Because bored basement dwellers continue to be pressed that female superheroes are finally getting their time to shine, Batwoman is reportedly getting flooded with pointless one star reviews on sites that aggregate audience scores.
RottenTomatoes currently lists an audience score of 8% (as opposed to an overall critic rating of 72%) for the new CW show while IMDb puts the show at a 3.2 rating out of 10 after Sunday’s premiere.
It’s unclear what the initial ratings given by users were for the other CW DC shows after a single episode, but the pilots for Arrow and The Flash (both revolving around heterosexual male characters) are both rated an 8.5 on IMDb, whereas the Supergirl pilot comes in at a 7.1.
CBR.com points out that “while some of [the] 2,250+ reviewers [on RottenTomatoes] have expressed constructive critiques about the writing and acting [on Batwoman], others appear less concerned with offering valid criticism and more concerned with simply seeing the series fail.”
The initial announcement of a Batwoman series revolving around out lesbian protagonist Kate Kane drew controversy from the start. Whereas LGBTQ superhero fans and people who aren’t total bigots were generally thrilled at the prospect, conservatives and straight white men who feel like having protagonists that don’t explicitly reflect their life experience is somehow an attack bristled at the news.
As noted over on The Mary Sue, despite high ratings for the pilots of both Arrow and The Flash, none of the CW DC pilots were exactly mind-blowing entrances into the worlds of their respective heroes. These aren’t two hour movies, and the strengths of all of these shows lies in their ability to create a compelling array of supporting characters with complicated relationships and moral challenges — something that snowballs after a pilot.
But if movies like Ghostbusters and Captain Marvel provide any indication, it seems more likely that most of these one-star reviews come from people who just don’t want to see a show like Batwoman have the chance to find its wings.
