According to numbers shared by Netflix, more than 50 million households watched 341.23 million hours of “Wednesday” during its first week of availability, from its debut on (appropriately) Wednesday, November 23, through Sunday, November 27. This dethrones “Stranger Things” Season 4, which previously held the record with the 335.01 million hours it logged from May 30 to June 5. Impressively, the “Stranger Things” number comes from a full seven-day week of tracking, while the “Wednesday” numbers include just five days of viewing. The long Thanksgiving weekend certainly helped.
Of course, while “Wednesday” reigns supreme among English-language shows, “Squid Game” remains Netflix’s top show of all time. The Korean series enjoyed its biggest single week from September 27-October 3, 2021, when it logged a mind-boggling 571.76 million hours viewed.
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Starring Jenna Ortega as the title character, “Wednesday” sees the Addams Family daughter enroll in Nevermore Academy for monstrous outcasts, where she makes new friends, develops psychic abilities, and investigates a string of murders around the town of Jericho, Vermont. The series also stars Gwendoline Christie, Jamie McShane, Percy Hynes White, Hunter Doohan, Emma Myers, Joy Sunday, Naomi J Ogawa, Moosa Mostafa, Georgie Farmer, Riki Lindhome, and Christina Ricci, who played the character of Wednesday in two films released in 1991 and 1993. The show also features Catherine Zeta-Jones, Luis Guzmán, Fred Armisen, and Isaac Ordonez in recurring roles as the other Addams Family members.
“Wednesday” is showrun by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who executive produce with Tim Burton, 1.21 Entertainment’s Steve Stark and Andrew Mittman, Tee and Charles Addams Foundation’s Kevin Miserocchi, Glickmania’s Jonathan Glickman and Kayla Alpert, Gail Berman, Tommy Harper, and Kevin Lafferty. Burton directed four of the first season’s eight episodes. The show has not yet been renewed for a Season 2, but its big debut numbers seem promising for the future.
Since its release, “Wednesday” received mixed reviews, with many critics praising Ortega’s portrayal of the character but criticizing the writing as derivative of other teen shows. In his review, IndieWire TV critic Ben Travers wrote: “When it comes to the macabre, Wednesday (and, more so, “Wednesday”) is all talk and little action — a well-rounded character hammered into the rectangular icon on your Netflix homescreen, by an algorithm built to conform.”
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