Lanterns
Photograph by John Johnson/HBO Max
It’s been a few days now, and fans have been able to watch and digest Lanterns, with many watching on Sunday night itself. Reception of the show, both among critics and fans, has been extremely positive, but now exact numbers are coming in on places like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes.
Lanterns has a 94% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes right now, which, with a 1% drop, just fallen under The Penguin’s 95%. Audience review scores are coalescing, which has produced an 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, lower, but still high. We can compare that to the audience scores of the rest of the DCU:
- Superman – 90% audience score
- Lanterns – 86% audience score
- Peacemaker – 83% audience score
- Creature Commandos – 79% audience score
- Supergirl – 73% audience score
And if we’ve mentioned The Penguin, Lanterns is actually 1% above that at an 85%. The high score is well above David Lindelof’s other DC production, Watchmen, at a 57% (though with a 96% critic score), though below all-time classic The Leftovers (91%/90%).
Some complaints about Lanterns stem from the plot turn that (spoilers) Hal Jordan is seemingly killed at the end of the premiere, with many saying that “disrespects” the character. However, this seems like rather short-sighted analysis, as it’s clear Kyle Chandler’s Hal will appear in the rest of the show in different time periods, plus there are established comic book ways where either A) that’s not really Hal or B) Hal can come back to life.
This score can certainly go up or down as more reviews come in. Unlike the critic score, all of this is based only on audiences who have viewed episode 1, so the series could get better or worse from here. Critics say better.
Before we go, I thought it would be interesting to shift over to IMDb, where there are many more scores in, to see the DCU comparison there.
- Lanterns – 8.4/10
- Peacemaker – 8.2/10
- Creature Commandos – 7.8/10
- Superman – 7/10
- Supergirl – 5.9/10
Really interesting to see a pretty dramatic split between sites for Superman, and I’m not quite sure what accounts for it. Maybe way more people are seeing it on streaming and rating there instead of RT? And having a lower opinion?
The point being, Lanterns is a much-needed hit after the giant Supergirl miss. Next up will be Clayface, which will air just after Lanterns ends its finale in October. It will be a total departure from the rest of these, fully diving into horror after colorful action films and now a dusty murder mystery. We will see how that stacks up in the list soon.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.