Wednesday is shaping up to be one of Netflix’s biggest hits.
The streaming service announced this week that the Jenna Ortega-led series amassed 341.23 million hours viewed in its first week of availability.
The numbers mark the most hours viewed in a week for an English-language TV series on the service, besting Stranger Things Season 4.
Stranger Things returned after a multi-year hiatus, with 335.01 million hours viewed in its first week on the air.
However, given that Stranger Things premiered on a Friday, its total tally included three days of numbers compared to the five days for Wednesday due to its Friday premiere.
It is nice that Netflix is giving numbers because many other streaming services keep the numbers hidden.
It would be great if there was a fairer way of measuring success, but Wednesday could be in line for a bigger-than-expected drop in its second week.
The numbers are huge for the streaming service. There’s no question about that, but we’ll need to wait until next week when more data is available.
There was understandably a lot of excitement for Wednesday because of its link to The Addams Family.
From the imagination of Tim Burton, Wednesday is a sleuthing, supernaturally infused mystery charting Wednesday Addams’ years as a student at Nevermore Academy,
“She attempts to master her emerging psychic ability, thwart a monstrous killing spree that has terrorized the local town, and solve the murder mystery that embroiled her parents 25 years ago — all while navigating her new and very tangled relationships at Nevermore,” the logline reads.
Ortega (Wednesday Addams) leads the cast for the series, which also stars Gwendoline Christie (Principal Larissa Weems), Jamie McShane (Sheriff Galpin), Percy Hynes White (Xavier Thorpe), Hunter Doohan (Tyler Galpin), Emma Myers (Enid Sinclair), Joy Sunday (Bianca Barclay), Naomi J Ogawa (Yoko Tanaka), and Moosa Mostafa (Eugene Ottinger).
The cast is rounded out by Georgie Farmer (Ajax Petropolus), Riki Lindhome (Dr. Valerie Kinbott), and Christina Ricci (Marilyn Thornhill).
1899 placed second for the week behind Wednesday, securing 88 million hours viewed. The Crown Season 5 followed at 42.4 million hours viewed, while Dead to Me Season 3 had 33.3 million hours viewed.
What are your thoughts on the numbers?
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Paul Dailly is the Associate Editor for TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter.