Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives.
Netflix | Release Date: March 16, 2022
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
72
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
7
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0

Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
PrimetimerAaron BarnhartMar 15, 2022
Season 1 Review: Well-paced and efficient, Bad Vegan sucks you into Melngailis's personal drama and keeps you there. Read full review
80
Wall Street JournalJohn AndersonMar 15, 2022
Season 1 Review: An engrossing docuseries. ... Mr. Smith’s objective is the creation of mood, which he does quite successfully, punctuating an ethereal portrait of the confused Melngailis’s thought process with the recollections of her employees. Read full review
80
The Daily BeastNick SchagerMar 14, 2022
Season 1 Review: Compelling endeavor. ... What emerges, then, is a concept of Melngailis as a woman who wasn’t just painfully gullible, and therefore susceptible to Strangis’ cult guru-like charms, but a self-interested huckster and dreamer who was constantly angling to keep herself afloat by any means necessary. Read full review
80
TV GuideTim SuretteMar 14, 2022
Season 1 Review: While most true-crime documentaries rely on the heinous, grisly, and gruesome for kicks, Bad Vegan captures a substantive story with a lesson we can all chew on. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comBrian TallericoMar 16, 2022
Season 1 Review: Smith carefully chooses his interview subjects in a way that’s sympathetic to Melngailis. ... He smartly avoids sensational techniques, letting the people involved tell their stories in a way that's more tragic than tabloid. Read full review
75
IndieWireSteve GreeneMar 14, 2022
Season 1 Review: There’s a healthy dose of skepticism in “Bad Vegan” that helps it avoid framing this saga as a love story gone wrong, and maybe its most insightful decision is to emphasize how numbing that ratcheting strain becomes on Sarma herself. Read full review
70
DeciderJoel KellerMar 16, 2022
Season 1 Review: We really wish Bad Vegan: Fame. Fraud. Fugitives. was less one-sided, but at least the side we see makes for an entertaining story. Read full review
60
The GuardianLucy ManganMar 16, 2022
Season 1 Review: This is very much Melngailis’s show and she is allowed to skate too easily away from whether, when and how she could have – should have – realised what he was doing, and escaped his clutches. Read full review
60
The TelegraphMichael HoganMar 16, 2022
Season 1 Review: Bad Vegan, however, is a voyeuristically compelling story that’s ultimately more sad than scandalous. It left me feeling queasy and guilty, like I’d eaten an entire Domino's pizza with a side order of chicken wings. Read full review
60
VarietyDaniel D'AddarioMar 16, 2022
Season 1 Review: The elusiveness of answers about “why” — and the inability, then, to make “Bad Vegan” about bigger questions about truth or even about the specifics of Melngailis’ world — make the docuseries grow, eventually, frustrating; four hours is a long time to spend running through a specific set of facts with a hard limit as to how far we can explore. Read full review
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