Well, let’s take a
slightly harder look at "how numbers work," yourself.
For example, here's a simple breakdown of the "Rated Fresh" approval score for a recent Trek series at RT:
View attachment 27416
You notice anything? An
82% approval rating of "Fresh" based on an average critics's rating of little better than 70/100.
If they'd graded that way when I was in High School (Barney Rubble was our Valedictorian), I wouldn't have needed such good SAT scores to make up for my
"Did we have a good time last night, I was so stoned I don't remember" grades to get me into a state college.
Here's the thing: the 80+ percent doesn't indicate how
much a critic liked a show. And there are no real standard criteria at RT for how to sort a given review into the Liked/Hated bins.
Go ahead, actually
read the reviews referenced at RT for any movie or TV show that you like or hate. It won't take you long, if you pay attention, to find yourself saying
"Why did RT say this guy hated the show? Most of what he says about it is good," or - alternatively -
"I can't believe they think this reviewer liked that! Did they read the whole review?"
So, two takeaways:
- The RT system is of Fresh/Rotten is, obviously, a binary choice and nothing more; and
- Irritatingly enough, the method of sorting into two baskets is entirely subjective.
Look, any critical opinion is clearly subjective - we probably all know that, right? One quibbles about whether a given reviewer's subjective opinion is informed or uniformed, what their biases are (not "are they biased?"
Everybody is biased about everything, one way or another).
But RT is making bank by collating subjectivity
using subjective and arbitrary criteria and then "disguising" that as somewhat objectively measured or at least balanced by presenting it as a couple of numbers that are not so much mathematically derived as they are produced using fourth grade arithmetic (again, me, academically challenged. Remedial long division is calling my name).
As to the example above? With an average of 7(point oh-five) out of 10 rating, it's fairer to say that "the critics" gave that season a bare "C" for effort, not that they lauded it as remarkably good.