rating of 8.
Listen, going to a movie is *going*.
As in, effort. Yes, money, but also time.
- You have to drive or take a train
- You have to stay out late if you're a working person
- You have to commit 1.5-2.5 hours
- You have to deal with significantly increased costs for the comforts of refreshments, even a simple drink if you get thirsty
- It's actually quite a pain in the ass
- And of course the ticket cost
With TV?
- "Can't find anything good to watch" means a waste of a few minutes at most
- There's no transit time or other significant preparation
- You can pause at any time and return; there is no set time commitment
- Food and drink = cheap
- You can multi-task with that time
- If you "abort" a show, you can immediately do something else, and you've not lost an investment of time, money, whatever
Basically, you're investing a lot (time, money, effort, lost convenience) to go see a movie. So you want to know if it's going to suck so that you're not stuck wasting all of that investment or having to sit through something you don't enjoy just so you *don't* waste all of that investment.
In combined costs if you have, say, a spouse and a kid and the kid gets thirsty or wants a snack, it's going to cost something like $50-$60 minimum, more if you have to pay to park, which is, like, half a year of Netflix.
People don't care about TV ratings but they do care about movie ratings for the same reason they don't bother to research pencils before they buy a 10-pack at the store but they do research fountain pens before they buy one. Anytime something costs an order of magnitude more, and involves significant additional investments beyond that, people are going to want value for money.
Make new releases $1.00 PPV and show them via streaming in living rooms and people will stop caring about reviews for movies, too.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Rotten Tomato Scores suck, for both TV and Movies. There have been very many movies with high RT scores that were terrible, and just as many with low RT scores that were actually fairly good. The system is crap and instead when i want to know if a movie is any good I just ask if any friends on Facebook have seen it, and I can tell by their answer and who they are (ie things they like) whether or not to trust their opinion.
My theory is that when a movie is bad, you still watch it until the end and feel entitled to evaluate it. For a TV show, on the other hand, if you don't like the first episode, you don't continue with the following episodes and feel then not entitled to evaluate the entire series.
Plus, turning on a TV show is easy. Just push a button. You didn't spend any money, or even have to leave the couch where you had already planned to spend your time. You didn't have to plan it out, at this moment you decided you have the free time to spend. You are not committed either, you can turn it on, get interrupted and pause it/end it, and resume later.
Movies are big deals, particularly if you are a grown up, even more so if you are married or in a long term relationship, even worst if you have children. You're now talking about blocking out a 2 hr+ portion of your free time, which is a huge commitment on its own, and you have to commit to that 2 hours ahead of time (in the days of recliner seating in movie theaters, often days or even weeks ahead of time). If something comes up you have to make a decision, and that decision might involve flushing the money already spent on the movie. You have to leave your house, another really big deal. You have to go out in public and be around other people, this is more of a problem for some of us than others. And then if and when the movie sucks, you realize that you are out a heap of time and money you won't ever get back.
When you look at the investment you are making just to try out a movie, particularly given that most movies out there right now are beyond awful thanks to the need to capture chinese investment capital and hit a "global market" that may require concessions to the "harmonious society", you really want to be selective.
Television has the same problems that books, movies, music, video games... Any art form or media meant for general populations consumption.
The sweet spot for the best coverage is targeting people with a slightly below average IQ (Understandable by people with an 8th grade education)
At this level it will not go over peoples head, or seem to complex or preachy, however normally smart enough to stay interesting enough for people with average and above average IQs.
Normally for the people who are nostalgic on how things were so much better, often look back to the Media available back when they are in their early teens. The stuff that came before it which your parents were nostalgic for seemed dated and didn't get with the issues of the time, the stuff after that seems just to be a rehashing of the same story only with the trends that are popular today. The shock value of the stuff when you were a teenage, showed how we started really bucking it to the man, while the stuff today is just gross or stupid stuff you just don't want to watch.
Now I am going to get a boat loads of comments on some one got really interested in some older school media, and learned to love it, and some people who may actually like the newer stuff better then the crap we had at our early teen age years. However as we age and learn to become more selective, for the stuff in the past that is so interesting, you can normally get a collection of a few decades best and brightest stuff into an easily manage collection (The top hits of the 40's, 50's and 60's) Which makes those boomers seem like they were at the golden age. while there is 30 years of crap stuff that wouldn't make it. Then people who are interested in the new stuff their time is more valuable, so if they are not interested in it they just won't watch it.
General media is not a replacement for an education system. Watching the Discovery or History channel will not get you close to getting a PHD. At best it will be a refresher of some of the stuff taught in middle school that you may have forgotten because you didn't work with it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Yeah, sadly that seems to be the norm.
Exception _might_ include:
Travelers
The Expanse
Rick and Morty
Dark Matter
Continuum
Battlestar Galactica (2004)
Though it is still small and growing I much prefer themovedb.org to imdb. IMDB has been on a downhill slide for quite a while and is now basically just a marketing tool.
Most online ratings a skewed because only people with strong reactions to products/movies will bother to go online and post.
No sig today...
Reviews in general reflect one person's highly subjective opinion and reflects their individual bias and interests. Also there is a built in bias towards negative reviews. When people are angry, agitated or just disappointed, they're much more likely to leave a review. I will say this about movie reviews: I have to go to see a movie I am interested in myself because rotten tomatoes has trashed movies I've actually liked.