Do you want to watch a streaming series focused on America’s opioid crisis? No — we have Dopesick at home (on Hulu). We’re talking about Netflix’s Painkiller, starring Matthew Broderick, Clark Gregg, Taylor Kitsch, and Uzo Aduba.
It’s a stacked cast, and the series tackles the opioid crisis in an even more all-encompassing format than Dopesick. However, critics and audiences seem to enjoy it significantly less than its Hulu competitor. Its critical score on Rotten Tomatoes sits at 42 percent, and its audience score isn’t much better at 59 percent. This is compared with 89 and 93 percent, respectively, for Dopesick.
It’s also worth noting that Dopesick has earned 14 Primetime Emmy nominations and three Golden Globe nods, though Painkiller would likely not be in contention for awards until roughly a year from now. But the word on the street is that this isn’t really an “awards show.”
Critics have complained that Painkiller‘s attempts at satire and black comedy create a wildly uneven tone, while others protest that the series is flat-out overkill.
But Painkiller has one thing that no viewer or critic can take away from it: It’s new, which means a lot of people are streaming it regardless of its quality.
Sure enough, Painkillers is at the top of Netflix’s Global Top 10 for the most-watched TV shows on the platform. Over the week of Aug. 7 through Aug. 13, the series drew 7.2 million views across the world, amounting to 35.9 million hours viewed. That’s a heck of a lot of people watching star West Duchovny belly-flop into a pool while on Oxycontin.
We’ll see if Painkillers has the same staying power as Dopesick — or if the Netflix series proves to be anything but addictive.