Amazon's new fantasy TV series 'Carnival Row' is hated by critics but a hit with audiences
- Amazon Prime Video's new fantasy TV series, "Carnival Row," has a 53% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, but an 88% audience score.
- The New York Times said the show "reanimates bits and pieces from different branches of the fantasy genre into a glum and lumbering beast."
- But the show was the top series on TV Time's latest list of "Shows on the Rise," based on data from the app's million of global users.
- Amazon has been beefing up its genre television recently with "Carnival Row," "The Boys," "The Expanse," and the upcoming "Lord of the Rings" series.
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Critics don't care for Amazon Prime Video's new fantasy TV series, "Carnival Row," but it's faring much better with viewers.
The show, which stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne, has a 53% critic score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 55 reviews. But it has a much more positive 88% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes, based on over 400 user ratings, as well as a 8.1 rating on Imdb, based on nearly 7,000 ratings.
Amazon describes the series like this:
"With a serial killer loose on Carnival Row, and a government that turns a blind eye to the deaths of its lower class citizens, Rycroft Philostrate, a war-hardened investigator, is the only person willing to stop the murders and maintain the fragile peace. But when Vignette Stonemoss, a faerie refugee, turns up in the Burgue, she forces Philo to reckon with a past he's tried to forget."
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The New York Times said the show "reanimates bits and pieces from different branches of the fantasy genre into a glum and lumbering beast that only occasionally sparks into life."
"It's a show with certainly admirable ambitions, but through nearly every aspect of its swirling narrative, 'Carnival Row' is less than the sum of its otherworldly parts," Indiewire said.
"World building is hard enough, but as circus acts go, Carnival Row is like a juggler on a unicycle," CNN wrote. "It's kind of interesting to watch, but nobody really needs it."
But it's a hit with audiences. Aside from its Rotten Tomatoes audience score and Imdb rating, the series is also the past week's top show on TV Time's "Shows on the Rise" list, based on data from the television-tracking app's millions of global users.
Amazon has been beefing up its genre television, including "Carnival Row." Its new superhero series, "The Boys," is one of Prime Video's most-watched original shows, and season two is already in the works. It has a 82% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a 94% audience score.
Amazon revived the sci-fi series, "The Expanse," last year after Syfy canceled it, and the fourth season debuts on Prime Video in December. And Amazon is developing a "Lord of the Rings" TV series after buying the rights for $250 million, according to Deadline.