This article was published on 5/18 and republished on 5/20.
As the extremely underwhelming recording of the Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano fight quickly slides down the Netflix top 10 list, a new series has been rising, surpassing some former hits. And its Rotten Tomatoes score suggests it’s worth a watch.
The series is Nemesis, a “dark thriller” with eight hour-long episodes, now streaming on Netflix after its debut on May 14. As it stands, the show has racked up a 90% Rotten Tomatoes score from critics, with the caveat that there are not loads of reviews in yet. Still, a very solid start.
Audience scores for Nemesis are worse, but there are very, very few user reviews in so far, and we’ll have to see how it progresses. But there may be a sharp critic/viewer divide in the end. Here’s the synopsis of the show:
“The LA crime drama pits master thief Coltrane Wilder against detective Isaiah Stiles, challenging heist genre norms while examining what drives, sustains, and destroys people.”
Nemesis was created by Courtney A. Kemp and Tani Marole. Kemp was the showrunner for the long-running series Power from 2014 to 2020, and was heavily involved in that show’s various additions and spinoffs.
The series stars Matthew Law, who had a stint on Abbott Elementary. This is certainly a very different role for Law. He also starred in more than 100 episodes of The Oval, which is about to end.
Opposite Law is Y’lan Noel, who was in the Natalie Portman miniseries, Lady in the Lake, and Cleopatra Coleman, recently in Netflix’s Black Rabbit and both Rebel Moon movies. We won’t hold that against her. I enjoyed Coleman in the 2023 horror film Infinity Pool with Mia Goth. Also, don’t miss her in Dopesick, the truly excellent 2021 miniseries.
The action series may be the right follow-up to Man on Fire, which has proven to be another hit on Netflix, though it hasn’t been renewed for another season yet — at least a little surprising. The former longtime No. 1, the True Crime miniseries Worst Ex Ever has now slid to No. 4. Last week’s The Roast of Kevin Hart remains at No. 2 as clips of the jokes keep going viral on social media.
We will see how long Nemesis lasts on top, and if fans come around the way critics have. Or you can just make up your own mind and check it out for yourself.
Update: Checking back in on how Nemesis is doing, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is that the critic score has gone up to a 92%, cementing it as one of the top rated new series on Netflix right now. But viewers remain unconvinced, at least in terms of scores. The audience score is a poor 51% although there are still not many reviews in, despite this being Netflix’s #1 show, which is a bit odd. But on IMDB, with many more reviews in, the show is at a 5.6/10, quite poor using those metrics.
But these poor ratings have not coincided with poor viewership. Besides being briefly unseated by WWE RAW, which happens to the #1 show practically every week, Nemesis is back on top again. Granted, competition is not exactly fierce right now, as further down the list are a few comedy specials, a few documentaries and a reality show. The first scripted show you even hit on the list is Man on Fire, which has remained in the top 10 for a while now after a stint at #1. But there is still no word about a season 2 of that series, which is starting to get a bit odd. We’ll see how long Nemesis is able to remain on top.
Follow me on Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram.
Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
