New Netflix Series Earns Rare 0% Rating on Rotten Tomatoes

Around this time most weeks you might find an article here about a new series or movie with a perfect Rotten Tomatoes score, not this week and not with Netflix’s Hard Cell. It doesn’t happen very often but when it does a 100% rating happens it tends to signal the arrival of something special, if a slew of critics can all agree that something is good that’s probably worth a look, right? What about the opposite? The even more rare, 0% “Rotten” rating on the website? That’s perhaps even more rare and perhaps even more interesting to see. Well the latest TV series from Netflix has no approval from critics as of  this writing and seems doomed to bomb on the service. 

In Hard Cell, a mockumentary series set in a British prison, Catherine Tate serves as not only the creator and star but also appears as multiple characters in each episode. This specific part of the series is one of the main sticking points behind many of the negative reviews for the show. Though only 8 negative reviews exist for the series right now on Rotten Tomatoes, they’re not kind. Decider warned viewers to “skip” the series and called it “Awkward and unfunny” and adding, “the sideshow of all the roles Tate plays distracts from what could have been a pretty funny story.” The London Evening Standard said the series has “bones of a good show” but says they’ve “just been locked away behind several sets of bars”

Tate’s comedy career has been ongoing for a few decades now and she’s previously found herself the recipient of critical acclaim, particularly for her sketch-comedy series The Catherine Tate Show which earned her four BAFTA nominees. This decline makes the 0% rating for Hard Cell even more surprising.

Netflix’s full description for the series reads as follows: “Hard Cell is a documentary style comedy set in the fictional female prison, HMP Woldsley. Writer and creator Catherine Tate plays multiple characters from Laura Willis, the Governor who believes creativity leads to rehabilitation, to Big Viv, the psychopath lifer. Set over a 6 week period during which the inmates rehearse a musical directed by ex-Eastender’s star Cheryl Fergison. Rehearsals draw together an oddball collection of women as they find their voices, grow in confidence and strengthen their friendships. Funny yet surprisingly moving, Hard Cell leans into the comical truth of prison life.”