Netflix’s new sitcom Blockbuster has been criticised by viewers online for its “sick” irony. The ten-episode series starring Randall Park and Melissa Fumero as Blockbuster Video store employees only dropped yesterday (November 3), but that hasn’t stopped audiences from sharing their opinions on the streaming service’s latest offering.
Blockbuster stores closed their doors in 2010 and are now remembered fondly as a nostalgic pastime. Yet it is strange that Netflix – one of the primary streaming services that drove the DVD rental shop out of business – has developed a comedy about the last remaining Blockbuster shop.
Reviews of the show from critics and the general public have not been promising. One Twitter user declared, “the first episode is quite possibly the very worst non-laugh track sitcom episode I’ve ever seen.”
Many users were also quick to point out the irony of Netflix making a show about Blockbuster. One Twitter user said, “I’m screaming at how Netflix really created a show around the demise of Blockbuster when Netflix are the exact cause of it.”
Another wrote, “The fact that Netflix made a comedy series about working at the last Blockbuster feels like p***ing-on-the-corpse-of-those-you-vanquished territory.”
Someone else joked, “Wait… Netflix… NETFLIX, is making a Blockbuster TV show? That feels like the murderer returning to the scene of the crime to dance on the grave doesn’t it?”
“Netflix is sick for that Blockbuster series. It feels like Leatherface wearing the face of his victims,” wrote another user.
Another shared, “Netflix making a show about Blockbuster is the absolute height of irony.”
Watch the trailer below:
