The series was met with a negative response from critics both upon the initial release of the pilot episode as well as the official premiere of the series. On the review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 30% approval rating with an average rating of 5.38 out of 10 based on 20 reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Despite promising performers, Heathers' aspirational angst is let down by its blunt, misguided attempts at social commentary."[43] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the series a score of 40 out of 100 based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."[44]
In a negative review, Daniel Fienberg of The Hollywood Reporter described the series as "a pale imitation" of the 1988 film, and went on to say that, "Having the high school tyranny associated with a gang of students who, in a different era, might have been marginalized produces a dark and almost reactionary undercurrent in which the disenfranchised aren't being bullied, but rather are wielding identity politics and political correctness as weapons".[45]
Leigh Monson of Birth.Movies.Death was similarly negative saying that she saw in the show's dynamics "a longing for the good old days when non-whites and queers knew their place." Monson concluded, "Heathers is a hateful, bigoted exercise in regression hiding behind the guise of dark comedy, and I can only hope it doesn't gain the Trumpian audience it so clearly craves."[46]
Samantha Allen of The Daily Beast panned the series saying, "If you believe that kids these days are fragile "snowflakes," that political correctness is running amok, and that LGBT people are now society's true bullies, this new Heathers is the show for you. The premiere of the rebooted cult classic, now airing for free online, takes place in a universe — clearly a fictional one—where the football team is oppressed and yesteryear's fat, queer, and black victims now rule the school with manicured fists. The show feels like it was written for aging Fox News viewers who get angry about people's gender pronouns — which is odd because it's clearly being marketed to a young and therefore progressive-leaning audience who may not remember the ... original."[47]
Series creator Jason Micallef responded to Allen's review on Twitter, in a since-deleted post, criticizing her review as a 'dumb hot take' and asserting that the audience was supposed to view the adults in the series as 'idiots'.[48]
