Kim Kardashian and Ryan Murphy’s legal drama “All’s Fair” opened to sour reviews from critics. The reality star’s first leading role served up several zero-star reviews, calling her performance unsurprisingly dull and the show itself a “unmitigated disaster.”
TheWrap’s Kayleigh Donaldson called it Murphy’s worst show yet. “One wonders if Murphy is engaged in some sort of social experiment to see if he can get away with making the most transparently terrible show on Disney’s dime. Maybe it’s self-sabotage,” she wrote. “The end product is a glossy but shockingly slapdash production where some of the most charismatic actresses of our generation are left braying into the wind for a trite #girlboss fantasy that’s a decade too late.”
“I did not know it was still possible to make television this bad,” Lucy Mangan wrote in her zero-star review of the series for The Guardian. “It’s so awful, it feels almost contemptuous … Fascinatingly, incomprehensibly, existentially terrible.”
The Hulu series stars Kardashian as a divorce attorney, representing all-female clients. Critics did not buy the guise of female-empowerment at the law firm with several calling the series unbearable for its cheesy dialogue. They also noted that the series’ star-studded cast, including Sarah Paulson, Naomi Watts, Glenn Close, Niecy Nash and Teyana Taylor, could not even save the legal drama.
The Guardian’s review added that the show was weighed down by the “embarrassment of performances” that went hand-in-hand with its subpar script.
“An embarrassingly terrible show with scripts worse than what Chat GPT was spitting out two years ago and acting worse than your local Christmas pageant,” Kelly Lawler wrote in her review for USA Today, “‘All’s Fair’ is an unmitigated disaster of such outlandish proportions it’s a wonder not a single person in the production process didn’t stop and ask ‘What are we doing here?’”
Lawler added that the series was “the worst TV show of the year.” The Times‘ zero-star review echoed the sentiment, saying the series “may be the worst TV drama ever.” Ben Dowell wrote that the show is “so bad” but not in a way that makes it fun to watch.
“It thinks it’s a feminist fable about spirited lawyers getting their own back on cruel rich men but is in fact a tacky and revolting monument to the same greed, vanity and avarice it supposedly targets,” he wrote. “All scripted, it feels, by a toddler who couldn’t write ‘bum’ on a wall.”
The critic went on to note that Kardashian, who took her bar exam earlier this year, did not make a convincing lawyer: “She is to acting what Genghis Khan is to a peaceful liberal democracy.” He added that the cliché dialogue, including a “noxiously dumb stream of feminist sloganising,” does not help her case.
Several reviews said that, unsurprisingly, Kardashian’s face was unmoving and emotionless, often playing her character straight while the other actresses around her leaned into the camp of the series. However, reviews were not impressed by Paulson’s turn as the villain with many saying that even the A-listers could not escape the dialogue.
“What should be camp feels flat, and what is trying to be outrageous and fun actually feels hollow and empty,” Glamour UK‘s Emily Maddick noted.
“In a way, Kim Kardashian might just be the perfect choice to topline ‘All’s Fair’… this is not to say the ‘American Horror Story: Delicate’ alum is good in it, mind you — she’s not,” The Hollywood Reporter‘s Angie Han wrote. “Kardashian’s performance, stiff and affectless without a single authentic note, is exactly what the writing, also stiff and affectless without a single authentic note, merits.”
And if you were hoping to maybe hate-watch the series for fun, USA Today’s Lawler says save your time.
“And lest you think that it is the kind of “bad” that is messy and fun and ripe for hate-watching, I will disappoint you further,” she wrote. “It’s so stilted, artificial and awkward not even a glass of wine and leftover Halloween candy can make it remotely enjoyable to view.”
