‘The Umbrella Academy’ Dethroned In Netflix’s Top 10 List By A New Show

In covering the battle for the #1 slot in Netflix’s Top 10 list, I have never been more confident about a prediction than what we’ve just seen unfold on the service.

• The only show that was going to unseat Stranger Things season 4 part 2 from #1 was going to be The Umbrella Academy season 3.
• And then as such, the only thing that was going to unseat The Umbrella Academy season 3 was Stranger Things season 4 part 2, which is exactly what’s just happened.

Just hours after going online, Stranger Things’ final two season 4 episodes have already rocketed to the top of the chart, which is not a surprise at all, given that the first seven episodes of part 1 are already the best-performing English-language series of all time for Netflix, and anyone who watched those are obviously going to tune in for part 2 a month later.

It’s an unusual release format for Netflix, but this was reportedly not done to boost attention to the season by spreading out the hype over the course of a month, but rather this was just such a sprawling season they needed the extra time to finish up production work on the final two FX-heavy episodes, which total four hours in length, practically movies in and of themselves. Netflix has already confirmed this is not the precursor to Stranger Things season 5 doing a weekly release model, or anything like that.

As for The Umbrella Academy, season 3 performed predictably well in terms of viewership, though fan ratings seem to be a bit lower this time around compared to other seasons. And as of right now, Netflix has not renewed Umbrella Academy for season 4, though it does seem inevitable. To give a little bit of a nudge, perhaps, the showrunner has been speaking in interviews about he always had four seasons mapped out in his mind, so it seems like the series could end if Netflix gave it one more run. Even with Netflix killing off many shows that should have been renewed, I’d be stunned if they did not give a hit like Umbrella Academy one more season to close things out, especially since it ended on a clear cliffhanger (yet again).

Stranger Things, meanwhile, is aiming for Squid Game’s 28 day viewership record of 1.6 billion hours viewed in its first four weeks, as these two new episodes will add to the 900+ million the first seven have already. Unless there is a dedicated fan push to watch these last two episodes multiple times, it may not make it, but the fact that it could get even close to Squid Game, given how untouchable that seemed, really indicates just how powerful this series is, and how big season 5 has the potential to be if the viewership trajectory keeps moving in this direction ahead of the series finale.

The real question now is how long these two episodes of Stranger Things season 4 will keep the show at the top of the list. For a while, I’d guess, and you know I’ll be watching.

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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.