A new documentary series that received a 100 percent critic rating on Rotten Tomatoes has social media users in an uproar.
The three-part Max docuseries premiered at SXSW in March – then made their streaming platform debut on June 2.
The final episode became available to stream on June 9, and the documentary series has been one of the 10 most-watched Max shows for two weeks in a row.
The series, with a leader who was one X-user tweeted was ‘psychotic’, focuses on employees of the Texas Renaissance Festival wants to take over from its founder, George Coulam, who wants to retire.
Ren Faire has captured the hearts of viewers across the country and has an average audience rating of 96 percent on Rotten Tomatoes.
A new documentary series called Ren Faire Series received 100 percent on Rotten Tomatoes’ Average Tomatometer from critics and positive reviews from X users (stock image)
The Texas Renaissance Festival takes place over eight weekends from November to January at Todd Mission.
Ren Faire director Lance Oppenheim filmed the docuseries during the festivals from early 2021 to late 2023, according to IndieWire.
It’s packed with drama between Jeff Baldwin, Louie Migliaccio and Darla Smith, three employees of the Texas Renaissance Festival.
Baldwin was the festival’s general manager, Migliaccio was a kettle corn salesman and Smith worked as a vendor coordinator and became co-general manager.
The battle to take the Texas Renaissance Fair crown was brutal during the 100 days of filming; employees were promoted, fired and rehired for different positions.
The docuseries has been described by an X user as ‘one of the craziest shows‘ that they would ever see and another tweeted that Ren Faire was “one of the funniest and most heartbreaking things” they had ever seen on television.
Since its release, Ren Faire has been compared to the popular Max show Succession, but that series was not what inspired Oppenheim during Ren Faire.
“When you look at something like Vanderpump Rules, which is also kind of a follow-up story, and then you look at something that’s like There Will Be Blood, I thought, how can I put up with both of those things that I love so much,” Oppenheim told IndieWire .
“How can I actually put them into a blender and create its own, discrete, unique experience where it’s not reality TV, it’s not a Paul Thomas Anderson movie, but somewhere in between, and that hopefully recognizes that we’re in this fantastic space and world.’
The series focuses on employees of the Texas Renaissance Festival as they battle to take over from its founder, George Coulam, who is looking to retire.
Jeff Baldwin, the general manager, was one of three employees who wanted to take over the Texas Renaissance Festival
Viewers and critics praised Succession throughout its four seasons.
The show, which aired its final episode in 2023, focused on members of the Roy family fighting for control of Waystar RoyCo, which was led by founder and CEO Logan Roy.
Three of Logan’s four children, Kendall, Roman and Siobhan, were the top fighters on the show.
The three contenders had their own struggles, loving and hating each other throughout the series.
However, a relative by marriage eventually became the CEO, leaving one of Roy’s children speechless on a park bench.
The battle of Baldwin, Migliaccio and Smith was a battle royale, which, like Succession, had surprising plot twists and an unexpected ending.
More than one of the sixteen critics who gave this docuseries positive reviews compared Ren Faire and Succession to each other, with one person even praising the ending.
‘A quite rewarding, even refreshing, not too long watch. And the ending is happy in its way,” wrote BBC television critic Robert Lloyd Los Angeles Times.
“It’s a realistic, downmarket version of ‘Succession’ and offers a claustrophobic portrait of the festival’s eccentric and obnoxious founder, George Coulam,” wrote Chicago Tribune critic Nina Metz.
Louie Migliaccio was a corn salesman who worked under the event’s vendor coordinator and docuseries competitor, Darla Smith
The Texas Renaissance Festival takes place over eight weekends from November to January at Todd Mission
X users who tweeted about the show left very few negative comments about the docuseries, but many of them were diss comments aimed at Coulam.
“Are any of you watching this Ren Faire documentary on Max about the Texas Renaissance Festival and the crazy rich old pervert who started it and is now trying to sell it,” an X user tweeted.
He calls himself King George. What a ******. I could never work for someone like him.’
Other negative tweets from X users weren’t about the Renaissance docuseries, but about what’s not coming out of any of the festivals.
‘Nothing good comes from Renaissance scholarship. Absolutely nothing,” an X user tweeted on June 10.
