The Lanterns reviews are in, and the numbers say something DC Studios has been waiting three years to hear. One episode into its run, the HBO series is sitting on the strongest audience reception any DC television show has ever recorded, and critics are within a point of the company’s best.
Here are the actual numbers, what they beat, and the caveats that most coverage is skipping.
What the Lanterns reviews actually say
As of this week, Lanterns holds roughly 94 to 95 percent with critics and 86 to 89 percent with audiences on Rotten Tomatoes, alongside an 8.4 on IMDb, the highest of any current DCU release.
We are quoting ranges deliberately. Aggregator scores move as reviews accumulate, and the two figures above shifted between Sunday and Tuesday. Anyone quoting a single frozen number one week into a show’s run is photographing a moving train. The shape, though, is stable: critics love it, audiences slightly more unusually, agree.
How that compares inside DC
This is where it gets interesting. The DCU’s scorecard so far, audience figures first:
- Lanterns: 86 to 89 percent audience, 94 to 95 critics
- Superman (2025): 90 audience, 83 critics
- Peacemaker season 1: 87 audience, 93 critics
- Peacemaker season 2: 79 audience, 94 critics
- Creature Commandos: 79 audience, 95 critics
- Supergirl: 73 audience, 52 critics
Among television series, Lanterns now leads DC Studios with audiences, ahead of both Peacemaker seasons and Creature Commandos. Only the Superman film scores higher with viewers across the whole slate, and no DCU project beats it with critics by more than a point.
It also edges The Penguin’s 85 percent audience score, which is not a DCU show but is the recent DC television benchmark everyone measures against.
Why this lands harder after Supergirl
Context is doing a lot of work here. The Supergirl film landed rough in June, at 52 percent with critics and 73 with audiences, and the DCU’s momentum question got loud again quickly.
Lanterns is the first DC release since then, and it did not just hold the line, it posted the studio’s best television reception ever. For a project that several outlets framed as a risk, a slow, adult murder mystery with two Green Lanterns and barely any green light in the trailer, that is close to the best possible outcome.
It is also a vindication of a specific bet: that the DCU could stretch to a True Detective register without losing the audience. The Lanterns reviews say it stretched fine.
The caveats that matter
Three, and they are real.
This is one episode. Every figure above is based on the premiere. Shows with mystery-box structures live and die on their back half, and an 86 percent audience score after episode one is a good start, not a verdict. Peacemaker season 2 opened strong with critics and still shed a chunk of its audience score across the season.
Audience scores are self-selected. Opening-week raters are disproportionately people who wanted the show to be good. The number that matters is where this sits after the October 4 finale.
No viewership data yet. HBO has not published audience figures, and review scores are not ratings. A show can be adored by everyone who watched it and still be lightly watched.
What the Lanterns reviews are actually praising
Reading across the notices, three things come up repeatedly: the Aaron Pierre and Kyle Chandler pairing, the confidence of the slow build, and the premiere’s closing swing, which we covered in full in our episode 1 recap and breakdown. The show earned its comparisons rather than borrowing them.
If you are new to the series, the hub has the full episode schedule, and our primers on John Stewart and the Green Lantern Corps cover the background without spoiling anything.
Episode 2 lands Sunday, August 23, and the recap follows here on Monday. The scores will move. What they are measuring, on the evidence of week one, will not.
Do opening-week scores mean anything to you, or do you wait for the finale? Comments are open.
Sources: ScreenRant, Forbes. Scores are as published between August 17 and 18, 2026, are based on the premiere episode only, and change as reviews accumulate. Lanterns is an HBO original; all rights belong to Warner Bros. Television and DC Studios.
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