I wrote off Crystal Lake when Bryan Fuller quit — the first reviews say I was wrong
The Friday the 13th prequel lost its visionary showrunner mid-development, which is usually a death sentence. It premieres October 15 as the best-reviewed thing the franchise has ever produced.
I'll own my prediction. When Bryan Fuller exited Crystal Lake in May 2024 — fired, per ScreenRant, two years into development — I mentally filed the A24 series under "troubled production, lower expectations."
Fuller was the pitch, after all: the Hannibal auteur reimagining Jason Voorhees for prestige TV, with episode ideas like an hour-long chase across a frozen Crystal Lake. Losing him looked like losing the point of the show. Brad Caleb Kane took over that August, Fuller's scripts went in the bin, and the project went quiet.
The review embargo lifted October 13, two days before all eight episodes hit Peacock, and the number is not what I predicted: Crystal Lake debuted at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes from its first ~28 reviews.
For context, that makes a TV show the highest-rated entry in the entire 46-year Friday the 13th franchise. The original 1980 film sits at 48 percent. Jason Takes Manhattan holds an 8. The Hollywood Reporter called it the best Friday the 13th property yet, while wryly noting that bar is on the floor.
What the critics are actually praising
Read past the score and the consensus is specific: Linda Cardellini. Her Pamela Voorhees — a grieving, dangerous mother to Callum Vinson's young Jason — is drawing Bates Motel comparisons, and even the negative reviews concede she elevates everything around her.
The negatives do exist. TheWrap's pan calls the series "wobbly" and dings it for heavy-handed franchise-servicing dialogue, a 2/5 review praised her performance and the kills anyway, and there's one critic out there calling it the worst thing they've ever seen. But an 86% aggregate with this franchise's name on it is a result nobody had on their card.
The Fuller of it all
Here's where I have to admit the fans were ahead of me. While I was treating Fuller's exit as a red flag, r/horror was treating it as a Tuesday:
"Name a more iconic duo than Bryan Fuller and falling off a project."
— a commenter on r/horror
And they have the receipts: American Gods, gone after season one. Star Trek: Discovery, gone before the premiere. Amazing Stories, gone.
The man makes gorgeous television and leaves it in roughly equal measure, so for the people who've followed his career, a Fuller departure wasn't a crisis — it was the expected mid-development event. Even the cautious contingent came around once the scores landed:
"When Bryan Fuller originally fell off the project I was kind of worried."
— another r/horror commenter, now reassured
The one wrinkle worth keeping: TheWrap's reviewer closed by mourning the Fuller version we'll never see, and honestly, same. An 86% Kane show and a hypothetical frozen-lake Fuller fever dream can both be worth wanting.
A Friday the 13th movie has never cracked 50% with critics. The TV show opened at 86 — with its second-choice showrunner.
All eight episodes land on Peacock this Thursday, October 15 — a month, almost to the day, before an actual Friday the 13th rolls around in November. I was wrong about this one, and for once that's the good kind of correction: the slasher franchise with the worst critical track record in horror just produced its first well-reviewed anything. Jason would appreciate having the calendar on his side for once.
Previously we wrote: The Terror: Devil in Silver cast and release date: Dan Stevens meets the Devil himself — with Ridley Scott producing