This article was published on October 19th. published and on October 21st. republished.

Well, a new series has made it to Netflix's top 10 list and is returning for its third season. It does quite well, coming in at number 1. That would be The Lincoln Lawyer, now back for its third season and a season release not The film was cut in half like the first one, probably because Netflix didn't like those numbers last time around as people probably tuned out for the second part.

Now all ten episodes of The Lincoln Lawyer's third season are here and, at least in early reviews, it has a perfect 100 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. That said… with only five reviews, it's still a very promising start and suggests that this will likely end up on par with the quality of the other two seasons, which were at 80% and 91%. respectively. The show now has an average of 90% from critics and 84% from fans. Very good!

However, I think this situation says something about the TV critical landscape, where only five critics in the entire country have seen the most popular show in America to review it. The exact same thing happened with the fourth season of Outer Banks, which also currently has a 100% rating, but despite debuting much earlier and staying at #1 for a long time, it still only has 5 reviews. What is everyone doing? Compared to television, there seems to be a strong bias towards movie reviews or even video game reviews at the moment, which strikes me as completely bizarre considering that streaming television is the most popular form of entertainment in America in terms of total hours watched. What priorities do we set here as entertainment journalists? It's so strange.

As for The Lincoln Lawyer, the series is still quite a success for Netflix, with plenty of source material, good reviews, popular with audiences, widely available, and most importantly…cheap. No flashy visual effects are required for this legal drama. And it doesn't need the prestige of Better Call Saul to be a hit. Netflix doesn't care if it wins an Emmy (and oh yeah, Better Call Saul never did either, another crime by TV critics).

More reviews will arrive at some point, but probably not many. Season 2 of The Lincoln Lawyer still only has 11 reviews after all this time, despite being the best show on Netflix for a long time. Season 1 has a decent 35 reviews. Dennis Quaid's terrible Reagan film now has 67 reviews from film critics. Smile 2 has 122. Bizarre.

Update (October 21st): When I check again over the weekend, when there should have been plenty of time to finish the season, there is only one new critic review, bringing the total to six, but it is still positive, meaning the 100% remain in place.

Now we also have an audience rating of 93%. That's actually over 84% for Season 1 and 85% for Season 2, although there aren't many reviews yet, so we'll see.

Unsurprisingly, The Lincoln Lawyer remained at No. 1 on Netflix's Top 10 list over the weekend, and I expect it to stay that way for a while, with a full ten-episode season to come see is, which means it will be more widespread. The show hasn't been renewed for season 4 yet, but the chances that it won't be are almost 0% after doing so well with both critics, audiences and viewership. We'll probably hear something in the next few weeks.

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