HBO's Lanterns arrives on Sky and NOW with the strongest reviews of any DC Studios television series

Lanterns, the eight-part Green Lantern series from DC Studios, premiered on HBO in the United States on 16 August and reached UK viewers from 2am BST the following morning. Three days on it holds a 94% critics score on Rotten Tomatoes, marginally behind The Penguin at 95%, and an 86% audience score that is the highest any DC Studios series has recorded.

In the UK it streams on HBO Max and NOW and airs on Sky Atlantic, with a new episode every Monday through to the finale on 5 October. HBO Max costs £5.99 a month direct; the equivalent NOW Entertainment and HBO Max pack is £9.99.

At a glance

• Eight episodes, released weekly on Mondays in the UK, with the finale on 5 October
• UK viewing: HBO Max, NOW and Sky Atlantic; the premiere landed at 2am BST on 17 August
• 94% with critics on Rotten Tomatoes, just behind The Penguin's 95%
• An 86% audience score, the strongest of any DC Studios series so far
• Kyle Chandler plays Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre plays John Stewart
• Nathan Fillion returns as Guy Gardner, with Kelly Macdonald and Laura Linney also in the cast

A superhero show that behaves like a crime drama

The premise is deliberately small for a property about an intergalactic police force. Two Lanterns — Kyle Chandler's veteran Hal Jordan and Aaron Pierre's newer recruit John Stewart — investigate a murder in the American heartland, and the series follows that thread rather than escalating into the usual sky-beam finale.

The register is closer to detective noir than to a comic-book adaptation, and the pairing carries it. Chandler's weariness and Pierre's watchfulness do most of the work in the early episodes, with Kelly Macdonald and Laura Linney filling out a cast that is unusually heavyweight for the genre.

The reception, and the dissent

The critical consensus formed quickly and then improved: the score climbed after the premiere aired rather than sagging, which is the opposite of the usual pattern for a franchise launch. The Financial Times read the series as a grown-up portrait of a nation; The Hollywood Reporter and Variety both credited the two leads with elevating the material.

It is not unanimous. The Guardian's reviewer called the show a bust, unpersuaded by the slow build and the detective framing. That split is worth noting rather than smoothing over — the qualities the positive reviews praise, patience and restraint, are the same ones the negative review objects to.

Why Nathan Fillion is the name trending

Fillion returns as Guy Gardner, the abrasive Lantern he played in Superman, and his appearance is what pushed the series into UK trending searches on 19 August rather than the reviews themselves. Guy is the character who most obviously belongs to a louder kind of superhero story, which makes his presence in this one a useful pressure test.

That interest also says something about how the DCU is now being watched. Viewers are tracking the continuity between projects as closely as the projects themselves, and a returning supporting character can outrank a lead in search traffic.

What it means for the DCU

The wider slate has had a mixed year, with the Supergirl film underperforming against expectations. A well-reviewed television series does not fix a film's box office, but it does change the terms of the conversation around the studio's output.

The audience number is the more meaningful of the two scores here. Critics' reviews land before anyone outside the screening room has watched anything; an 86% audience score three days in, ahead of both Peacemaker and Creature Commandos, reflects people who chose to watch and came back to say so.

What happens next

The weekly release runs to 5 October, which gives the series seven more chances to hold or lose the goodwill it has built. Shows that open on a mystery are judged on the answer, and the current scores are effectively provisional until the finale.

For UK viewers the practical detail is the schedule: Mondays, not Sundays, on HBO Max, NOW and Sky Atlantic — a day behind the US broadcast, which makes avoiding the discussion the main challenge of watching it here.