“All’s Fair” partial poster art.
Disney
All’s Fair star Kim Kardashian and one of the series’ directors are responding to critics’ brutal reviews of the new legal drama.
All’s Fair premiered on streaming on Hulu on Nov. 4 with its first three episodes. The official synopsis for the series reads, “A team of female divorce attorneys leaves a male-dominated firm to open their own powerhouse practice. Fierce, brilliant and emotionally complicated, they navigate high-stakes breakups, scandalous secrets and shifting allegiances — both in the courtroom and within their own ranks.
“In a world where money talks and love is a battleground, these women don’t just play the game — they change it.”
Created by Ryan Murphy, Jon Robin Baitz and Joe Baken, All’s Fair was met with scathing reviews out of the gate, as critics from the aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes gave the series a 0% “rotten” score on Tuesday. By Wednesday, having earned one “fresh” review from an RT-approved critic, the score rose to 5% “rotten.”
Kardashian, who stars in the lead role in All’s Fair as Allura Grant, laughed off all of the negative reviews of the series in an Instagram post on Thursday, writing, “Have you tuned in to the most critically acclaimed show of the year!?!?!?”
In addition to Kardashian, All’s Fair also stars Naomi Watts, Niecy Nash-Betts, Sarah Paulson, Matthew Noszka, Teyana Taylor and Glenn Close.
Kim Kardashian and Naomi Watts in “All’s Fair.”
Disney/Ser Baffo
All’s Fair Director Says, ‘You’re Not Going To Please Everybody’
All’s Fair director Anthony Hemingway went much further than a social media post to address the criticism of All’s Fair in an interview Thursday with The Hollywood Reporter.
During the interview, THR’s Max Gado cited a line from USA Today’s review of All’s Fair, which deemed the series an “unmitigated disaster” (the headline of the review, which is even more damning, reads, “Kim Kardashian’s ‘All’s Fair’ is the worst TV show of the year”).
Hemingway, who previously directed episodes of Ryan Murphy’s Glee, American Horror Story and American Crime Story, seemed to take the criticism of All’s Fair in stride.
“You’re not going to please everybody. You may have certain criticisms, while there are a million others who love it,” Hemingway told THR. “I think the show holds a mirror up to each person who watches it.
“It’s just about: Can you connect to it or relate to it, and see yourself? It may be out of your league, it may not be anything you can connect to, and I think that goes for anything that gets presented on screen,” Hemingway added.
Despite the critical obliteration of the series, All’s Fair is attracting big viewer numbers. According to a report from Deadline on Friday, All’s Fair had the biggest debut for a Hulu Original series in three years after attracting 3.2 million views globally in the series’ first three days on the streaming service.
All’s Fair’s first three episodes are streaming on Hulu, with Episode 4 set to premiere on Tuesday.