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Say I want to watch a television show or a movie. Their genre is definitely suitable for this site.

Now I read some reviews and comments which seem pretty weird to me.

Is it OK to ask about this as a question in SF&F? When the question level/idea is higher than actually what happens in the series?

Just so you know exactly what I mean, I just started watching Jinn on Netflix with my friends, we all thought it was an interesting episode and the quality of filming, directing and acting was pretty good.

However, its score on IMDB is very low, and I wanted to discuss with the community why do they think this is happening.

I will appreciate hearing your thoughts on the subject before I get unnecessary downvotes.

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    My question would be, what you expecting to get from us that those reviews don't already give you?
    – Valorum
    Jul 24, 2019 at 12:34

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Reviews yes, quality no.

If you ask about why something got bad reviews, that might be OK. It could be objectively answerable from actually finding constructive criticism in reviews, or answerable by a subject matter expert by assessing and summarising what they know about the reasons for critique. Cf. What was the general critical reaction to Star Trek: The Motion Picture? for examples of both types of answer.

If you ask about why something got worse reviews than it deserved, that's inherently opinion-based and would probably be closed. Your view that it was good shouldn't enter into the question. The help centre says don't ask questions like “______ sucks, am I right?” and the same goes for “______ is great, am I right?”


TL;DR: keep your questions to something that's impersonally answerable (whether objectively or by Good Subjective informed and reasonable speculation) and you have a good chance. Turn it into something about your subjective opinion, and it's likely to be closed as Primarily Opinion-Based.

(Of course, this is no guarantee of anything. You might still get close votes for asking why something got bad reviews - they'd be unwarranted in my opinion, but there we go.)

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    My problem with the "why something got bad reviews" is why one reviewer gave it a bad review is not necessarily the same reason as why another reviewer did so you start straying into potential Too broad/POB territory. That's not to say it can't be worded to be on topic but it's certainly a case by case basis to whether or not it is.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jul 24, 2019 at 8:30
  • @TheLethalCarrot True, but there's still likely to be general overarching reasons why reviewers in general critiqued something. E.g. I'm sure you or Aegon could write a good summary of reasons for the negative reception of the last GoT season, even though there's likely hundreds of reviewers with different reasons against it.
    – Rand al'Thor Mod
    Jul 24, 2019 at 8:34
  • Sure, I think it will mainly come down to the wording in the question, as you say, but you do have to be careful with it. And even then it will probably still attract at least some close votes.
    – TheLethalCarrot Mod
    Jul 24, 2019 at 8:36

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