Queen Cleopatra, a new Netflix series and the second installment in the African Queens franchise produced by Jada Pinkett Smith, currently has a 1% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. The first installment in the series, African Queens: Njinga, released back in February to a similarly icy reception from audiences, though it fared far better with critics than Queen Cleopatra has managed so far.

African Queens: Njinga earned an 88% critic score from review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes, significantly higher than its 22% audience score. There isn't nearly as big of a gap between with the critic score and audience score for Queen Cleopatra, which has been panned by critics and fans alike.

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At the time of this writing, Queen Cleopatra has a mere 13% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes versus a shocking 1% audience score. The extremely low audience score can be explained by an apparent review bombing effort by people who are upset about the casting of the titular Queen Cleopatra. In the Netflix series, Cleopatra is portrayed by Adele James, a black woman, which has upset people in Egypt and reignited the debate about the ethnicity of the real-world historical figure.

queen cleopatra rottentomatoes score

It's clear that the casting of Cleopatra is the primary reason why the series has been hit with so many extremely low audience scores, but setting that aside, it seems that many aren't impressed with the show in general. Looking at some of the professional reviews that have been written about the Queen Cleopatra series since the show premiered on Netflix on May 10, the series has been criticized as being "bland" with lackluster performances.

Even though Queen Cleopatra's Rotten Tomatoes score is clearly the result of a review bombing effort, it seems unlikely that it would have fared much better had there been no review bombing at all. The consensus seems to be that Queen Cleopatra is not a good show regardless of the casting controversy, and a clear step down from African Queens: Njinga. It will be interesting to see if there is a third season of the show and if so, how it fares compared to African Queens: Njinga and Queen Cleopatra.

Unfortunately, Queen Cleopatra was a swing and a miss for Netflix, but the streaming giant has plenty of other exciting new projects on the way for subscribers to check out. It's true that the ongoing writer's strike has put big Netflix projects like Stranger Things Season 5 on hold, but hopefully that conflict is resolved soon.

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Source: Rotten Tomatoes