You Probably Haven't Heard of Many of Netflix's Most-Binged Series
On My Block
This dramedy, which revolves around four friends starting high school in inner-city Los Angeles, rocks a 95 percent Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. “When the final credits hit, it’s clear that not one second of the season’s 10 short episodes was wasted,” raves Paste Magazine’s Alexis Gunderson.
Making a Murderer: Part 2
Serial met its match with the first season of this Netflix documentary, which tracked the legal drama of Steven Avery, a Wisconsin man who was exonerated after 18 years in prison only to be accused and convicted of murder a few years later, and Brendan Dassey, his nephew implicated in the crime. The second season, which started streaming in October, covers the legal efforts to free both men.
Last Chance U: INDY
After two seasons covering the trials and tribulations of East Mississippi Community College’s struggling football team, this Netflix documentary headed to Kansas to cover Independence Community College’s first winning season in ten years under the guidance of a new head coach.
Bodyguard
No, this isn’t a reboot of the Kevin Costner-Whitney Houston film. It’s a BBC drama about a PTSD-afflicted Afghanistan war veteran — played by Richard Madden, a.k.a. Game of Thrones’ Robb Stark — serving as bodyguard to a British cabinet member whose politics he vehemently opposes.
Fastest Car
This reality show hinges on the premise that the fastest car isn’t always the most expensive. In each race, supercars such as Lamborghinis and Ferraris go up against “sleepers” such as a 2014 Honda Odyssey or a 1971 Ford Pinto, often to surprising results.
Anne with an E: Season 2
The latest a screen adaptation of Anne of Green Gables — the story of an orphan girl sent to live with two Prince Edward Island siblings who wanted a boy to help on their farm — released its second season on Netflix in July. Reviews were mixed, but The Globe and Mail’s John Doyle praised “stellar” actress Amybeth McNulty’s performance as “the distinctly modern, complicated Anne.”
Insatiable
If reviews of Anne with an E were mixed, reviews of this twisted high school dramedy — about a newly-thin teen who gets revenge on her bullies — were straight-up atrocious. BuzzFeed called out “13 Ways Insatiable Is Really F—king Problematic,” and the Washington Post’s Hank Stuever declared, “If you’re watching this, you really need better things to do.”
Never mind ratings — a TV show’s success could be measured by how many viewers want to watch the next episode straightaway.
To that end, Netflix released a list of its most-binged series of 2018 in a report cheekily titled “To All The Shows and Movies We've Loved Before.” These aren’t necessarily the streaming service’s most popular series — just the ones “with the highest average watch time per viewing session” based on US viewing data, the company clarifies.
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You’re undoubtedly familiar with grim high school drama 13 Reasons Why, the second season of which ranks #3 on the list, and with prison dramedy Orange Is the New Black, the sixth season of which comes in at #10. And chances are, you’ve been scared by (or too scared to watch) the horror series The Haunting of Hill House, which hits the list at #7. But have you heard of the rest?
Click through the gallery above for a primer on those shows, ranked by binged-ness.
