‘The Bear’ Season 4 Is Its Worst-Reviewed By A Significant Margin

If fans were hoping that The Bear would be a return to form for the series after a somewhat wobbly season 3, according to critics, at least, that isn’t the case.

The Bear season 4 is its lowest-scored season at the moment, dropping far from the perfect/near-perfect scores of the first two seasons and even the lower season 3. Here’s how it breaks down on Rotten Tomatoes:

• The Bear season 1 – 100% critic score, 92% audience score
• The Bear season 2 – 99% critic score, 92% audience score
• The Bear season 3 – 89% critic score, 51% audience score
• The Bear Season 4 – 79% critic score, 84% audience score

Well, you can see the bright spot there, that at least initially, audience scores are higher. But there are only a few dozen in, and those are superfans who have somehow watched the entire season in the last 14 hours on day one, if they finished watching at all. That said, I would say it’s likely the audience score will be higher than season 3, and we will not see that level of divergence with critics this time.

But as for the show itself, you don’t really want to see perceived quality keep sliding season after season, and this lends credence to the idea that perhaps it’s going to be time to wrap it up soon, even with maybe just one more season. The Bear has not been renewed for season 5 yet, but I don’t think that’s even a question, if it wants to be. But I would be surprised if it went past that.

Even with declining scores, The Bear is still a top Emmy pick in the awards scene in the controversial comedy category, where the series overwhelmingly feels like a drama, despite some funny Fak-related moments. Audiences thought season 3 was just not nearly up to par, and that season was directly affected by the recent strikes, which resulted in a somewhat rushed production given that it still wanted to hit its yearly release mark.

Is season 4 actually worse than season 3? I haven’t seen the entire series, so I’m not posting a Rotten Tomatoes review yet (on the critic side), but I’ve enjoyed the first four episodes, and despite the chaos, I still find this to be a “comfort show” where I feel like I could watch it endlessly. I also wasn’t as down on season 3 as some people. But we’ll see how I feel by the end.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.