Despite Divisive RT Audience Score, Rachel Sennott’s Raunchy ‘Friends’ Replacement Takes Streaming by Storm

It hasn’t taken long for Rachel Sennott‘s new HBO show, I Love LA, to make its presence felt on the streaming charts. The show premiered this weekend to positive reviews but has drawn mixed reactions from audiences. Still, even as its audience score on Rotten Tomatoes plummets, the show’s gaining more and more attention on the viewership charts. I Love LA follows a group of friends that reunite and reconnect after some time apart. It comes on the heels of similarly themed comedy shows such as Adults, which debuted to mostly positive reviews on FX, and Overcompensating, which premiered on Prime Video to even better reviews. Older audiences, however, might compare it to Lena Dunham‘s millennial classic Girls.

Also featuring Odessa A’zion and Josh Hutcherson, I Love LA premiered on November 2. On November 6, it was the fourth-most-watched show on the global HBO Max charts, behind It: Welcome to Derry, the animated series The Wonderfully Weird World of Gumball, and the recent Mark Ruffalo-led thriller Task. I Love LA currently holds a “certified fresh” 81% score on the aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, where the critics’ consensus reads, “An irreverent and self-referential comedy speaking to Gen Z existentialism, I Love LA is equal parts funny and cringe thanks to creator Rachel Sennott’s absurdist sensibility.”

In her review, Collider’s Emily Bernard praised the show’s “razor-sharp” tone, and wrote, “I Love LAis as funny, absurd, and outrageous as you’d expect, while serving as an impressively grounded and realistic portrayal of a generation that’s grown up staring at screens, stuck under the oppressive rules of social media, and is simply trying to figure out who the hell they are and who they want to be.” However, the show’s audience score on RT has now plummeted to 59%.

Rachel Sennott Previously Appeared in HBO’s ‘The Idol’

Sennott broke out with a lead role in the acclaimed comedy Shiva Baby and followed it with acclaimed performances in indies such as Bottoms,Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and I Used to Be Funny. She previously appeared in the HBO series The Idol, which was shot twice over and released to scathing reviews. Starring Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd (credited as Abel Tesfaye), The Idol was canceled after a single five-episode season. You can watch I Love LA at home, and stay tuned to Collider for more updates.