‘Wednesday’ Fends Off Hulu’s ‘Alien’ Invasion to Maintain No. 1 on Streaming Top 10 | Charts
Two of Netflix’s biggest hits ever – “Wednesday” and “KPop Demon Hunters” – focus on strong female characters confronting the occult and fighting off evil spirits. Both programs make the chart again this week and, perhaps through their combined powers, help fend off an invasion that had the potential to end Netflix Summer on the Samba TV Wrap report Top 10.
In other words, “Wednesday” was the most-watched streaming program for the second straight week, ensuring Netflix extended its chart-topping streak to 11 weeks. It tops the chart ahead of a strong debut by “Alien: Earth,” the new Hulu series that drew 1.8 million households to its premiere episode this past week.
This battle between two well-established intellectual properties offers an interesting window into TV right now, as both programs rely on characters and concepts older than most of their viewing audiences.
“Wednesday” is a Gen-Z-ified presentation of the Addams Family, which got its start in New Yorker cartoons in the 1930s. The “Alien” franchise, from which “Alien: Earth” comes, isn’t quite that old, as audiences got their first glimpse of a xenomorph back in 1979. The series is the first TV entry in the franchise, and is a prequel that takes place two years before the events in the original movie.
In third this week is “The Gilded Age” on HBO Max. Despite wrapping its season on Aug. 10, the soapy period drama drew enough viewership this week to maintain a high spot on the chart even without a new episode.
Fourth place brings us back to Netflix with “The Hunting Wives.” The drama series has been on the chart for four straight weeks, quite the feat for any streaming series that is released all at once.
Fifth brings us to those “Demon Hunters,” up one spot this week. The movie’s months-long stay on the chart is aided in part by a song that just hit number one on the Billboard chart. It’s now the second most popular Netflix film of all time, which is made all the more remarkable by the fact that the animated film didn’t even make the Top 10 the week it arrived on streaming.
Sixth place takes us to “Kandahar,” a 2023 action film set in the titular Afghanistan city. Seventh place belongs to season three of “Sullivan’s Crossing.” The first two seasons of CW romantic drama cracked our chart earlier this year when they were added to the Netflix library. The third season just wrapped on the CW in June, and now arrives for streaming audiences.
In eighth, we have our final Netflix entry, “Fit for TV: The Reality of the Biggest Loser,” a three-part docuseries that reveals the “intense, damaging reality” of the NBC reality show.
A pair of Prime Video programs close out our streaming chart. Up first is “The Summer I Turned Pretty,” which continues to hang around the bottom half of the chart as it rolls out its third season. In tenth is “The Pickup.” The Eddie Murphy comedy drops down from fourth place.
Over on linear, the annual “Stand Up To Cancer” fundraiser tops the chart this week. Dozens of celebrities shared their time on NBC on Friday, Aug. 15 to help raise money for the charity.
“America’s Got Talent,” the network TV summer favorite, slides to second this week. In third is the first of four “Wheel of Fortune” episodes on this week’s chart (third, fifth, sixth, and eighth). “American Ninja Warrior” climbs to fourth this week as it moves closer to its Aug. 25 season finale. We also find “Celebrity Family Feud” (seventh) and “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (tenth) on this week’s chart.
The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most-watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television, sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba TV’s panel of more than 3 million households, balanced to the U.S. Census.
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