Downton Abbey star’s TV thriller rocks Netflix chart despite being branded ‘utterly boring’

One of the stars of Downton Abbey has seen their Netflix thriller storm the top 10 charts on the streaming platform.

However, not all viewers are fans of the Channel 5 drama, claiming that it’s duller than dishwater and boring.

Allen Leech might be best known to you as Downton’s Tom Branson, but in Channel 5’s Too Good To Be True, the 44-year-old takes an extremely different turn.

Playing the role of Elliot, his character offers single mother Rachel (EastEnders star Kara Tointon), who is trying to make ends meet as a cleaner, a lucrative cleaning job.

But in this twisty thriller, which originally aired on Channel 5 as Too Good to Be True before being added to Netflix, where it’s available to stream under the title Captivated, not everything is as it seems.

In addition to Tointon and Leech, the cast for the four-part series includes Silent Witness star Sara Powell, Line of Duty’s Taj Atwal and Coronation Street actor John Thomson.

Despite its tenth-place ranking on the top 10 Netflix shows in the UK, viewers were less than impressed, and the show boasts a pathetic 22% audience score on Rotten Tomatoes.

Antide-47567 explained the show’s problems on IMDb: ‘It is very predictable, and some of it makes no sense at all.’

With a rating of 5.6 on the website, Vindelander also claimed that it was an ‘utter waste of time’, arguing: ‘It gets steadily worse with each episode with a paper-thin and entirely predictable plot.’

Meanwhile, IGreen-23696 commented: ‘So predictable. Hopeless acting. Was hoping for a twist, turn or some surprise. No, just utterly boring.’

Yet, while many criticised the series, some in fact argued that it was ‘better than expected’, as Sleepin_Dragon wrote: ‘I’ve read some scathing reviews about this show, and whilst I don’t think it’s great, I still think it’s watchable.’

Chloe Galley similarly said: ‘Despite the low rating and some negative reviews, it’s surprisingly good. So don’t be fooled.’

Gvbackel backed up this sentiment by adding, ‘I must say I was captivated by this series. Even though it has some weak points in my opinion, it was the interplay between the mother, her son, and her best friend that I found endearing.’

The show’s official synopsis reads: ‘Rachel, a single mother and cleaner, is offered a better job by a wealthy businessman.

‘She accepts, but grows suspicious of his motives as she becomes more involved in his affairs.’

Captivated isn’t the only show in the Netflix charts to perform well in the charts despite its terrible Rotten Tomatoes score.

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Emily in Paris season five has been labelled ‘garbage’ and ‘terrible’ by critics, but according to FlixPatrol, the show has reached the dizzying heights of the number one spot in the Netflix charts in 75 countries and is still 9th on the Netflix top 10.

Thankfully, the current number one on Netflix, Harlan Coben’s Run Away, has a far healthier 81% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Too Good To Be True is available to stream on Netflix.

This article was originally published on December 24, 2025.

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