As we head into the week of Christmas, the only big show with an actual Christmas setting, Black Doves, has now fallen far from #1 on Netflix’s Top 10 list, replaced by other, non-Christmas-y productions.
For a little while now, tidal wave disaster series La Palma has been on top of the chart, even in the US, which is pretty unusual for a foreign language, in this case Norwegian, series. But now that has been usurped by the return of Virgin River, one of Netflix’s biggest sleeper hits that is returning for a sixth season, and I think you know how often that happens on Netflix. And it is not very often a series lives that long on the service.
Thankfully, Netflix appears to be easing up on its split-in-half seasonal idea as all episodes of Virgin River season 6 are live now. I do wonder if they realized that a significant drop-off in viewership was happening between parts in the shows that did this, and given that a huge metric for them is how many people actually finish a series, that may have outweighed the desire to keep people subscribed for more than a single month to watch a show they like. I’m sure they have data on all this, though I don’t think the practice is fully dead yet.
La Palma is listed as a limited series as I mean, how many tidal waves you can be struck by. It’s a bit of a bizarre situation as this was the most-watched TV series in the country for a spell and it does not even have enough reviews in for a Rotten Tomatoes score, with only two critics reviewing it (both positive reviews, at least). Fans are less on board as the show only has a 30% audience score.
As for Virgin River, Netflix already announced it would get a season 7 before season 6 even aired, as it’s a hit for them and they’ll probably just keep making it forever, given the low cost and high viewership. Again, season 1 has literally one critic review in and not even enough audience reviews for a score there either. But generally speaking, the show reviews well, and it has an 81% critic score across the past 5 seasons. This is also a show so many critics ignore. All of season 5 only had 5 scored critic reviews in. And it really is a widely-watched show, so it’s pretty weird. I guess entertainment journalism is underfunded.
We will see how long Virgin River can stay on top, but my guess is at least a few days. Squid Game season 2 is coming on December 26, however, and that will rule the list well through the new year, no doubt.
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