Netflix is constantly trying new things with original shows and movies. The streaming platform has a wide variety of content, including blockbusters like "Stranger Things" and "Squid Game," anime like "Castlevania," and movies like "The Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery."
Of course, not everything Netflix releases is a winner: one of Netflix's biggest hits, "Obliterated," a new action-comedy series from the creators of "Cobra Kai," now appears to be just that.
The first season, consisting of just eight episodes, was released on November 30 and fared poorly on Rotten Tomatoes with a sample size of 17 reviewers at 47%. Viewer ratings are quite favorable, at 83% out of 100, but it does not appear to have won the hearts and minds of critics.
Given that, is Obliterated worth picking up and watching or not? Critics are divided. Here's what you need to know before investing your time in this seemingly half-baked new Netflix show.
"Obliterated" is from the trio of John Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg, and Josh Heald, who also created "Cobra Kai." It is an action series interspersed with bits of drama and comedy. The film follows the exploits of an elite squad as they try to stop a nuclear weapons deal that would destroy all of Las Vegas.
The team, led by talented CIA agent Eva (Shelley Hennig), includes the formidable but less than brilliant Navy SEAL Chad McKnight (Nick Zano), hacker Maya (Kimi Rutledge), sniper Angela (Paola Lazaro), pilot Paul (Eugene Kim), soldier Trunk (Terrence Terrell), and bomb squad member Haggerty (C. Thomas Howell).
After capturing a Russian arms dealer (Costa Ronin), this ragtag group must put aside their differences, traumas, and worries and band together to make things right. And they do it. However, the bomb they recovered is a fake; the real one is still somewhere in Las Vegas, ready to destroy Sin City.
After a big celebration of drugs, sex, and drunkenness, the team gets together again, still hungover and tripping, to take care of the real bomb before it is too late. To take care of the real bomb before it's too late. Unfortunately, there is only so much they can do. Is Las Vegas doomed? It might be.
Critics from Variety, IGN, The Hollywood Reporter, Collider, The Daily Telegraph, and others weighed in on Obliterated. Reviewers are divided on whether it is a good addition to the Netflix catalog or a complete outlier.
Variety's Alamide Tinubu described the film as "a baffling, almost unwatchable mishmash of penis- and explosive-laden nonsense." Dan Feinberg of The Hollywood Reporter, on the other hand, noted that the show's incessant "digression" points were "easy to excuse."
The Daily Telegraph's Anita Singh scathingly commented, "It's impossible to cross The Hangover with a Steven Seagal co-production." CNN's Brian Lowry, on the other hand, praised the series as "proud and lewd."
IGN described it as a poor serial action film version of "The Hangover" by critic Kenneth Seward Jr.
Season 1 of "Obliterated" has just been released on Netflix, and there is no news on whether it has been renewed. However, given that the show was first developed for cable's TBS and then involved Netflix and the creators of "Cobra Kai," it is not out of the realm of possibility; there was enough interest to bring it back from TBS, so it is likely that viewers will expect a second season if the numbers ...and if the numbers are good enough to warrant a second season, then a second season is likely. [There is no news to report yet, however, as Netflix has remained silent on the situation. It is also important to remember that poor or middling critical reviews do not necessarily mean that a show will not continue. Given the most favorable audience reception, at least on Rotten Tomatoes, there is a good chance that the show will continue--as long as it makes sense to do so story-wise.
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