Stranger Things 5 once again loomed large over Netflix last week, catapulting back to No. 1 on the streamer’s weekly English series list with 34.5M views from December 22 to 28.
That is thanks in large part to the three new episodes released on Christmas Day. At first glance, the number is down from the week of Volume 1’s release, but that’s because Netflix calculates views as hours viewed divided by runtime, and these new episodes added more than three hours to the total runtime of the season. In reality, this is a strong showing for the second volume.
A direct comparison is difficult, since Netflix hasn’t said how much of the viewership came from the new episodes, but rough estimates appear to indicate that the three episodes in Volume 2 performed just as well (if not slightly better) than the first four.
Watch on Deadline
For reference, the week prior, Volume 1 alone had accumulated 8.2M views. In all, Season 5 is looking at 137.1M views since Volume 1 premiered in November. That already positions it as No. 4 among Netflix’s most popular English TV seasons of all time, although the streamer won’t officially place Stranger Things 5 on that list until all of the episodes are available. The finale debuts on December 31 at 5 p.m. PT/8 p.m. ET.
Unsurprisingly, all four previous seasons were also on the weekly Top 10 again — Season 1 at No. 5 (4.8M views), Season 2 at No. 9 (3.6M views), Season 3 at No. 8 (3.6M views), and Season 4 at No. 6 (4.1M views).
Second place went to Emily in Paris Season 5 with 13.3M views, which is basically on par with its debut week. Third place went to Dave Chappelle’s new comedy special The Unstoppable…, which had 9.2M views.
Interestingly, the only title that really gave Stranger Things 5 a run for its money was The Great Flood, a Korean disaster film that took first place on the non-English film list with 33.1M views. On the English film list, Dr. Seuss’ The Grinch came in first with 16.5M views as families got into the holiday spirit. Second place went to Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery with 11.8M views.
Third place, would you believe, went to Kpop Demon Hunters. Even six months after release, the film still managed 9.2M views for the week.