The first three episodes of Ironheart, the newest addition to theMCU, are now streaming on Disney Plus. They’ve only been available for a few hours, dropping late on Tuesday night. However, the show somehow managed to rack up a pretty dire score on Rotten Tomatoes before the first three episodes were even available.
With Ironheart about to debut on Disney Plus,the show’s Rotten Tomatoes pagewent live before anyone had seen the show. Clocking it, several people, presumably with nothing better to do, left reviews for a show that hadn’t even started streaming yet. As highlighted byPhase Hero, that brought Ironheart’s Popcornmeter score down to a lowly 32 percent before anyone had even had the chance to watch it.
At Least Watch It First
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened.Star Wars show The Acolyte was treated the same way, likely for the same reasons. Rotten Tomatoes quickly stepped in to fix the problem so the negative reviews have been removed. However, similar to The Acolyte, one of the likely reasons why people felt compelled to step in and leave a bad review for a show they haven’t even watched yet is because there’s a female person of color in the lead role. In Ironheart, that actor is the fantastic Dominique Thorne in the role of Riri Williams.
While people leaving bad reviews fueled by that outlook weren’t the sole reason for The Acolyte getting canceled after one season, it certainly wouldn’t have helped.
Rotten Tomatoes removed the ability to leave reviews for Ironheart prior to its release, but now that the first three episodes are available, you can leave a score for the show. Thankfully, it seems as if the bulk of Ironheart’s fan reviews have been left by legitimate fans who stayed up late to watch its debut as soon as possible.
Most of them appear to like what they see with Ironheart’s fan and official review scores both currently sitting at a 71 percent, which, while not perfect, is pretty good and probably where I expected the show to land. There have been worries fromMarvelfans, myself included, due it being pushed back and then barely advertised that Marvel might not be entirely happy with Ironheart, but since it’s ready and revolves around a character who will hopefully have a bigger role to play in the wider MCU, it needed to be released.
Hopefully, the review bombing Ironheart suffered will be a blip that we can quickly move past, but I have a horrible feeling we haven’t heard the last from those who formed their opinion of the show before they had even watched it. Let’s be honest, most of them still won’t watch the show but will likely go ahead and re-post their reviews anyway.
Ironheart
Cast
Set after Dominique Thorne’s MCU debut in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever, Marvel Studios' Ironheart series follows Riri Williams as she follows in Iron Man’s steps as a high-tech superhero and crosses paths with Anthony Ramos' Parker Robbins a.k.a. The Hood, a magic user with ties to the dark arts. The six-episode Disney+ series is part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s Phase 5.
