I have yet another confession. You know how much I’ve been bragging about making those wiser choices in what I put into my mouth, using the standards of the phenomenally fit person who inspired me to finally love myself? Yeah, that halo effect’s been starting to wane of late–more often than not, my days are exhausting and the investment it takes to always be so selective isn’t always an option. So with the temptation of a McDonald’s a short walk across the parking lot from my place of business I’ve been giving in more frequently than I used to. The other day, momentarily flush with a paycheck, I even had a McRib. You might be happy to know I’m still paying for that choice.
But when I do choose so poorly I do so without any expectations that my experience will be anything more than a brief respite from all of my woes–the very definition of satisfying junk. And that’s pretty much how I netted out after binging on the first three episodes of ALL’S FAIR, Hulu’s latest original scripted series from the ever-prolific Ryan Murphy, newly freed from his self-imposed (and nine-figure-netting) exile to Netflix that has the preposterous premise of Kim Kardashian as a dramatic lead and has apparently been received by critics about as well as my guts receive a McRib. THE WRAP’s Kayleigh Donaldson’s eviscerating takedown earlier this week was a prime example:
It’s truly baffling how terrible “All’s Fair” is. 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, akin to Bob Dylan’s “Self Portrait”, or a “Producers”-esque scam. Or it’s simply that nobody says no to Murphy, and 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.
And SCREEN RANT’s Aya Tsintziras compiled a few others that echo Donaldson’s disgust:
The Guardian: “If this was all part of a lurid, camp drama played with gusto by all and narratively stuffed with treats, Murphy might have got away with it. But no one seems to know what they’re doing; the performances seem to respond to about nine different ideas of what the show is and the plots are dismal.
The Hollywood Reporter: “…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. Her very presence, which succeeds at generating buzz and not much else, feels fitting for a show that seems to want not to be watched so much as mined for viral bits and pieces.”
USA Today: “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, “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?’ to their fellows.”
To which I humbly respond: Bollocks.
Look, I’m an unabashed fan of Murphy’s. I got to know him during our FX days, tales which I have mused about previously, and I know exactly how extreme his successes and failures that Donaldson wailed about can be. Apparently, she and other critics forgot how forgiving they were when NIP/TUCK and GLEE first took their respective worlds by storm. The internet has receipts, ya know.
Murphy has propped up Kardashian in much the same manner that the current administration props up its leader. He’s cast her as the co-head of a phenomenally successful high-profile all-female law firm exclusively representing high-end cases of women seeking retribution, not always just financial. Her partners are the nuanced Naomi Watts and the reliable Niecy Nash, and joining them is their one-time mentor played by Glenn Close. A lifelong Mets fan back in the role of a ruthless over-the-top attorney? That brings back warm fuzzies to me from my connection to her on DAMAGES, a critical darling that somehow survived five seasons on two platforms despite the harsh reality that I was forced to reinforce that almost no one who wasn’t a critic was actually watching. 
And rounding it all out is the omnipresent and versatile Sarah Paulson in yet another over-the-top role as a vengeful competitor who winds up representing Kardashian’s hunky yet perverted pro athlete husband when he decides he’s somehow not happy living in an eight (nine?) figure mansion having wild sex with perhaps the very definition of insatiability (I’ve seen her tape with Ray J; probably more times than I’d care to publicly admit) because, well, as we eventually learn even Kim isn’t kinky enough for his needs. 
Is all of this what goes into a prestige drama? Hell no. But it is the kind of fodder that has been the backbone of the Kardashian-verse for more than two decades, stuff that made her entire family of male (and some female) fantasies literally keep E! in business longer than it otherwise might have and has now moved over to Hulu. Where several seasons of THE KARDASHIANS are housed and apparently get watched in the same sort of manner as I typically get my McDonald’s fix. If you know anything about how algorithms work, you know that’s literally teeing up ALL’S FAIR for sampling way better than even a free medium fries can induce the purchase of a McRib. Witness how Netflix was able to make SUITS a retro hit on their watch by feeding the ample viewership of HARRY AND MEGHAN into it. Anyone who could bear Miss Markle as an attorney could probably stomach Kardashian doing same.
And if you’re Hulu, who rarely cites any viewership figures for the steady stream of favorably reviewed FX series, and you’re trying to keep pace with the likes of HBO MAX , Netflix and even Paramount Plus for relevance , the fact that DEADLINE’s intrepid Nellie Andreeva was able to put this story out should give you an idea of what Craig Erwich and Dana Walden think of these reviews:
In a clear division between viewers and critics and an intriguing media case study, All’s Fair, the noisy new Ryan Murphy legal drama starring and executive produced by Kim Kardashian, has delivered Hulu Originals’ biggest scripted series premiere in three years, amassing 3.2M views globally after three days of streaming.
The series already had strong pre-launch awareness through Kardashian’s massive social media reach (354M followers on Instagram alone) and the cast’s whirlwind promo tour which generated viral moments, including Nash-Betts’ heavily circulated excess baggage video. Hulu’s own All’s Fair social assets have generated over 7 billion impressions on social media with 190M video views, per internal data…The show’s Rotten Tomatoes score, initially at 0%, has since climbed to 5%.)
And as ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’s Mekishana Pierre also shared yesterday, vox populi is equally as supportive as cold quantitative data:
On Thursday, Kardashian shared several photos of her latest red-carpet look interwoven with screenshots of positive viewer reactions to the Hulu drama. One screenshot showed a post from a fan responding to a tweet that included the 0 percent Rotten Tomatoes score the series had when it premiered this week. “Immediately pressed play,” the fan wrote. Another screenshot of an X post read, “Some of the worst acting I’ve ever seen in my life alongside the most predictable storylines and the most ridiculous styling. I’m obsessed, I need 14 seasons. #AllsFair.”
I did indeed binge-watch from start to finish and was actually relating to a lot of what we were being served, unhealthy though it may arguably be. Close gets to deliver lines to Paulson like “Imagine what a better world this would have been if your mother swallowed”. Paulson gets to spew bitch-slap epithets referencing Kardashian’s vagina that the Real Housewives only wish they could have thought of. Jessica Simpson threw what first appears to be a beaker of semen on her ex’s face which she then reassures is “just sulfuric acid”. WTF and OMG indeed. This all may sound ridiculous to many of you, but you probably never met my exes.
I’m more than a tad embarassed to admit I liked what I saw, especially since I couldn’t give a rat’s ass about THE KARDASHIANS and I just got through falling even deeper in love with true prestige TV. I could practically hear my internal demons channeling the chiding of my one-time inspiration for indulging in something so clearly unhealthy. But upon further reflection I seem to recall even she made some occasional poor choices of what she chose to put in her mouth. And I’m not just referring to her fetish for Burger King. I kinda think she can relate to Kardashian on many levels.
Until next time…