The much-anticipated return of Hazbin Hotel has been knocked down from #1 on Amazon’s top 10 list, mostly because it is airing week to week, and those episodes are short. But taking its place now is Lazarus, yet another Harlan Coben adaptation, where those are generally pretty good. Lazarus? Not so much.
Despite high viewership, the critical and audience consensus so far is that no, the show isn’t worth watching. Lazarus currently has a 48% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, a still-rotten 57% from audiences, and a not-great 6.2/10 on IMDB. Here’s the synopsis:
“Forensic psychiatrist Dr. Joel ‘Laz’ Lazarus is forced to confront long-buried demons after his father Dr. L dies in suspicious circumstances. At first assured his dad’s death is a suicide, Laz is soon sucked into a world of murderous conspiracy, and a race to find the killer, by strange visions of people he knows to be dead.”
It is a binge drop, where all six episodes are available now. At around 50 minutes a piece, it’s a less than six-hour commitment, but you still may not want to bother.
These scores are on the low side for what are generally well-liked adaptations. Here’s a list of the top-rated ones, and where Lazarus falls there:
- The Innocent – 100% score
- Just One Look – 100%
- Stay Close – 92%
- The Woods – 89%
- Shelter – 88%
- The Stranger – 87%
- Safe – 71%
- Fool Me Once – 72%
- Missing You – 48%
- Lazarus – 48%
Those are most of them, and a few are not well-watched enough to have scores. But many of his higher-profile series have done very well and Fool Me Once is actually one of Netflix’s most-watched shows ever. So, it’s possible that Lazarus does well enough, viewership-wise, but this is a pretty big miss for the “series” of Coben stories, when most of them are much better than this. Here’s what a few critics think:
- New Statesman – “Utterly implausible, absurdly pacy, with more twists and turns than Thorpe Park, and just as likely to make you feel a bit queasy.
- Paste Magazine – “Harlan Coben’s Lazarus is guilty of the cardinal sin of Brit mysteries; it ends on a terrible cliffhanger instead of wrapping up a story that has no reason to linger beyond limited series status.”
That second one? That is the worst. I am not the biggest fan of cliffhangers in general, as if a show is good, I will return to watch regardless, but having a cliffhanger on what is a limited series that is never coming back? Why? Why do that? I’m skipping it for that reason alone, to be honest. You probably should too.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
