The TV Show Heartstopper is actually terrible

I am certain this opinion is unpopular as the show scored 100% on rotten tomatoes with critics and 98% originally with audiences (dropped down to 96%) I am yet to see a single negative review of the show!

But if you are one of the 98% who liked heartstopper, that's okay you can have an opinion. but I personally think that

The show was objectively terrible. To sum things up, it was one of those TV shows that doesn't put in any effort and puts in a lot of minority representation for brownie points. It has the LGBT tag on it and was marketed as such. A friend wanted me to see it with them, and i saw the entire thing. As someone who is bisexual I am part of the target audience, so it's not as if I just don't understand the show.

But bisexual or not, I don't think this show has any redeeming qualities apart from the high production value (it's netflix, so a lot of money)

The entire show is lazily written and poor in quality. It's like somebody took every single cliché imaginable and rolled it into a show devoid of any nuance. The characters are terrible. Something you notice with heartstopper is because of the lack of depth with any of it's one dimensional characters, the cast just says what they feel and explain their thoughts and feelings.so the audience knows what they mean without the writers having to write a well fleshed out charachter. It is one of those shows with no depth trying to compensate by making everything obvious so the audience can tell what's going on and all of the characters are written this way. The best example is the first episode where the main charachters boyfriend is being characterised as uncaring and manipulative. The way they show this is that by having him pretty much spell out to the audience, he is uncaring and manipulative by pretending not to know the main character. There is no subtlety to it as he just is a cartoonishly terrible person and one note similar to every other character. They really never heard of the phrase "show don't tell."

The plot is bad. The plot is like most of the show. Boring and unoriginal. It's not offensively bad, but it's just not good (like a 4/10). The characters "arcs" are basic things with no substance, like characters arguing over a misunderstanding. There is nothing really of substance, and everything has to be spelt out to the audience with no nuance. In the part of the story where a main character Nick is supposed to be questioning his sexuality as he might not be straight, we have Charlie's sister (the exposition character). just point out that he might not be straight. The overall plot is just "two people fall in love in the most generic love story ever," so it's more character focused, which wouldn't be an issue if the characters were good at all. The plots for individual episodes are boring as well, like the classic misunderstanding episode where Charlie thinks Nick might be cheating when there is a perfect explanation for everything. In one episode, the plot is literally just the lesbian charachters (their charachters never go much deeper than being lesbian) and get locked in a room. And they kinda just talk for a bit until somebody let's them out. Some other stuff happens, but that is the main conflict.

The themes (when they are even present) are badly done. Most of the time when people criticize a TV show for being woke when they try to attribute it to the fact that the TV show deals with contemporary issues and injustice in society, but the problem with the TV show was not that, the real problem was the handle on these issues , not the fact that it deals with these matters in itself, but it was that they deal with them in such a superficial dull and monotonous way, which was just so awful. The themes it deals with are just done in such a basic way with no subtlety like the rest of the show! Like the character I mentioned earlier being blatantly and cartoonishly abusive so the message can be abuse is bad. Or a few being homophobic in a cartoonishly evil way so we can have the message that homophobia is bad (thanks, I had no idea. I had no clue homophobia was bad until Heartstopper told me it was). The entire series is lacking any meaningful social commentary. They come close to doing it a few times, but it doesn't go much further.

So if the show is this bad, why do people like it so much? I mean, not even endgame got a 100%! It has minorities in it. All of the reviews I read are praising the show for how inclusive it is. With multiple LGBT charachters and a couple of black characters, they pleased a lot of critics clearly. I don't like referring to this stuff as pandering normally, but it is 100% done to pander in this context. The charachters don't bring anything new to the table half of the time apart from their status as a minority with the show constantly paying lip service to them being a minority. It's fine to have minorities in television, but that doesn't make the show good like everyone seems to think. It's fine to have a show with lots of minorities that tackles social issues like oppression, and it isn't "woke" to do so. But when it's done like this, I can't help but roll my eyes at the attempt to please critics and audiences.

I think I have already demonstrated the show was incompetantly made, but I have a few more gripes.

-The lack of subtlety comes from a lack of creativity, and it really does carry through the entire show. Namely, the episode titles I will now partially list below. episode 1 Meet-I wonder if it's called this because it's the episode where they meet? episode 2 Crush - I wonder if it's called this because it is the episode with the crush plot episode 5 friend - It's the episode about friendship. Must have taken hours to come up with this name! This is really telling once you compare it to other shows names.

-None of the characters talk like actual teenagers. With the bully characters throwing out corny insults like "Stay away or you will catch the lesbian virus" and "eww lesbians are like so disgusting." There are so many more examples. If you wanted to write in examples of homophobic insults you have so many real-life examples to choose from that queer teens have been called in their lives. You could have consulted some to write the dialogue.

-In episode 3 "Kiss" there is really bad CGI rain, so they could have a totally original kissing in the rain scene. It's the UK. cmon, it wouldn't have been that hard to wait for some actual rain. There is one other case of dodgy cgi/special effects when his pen explodes, and it somehow just gets all over him. It should look like some spilt over one of his hands, but it looks like he has had paintballs shot at him by a firing squad.

-Despite the show having high production quality, the cinematography is often fairly simple and could have been more interesting. its not bad it's just not great.

-The music is really bad and is part of the selling point as it was highly praised by critics. The music is just pandering like the rest of the show. Pop songs blare through each scene despite not contributing much to the scene. Only have music if it benefits the scene. There is a scene where they just put on some girl in red music for the sake of it because audiences would love it even though it is totally obnoxious and out of place. I love girl in red, but this was uncalled for. Often loud over the top climactic music is playing over something really not deserving of it, like somebody walking such as the intro which can be found edited here https://youtu.be/y38mDSJf-rE

-The jokes fall flat at times with them hardly ever being too funny. They are often just forced in, and they rarely are actually anything of substance. Most of them are mediocre and inoffensive and are just attempts at wit with little relevance to the show.

• One of the charachters Tao we are supposed to like is insufferable

• The charachters look way to old to be playing their roles. They look 17-19 and are meant to be 14-15. This could so easily be fixed if you just wrote it so that the characters were supposed to be 16-17 and it would not ruin the plot or change the show much at all.

• A few continuity errors

-Taos haircut is a sin and should be edited out. With a show with so much compulsive editing (audible and visual), the best edit they could have made would be to blur the top of his head entirely.

• There are many scenes that are supposed to be impactful and serious but are unintentionally comedy gold. Like when the two lesbian charachters have a kissing scene and Nick is just watching them and smiling. It gets really funny after a few seconds once you realise he is just watching them make out and smiling. It's so funny the way he just stares at them standing still as if he is enjoying it. Watch it right now it's so bad it's good https://youtu.be/sZ-iett74Vc . Another funny scene where somebody is supposed to be serious is where the bully character (seen in the episode "Bully") tries to pressure Nick into dating a lesbian character who Nick once kissed. The bully then says they would be perfect together, recalls watching them kiss when they were thirteen, and describes it as "so romantic."" It's really cringeworthy watching this 20 year old playing a 14-15 year old describe 13 year old kissing as "romantic." He even has a huge smile on his face as he describes the event as if it is his favourite memory. The one scene that takes the cake in terms of unintentional comedy is when Nick questions whether he is gay and we watch him google "gay test" in an emotional scene where he is crying and had me crying but not of sadness.

-It feels like I am watching a kids TV show and I have to remind myself I am not because it has adult themes like abuse and swearing and most of the people who seem to like it are late teens to late 20s.

-The acting isn't too good either. The actors seem like they did a great job with what they were given because its clear they were being told to act in a specific way. They very obviously overact at times and just come off as trying too hard. Like the stereotypical bully that just talks like one of those tiktokers who parodies stereotypes. Often, the dialogue is just unrealistic and distracting with the line delivery exacerbating it.

-it's full of compulsive editing, which is not just music everywhere. There are butterflies and colourful shapes moving across the screen in quite a few scenes to keep the tiktok generation happy

Anyway, the show is just a really bad feel-good fantasy and doesn't have many redeeming qualities. Leave behind your brain when you watch it. You won't need it. On a more positive note, the comic books this was based on might be better somewhat, but a part of me doubts it if the show came out this bad. But it's a possibility since it might have just been stripped of creativity and talent by netflix executives.

Edit: I just realised the best way the describe the series. It's like if a Dhar Mann video was turned into a series with British actors.https://youtu.be/2LbW1WL3q5Y The lighting and acting and over the top bullies, the lack of subtlety, the cringe writing. It's so similar to a dhar mann video.