Welcome back to our weekly roundup of what the world’s watching on Netflix. Last week we saw a seismic shift in viewing sentiment. In contrast, things have remained fairly static but only the preferences of the audience, who seem intent on watching the darkest horror around.
There’s no ignoring the enormous success of Ryan Murphy’s true crime series Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which has become Netflix’s ninth most popular English-language TV show of all time, having raked in way over 400 million hours of viewing time. The show has surely benefitted from the ongoing controversy surrounding the use of an LGBTQ+ tag to categorise the show, not to mention criticisms from relatives of Dahmer’s victims. However, it isn’t our number one this week.
Instead, that accolade goes to another Murphy project, the new Naomi Watts-led series The Watcher, which accrued 125 million hours of viewing in its first week out. Based on a true story, the official synopsis for the show reads: ” It follows the true story of a married couple who, after moving into their dream home in Westfield, New Jersey, are harassed by letters signed by a stalker named The Watcher.” It’s the perfect viewing if you like your series’ chilled to the bone.
In a recent interview, Watts revealed that she was kept in the dark as to the series’ ending: “Just not knowing, often. We were also trying to piece the story together in real time as we were making it. And so lots of mystery for us. But it just adds to the excitement of it, really. It wasn’t a bad thing. It was just a piece of the experience that made it more mysterious and more fun, I suppose.”
She explained, “We were given a chunk of the scripts, but, yeah, we were not told… There was plenty of mystery as well. I did read, of course, the article, which was fantastic and super-engaging. Apart from wanting to work with Ryan Murphy, I did read that as well, and that definitely made it more exciting. But, yeah, it was an instant yes, based on working with Ryan, and then the story was also a compelling factor.”
Elsewhere on the list of the most popular series this week are some more irreverent titles, including Odd Balls a charming animated series. Also on the list is the brilliant reality game show The Mole, which pits contestants against one another to find the titular spy.
But, in truth, this week is all about the scares. Find out below the full list of the most popular series on Netflix this week.
10 most popular series on Netflix:
- The Watcher: Season 1
- DAHMER: Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story
- The Midnight Club: Season 1
- Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes: Limited Series
- Dynasty: Season 5
- Oddballs: Season 1
- The Blacklist: Season 9
- Bling Empire: Season 3
- Fate: The Winx Saga: Season 2
- The Mole: Season 1
