The solid new Netflix show Forever did not manage to make it to #1 given that a new big series launched alongside it. Now, that #1 show has so far racked up a perfect 100% score on Rotten Tomatoes from critics.
It’s not a scripted series, rather it’s the documentary American Manhunt: Osama Bin Laden, chronicling the hunt and eventual killing of the terrorist leader. While Bin Laden was a known quantity before the 9/11 attacks, it took almost ten years to finally catch and kill him after that, meaning there’s a lot to cram into a three episode, three hour miniseries as this does.
The 100% score is close to on par with the other two entries in the American Manhunt subgenre Netflix has created. There was the OJ Simpson one, another 100%, and the Boston Marathon bomber one with an 89%. One common thread here is that despite being some of the most-watched series on Netflix at the time, if not the most watched, only a small handful of critics have reviewed either of them.
The show purports to have rare footage and interviews with those in the CIA, and it’s possible that many of this will be seen for the first time, despite so many other documentaries on the same subject. When a show gets the American Manhunt badge with Netflix, it’s probably going to be more watched than any other similar documentary on the topic anywhere else, just through Netflix’s reach alone.
It’s not clear where the American Manhunt series plans to go next. One thing that comes to mind is the DC Sniper, as there was a huge, huge manhunt for them as they terrorized the countryside, seemingly unable to be caught. I also am reminded of Luigi Mangione, an extremely recent story, but with his trial still active and no actual conviction, I very much doubt that would be the case.
Netflix has not said what they’re going to focus on yet, but given how well this series keeps performing, and the fact that they only need these to be three episodes or so, means they will absolutely keep pumping them out, and there are no doubt a million crimes to focus on, joining its sister series, American Murder. What can we say? People love True Crime, for better or worse.
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