'The Defenders' is Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes

If there’s one thing you can count Marvel on doing, it’s getting the numbers. Movies will get high box office returns, shows will be widely-watched, but most importantly, the review scores are pretty darn good. Well, usually. But even with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 17% for Iron Fist, Netflix and Marvel can still have bragging rights for viewership. With just a day before release, Marvel can add The Defenders as another trophy to their case of critically acclaimed properties.

We’ve previously reported that The Defenders started off with a score of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes, but after receiving more reviews, the show has ended up with a more stable and solid 83%.

If we want to compare numbers here, this is just over season 2 of Daredevil (74%) and way over the aforementioned Iron Fist. Though lower, it compares quite well to the first seasons of of Daredevil (98%), Jessica Jones (92%), and Luke Cage (96%). But when we look at Rotten Tomatoes scores, let’s be sure to remember how to correctly interpret them.

First off, these reviews are just for the first four (out of eight episodes) of the crossover miniseries. That means that out of the critics who saw the first four episodes, 83% liked them to some degree. Look back to the high score for early Luke Cage episodes, despite the lukewarm (heh) fan reception to the back half of the season. The “average rating,” which you see in smaller font to be 6.73/10, may be more indicative of the quality. Not to mention, Rotten Tomatoes doesn’t “work” as well for television shows as it does movies, as the percentage doesn’t represent the entire show’s story. It might be more accurate to have aggregate scores for each individual episode, which is difficult to do for Netflix shows by their nature of releasing all episodes simultaneously.

Anyway, I’ll stop there – I don’t want to make it look like I’m applying the brakes to The Defenders hype train. I imagine that I’m just like many other Marvel fans who were excited merely by the announcement of such a crossover. Because I can’t control myself, I’ll probably binge the entire series in one weekend. Getting good reviews, even not as spectacular as Marvel/Netflix shows of old, is a good sign. As long as the show delivers on showing me four scrappy New York brawlers punching the hell out of nightstick-wielding henchmen and ninjas, color me happy.

Be sure to look forward to our own reviews for The Defenders soon!

Source: Rotten Tomatoes