According to numbers from Netflix, over the course of its first 12 days of availability (November 23 to December 4), the “Addams Family” spinoff series has been watched by over 115 million households for a total of 752.52 million hours viewed. This puts it at No. 3 on the streamer’s list of the top 10 English-language TV seasons, behind “Stranger Things 4” and “Monster: the Jeffrey Dahmer Story,” both of which logged over a billion hours within 60 days of tracking. The other series on the list include the first two seasons of “Bridgerton,” Season 3 of “Stranger Things,” Season 5 of “Lucifer,” Season 1 of “The Witcher,” “Inventing Anna,” and Season 2 of “13 Reasons Why.” With the ascension of “Wednesday,” the final season of “Ozark,” released this year, was quickly dethroned from the pantheon.
In addition, “Wednesday” beat its own record for most hours viewed in a week to log 411.3 million hours between November 28–December 4, topping the Netflix English-language series list in 89 countries. During the show’s debut week over the Thanksgiving holiday — it debuted November 23, meaning it only had five days of tracking — the show set the record for hours viewed in a week with 341.23 million hours. This feat dethroned “Stranger Things 4,” which logged 335.01 million hours from May 30 to June 5. Of course, all these metrics are for English-language series. “Squid Game,” the Korean-language Netflix phenomenon, still has “Wednesday,” “Stranger Things,” and “Monster” beat with 1.65 billion hours viewed, and enjoyed the single biggest week on the streamer from September 27–October 3, 2021, when it logged a mind-boggling 571.76 million hours viewed. “Money Heist: Part 5” also outranks “Wednesday” with 792.23 million hours viewed, though it shouldn’t take too long for the Addams girl to surpass it. Starring Jenna Ortega as the title character, “Wednesday” sees the Addams’ daughter enroll in Nevermore Academy, 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. Alfred Gough and Miles Millar are the showrunners and 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.
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.” Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! Sign up for our Email Newsletters here.
