* If tomatometer & audience score are within 5% of each other, you can trust the ratings to give you a decent indiciation of movie quality.
* If tomatometer is more than 15%+ higher than audience score, it means it's an artsy fartsy movie that critics like and movies don't.
* If audience score is 15%+ higher than tomatometer, it's a fun movie even if it's not oscar worthy. (https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/old_school is a perfect example)
The show that always sticks in my mind as an example is HBO’s Watchmen, which has 96% with critics and 56% with the audience.
The Watchmen TV show is a horrible example as it's literally fan-fiction with little to no real connection to the graphic novel. So that fact alone pissed a lot of people off.
It completely ignored the only actual "squeal" (Doomsday Clock) to create the story they wanted to tell while borrow the popularity of the name to get attention.
Even ignoring all that did you actually even watch it? 96% is complete bullshit. 96% means some of the best TV ever made. I don't think it's a 56% but the 56% is way closer to reality then the 96%.
You seem not to understand the Rotten Tomatoes score though. 96% just means that 96% of critics gave it a positive review. That says nothing about how positive the review was.
Idk how many of them would describe it as one of the best shows ever, though that’d be an interesting score as well.