New Netflix True Crime Series Debuts With 100% Rotten Tomatoes Rating

This week Netflix debuted two all-new TV shows and miraculously both of them have arrived with perfect scores on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes. Titled Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives., the series hails from Chris Smith, executive producer of Tiger King and director of Fyre: The Greatest Party that Never Happened, and tells the story of a “celebrity restaurateur” that “becomes a fugitive.” How and why does that happen? We won’t spoil it but it’s safe to say that critics who have seen it, love it. As of this writing there are only thirteen reviews for the series on Rotten Tomatoes but they all have that shiny red fruit and the show officially has a 100% perfect score.

TV Guide awarded the show an 8 out of 10, writing: “While most true-crime documentaries rely on the heinous, grisly, and gruesome for kicks, Bad Vegan captures a substantive story with a lesson we can all chew on,” while TIME Magazine called the series “A wild true-crime tale for an era of misinformation.” An excerpt from The Indian Express might have the most interesting tease, writing: “Netflix’s new true crime documentary has it all–vague connections to the CIA, a glimpse inside the New York haute cuisine scene, and a grifter who claims to hold the key to immortality.” It’s worth noting however that the critical consensus at 100% stands in stark contrast to the User Rating, which sits at a terrible 35%.

For those unaware of the content of the series, Netflix described it as exploring “how Sarma Melngailis, the celebrity restaurateur behind the glittering New York hotspot Pure Food and Wine, went from being the queen of vegan cuisine to being known as the ‘Vegan Fugitive.’ Shortly after meeting a man named Shane Fox on Twitter in 2011, Melngailis begins draining her restaurant’s funds and funneling the money to Fox after he cons her into believing he could make her dreams – from expanding her food empire to making her beloved pitbull immortal – a reality…but only if she continues to obey his every request without question. A few years later the couple, now married and on the lam after stealing nearly $2 million from the restaurant and its staff, are found holed up in a Tennessee motel by law enforcement. Their undoing? A charge made under Fox’s real name, Anthony Strangis, for a Domino’s pizza.”

The four episode series is now streaming on Netflix. As of this writing the series is the #1 TV show on Netflix in the United States and the #2 piece of content on the entire streaming service (sitting behind Ryan Reynolds’ ). Are you planning on checking out the series because of its Rotten Tomatoes score or has the audience rating scared you off?