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Liz Hersey
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Liz Hersey is an Editor for ScreenRant's Classic TV team, editing, writing, and creating content about the iconic shows you love to rewatch. She began her editing career at ScreenRant in 2019, shortly after joining the site as a Writer that same year.
With a passion for all things books, Liz frequently attends Toronto literary events and conferences, and loves interacting with her book lover community. In addition to being an avid reader of the romance and thriller genres, Liz is a writer of several short stories, and is currently at work on a young adult witch novel.
When she's not working, reading, or writing, Liz can be found seeing movies at her local cinema, attending live jazz events, or curling up on the couch to binge her favorite TV shows.
You can reach her at [email protected].
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Despite the critical panning of All's Fair, Ryan Murphy's legal drama has been a major success for Hulu, reflecting a controversial trend in the television streaming landscape. The series, which stars Kim Kardashian, Naomi Watts, and Niecy Nash-Betts as high-powered professionals running an all-female law firm, has received scathing reviews, with All's Fair debuting to a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Though the legal drama has since clawed its way up to 3% on the aggregator site, it is still by far the worst-reviewed of any Ryan Murphy show. It initially appeared that All's Fair would be another recent Murphy failure. However, the opposite turned out to be true, and All's Fair's critical flogging seems to be a major factor in its streaming success.
All's Fair Has Been Renewed For Season 2 After Becoming A "Hate-Watch" Hit
Pundits may be touting All's Fair as the worst TV drama of 2025, possibly of all time, but general audiences have connected much more with the show, giving it a much more positive 66% score on Rotten Tomatoes' Popcornmeter. All's Fair premiered to huge streaming numbers for Hulu, netting 3 million views in its first three days.
This immediately posed the buzzy question over who Hulu would side with — the critics or the viewers. The streamer has now definitively made their choice, as, just three weeks into the show's release, All's Fair has been renewed for a second season.
So, what about All's Fair is connecting with its audience? Sure, All's Fair's starry cast, glamorous fashion and sets, and campy OTT plot — all Ryan Murphy staples — likely got people to press play on the premiere, but what appears to have really kept audiences sticking with the show is how "bad" it is. In other words, for many, All's Fair is a total "hate-watch."
Hate-watching is a relatively new term in the media landscape, and it essentially means consuming a movie or TV show to either be entertained by and/or mock its negative qualities. In All's Fair's case, this is an all-you-can-eat buffet, according to critics, who have gleefully eviscerated everything from Kim Kardashian's acting to repetitive storytelling to unlikable characters.
To many All's Fair viewers, this is all part of the fun. It has certainly kept the show in the pop culture conversation, with All's Fair reportedly racking up over 10 billion social media impressions thus far (via US Weekly).
Fans have shared Kardashian impressions, reactions to particularly campy moments, and their thoughts on episode 5, "This Is Me Trying," being named after a Taylor Swift song (Swift and Kardashian have an alleged longstanding feud). All's Fair drops new episodes every Tuesday, with the season 1 finale airing on December 9, so this engagement likely won't slow down anytime soon.
All's Fair's Season 2 Renewal Proves Viewership & Engagement Are More Important To Streaming Than Prestige
Photo: Hulu via MovieStillsDB.
It wasn't long ago that prestige TV was at its peak, but the new "Golden Age of Television" bubble seems to have burst with the sheer glut of streaming shows. With so much content for consumers to sift through, many series simply fall through the cracks.
This just makes the future of a new show all the more precarious, as streaming platforms appear to be placing a premium on premiere viewership numbers. It's a death knell if a series doesn't make a splash in the first few days of its debut, which is especially detrimental to shows released on the binge model.
Indeed, Netflix is notorious for prematurely canceling shows, and they're the platform that popularized releasing entire seasons in one fell swoop.
This makes all the more sense why Hulu was so keen to renew All's Fair, as its impressive premiere numbers make it one of 2025's biggest streaming success stories. While critics may be scoffing at Kardashian's performance, casting her in the show was a stroke of marketing genius, as she currently boasts 354 million Instagram followers.
Kardashian has been heavily promoting All's Fair on social media, and she's been leaning into the show's bad press. In a viral Instagram photo carousel, Kardashian interspersed images of herself with the cast, smiling at the premiere, with scathing testimonials from critics and viewers.
So, All's Fair likely won't be winning any awards anytime soon, but it doesn't need to. As long as people keep talking about it on social media and continue to tune in every Tuesday, All's Fair will have the last laugh as it unapologetically struts into season 2.
How Bad Are These "Hate-Watch" TV Shows Really?
Though All's Fair may be the "hate-watch" show of the moment, it's hardly the only 2025 series to fall into this category. Earlier this year, Sex and the City spinoff And Just Like That released its much-watched third and final season, while Netflix's Emily in Paris is set to release season 5 in December. Both shows have also been essentially labeled as addictive trash.
But are they really that bad? The answer lies in what they're trying to accomplish, and none of these shows are aiming to be groundbreaking dramas like Succession or large-scale epics like Game of Thrones. They're the cotton candy of the streaming landscape, aiming to delight and titillate with their froth.
Despite a few tonal misfires, All's Fair doesn't nearly deserve the hate it's received from critics because it's incredibly self-aware. It certainly isn't everyone's flavor, but it doesn't need to be.
And Just Like That ended after season 3, but that was the choice of the creatives, not because HBO Max canceled it. The show likely would have gotten renewed if it wanted to, due to its high viewership numbers.
While And Just Like That isn't nearly as pioneering as Sex and the City, it had its share of excellent scenes, from Carrie's breakup with Aidan to her defiant, society-defining conclusion, and it's not given nearly enough credit for these moments.
Emily in Paris has continuously touted itself as glamorous, escapist fun, and it's continued to entertain audiences season after season, enough that it's one of Netflix's only long-running shows. It's a romantic romp with some of the best visuals of any streaming show. These are all good things!
It's a bit unsettling that most of these "hate-watch"-worthy shows are female-driven shows and largely aimed at women. Even calling them a guilty pleasure is frustrating because that would imply a need to feel guilty for merely finding pleasure in a TV show. These series are meant to be enjoyed, so there's nothing wrong with doing just that.
Ultimately, those who think All's Fair is unwatchable simply... need not watch it. But for the million people tuning in week after week, the Ryan Murphy hit is a deliciously fun treat, and that is anything but "bad."
3.3/10
All's Fair
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