The fourth and final season of Netflix ‘s high-profile comic-book series “ The Umbrella Academy ” had an underwhelming debut, failing to top Netflix’s Top 10 list in its first week of availability. To be clear it made the list at number 2, but it could not overcome the second week for “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder.” Both series tallied a rounded 8.
4 million views last week, which is low — but not unheard of — for top-ranking Netflix shows. It was the number 3 English-language series that reminds us Netflix was a bit of an afterthought streamer these past few weeks. “Simon Biles Rising: Season 1” ranked third for both of the past two weeks on Netflix, while Simone Biles herself was busy ranking first and second over on Peacock.
The docuseries has spent four weeks on the Top 10, even with Olympic gymnastics long in the rearview, bringing in another 3.7 million views. This week’s Top 10 also saw the arrival of “Love Is Blind: UK: Season 1” at #4 and the 10th season of kids’ series “Gabby’s Dollhouse” at #5.
Netflix’s Top 10 list reveal on Tuesday showed that “The Umbrella Academy,” Steve Blackman’s genre-mashup of a series that hit Netflix on August 8, was viewed 8.4 million times for a total of 47.5 million viewing hours.
That was good enough for #2 during the week of Aug. 5, just barely behind the first season of the new series “A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder,” which also had 8.4 million views but on fewer total hours.
For comparison, Season 3 of “The Umbrella Academy” was watched for 124.5 million hours in its debut back in 2022. Netflix at the time did not track its series by total number of views, only total hours.
It hit #1 and spent five weeks on the Top 10, even bringing back the prior two seasons into the Top 10. It did that even while running up against “Stranger Things” Season 4 still running strong. To be fair, those seasons had 10 episodes each compared to this season’s truncated six, which likely padded the overall hours for Season 3.
However, none of the other three seasons returned to the Top 10 this time around either in anticipation. Netflix did not respond for a request for additional comment on the numbers. Whether the show would be picked up for a fourth season — only so many Netflix shows, even hits, ever get to a fourth season — wasn’t a guarantee despite those strong numbers, as was Blackman’s return.
But the show was renewed in August 2022 with Blackman back in charge. Blackman is also involved with the development of an adaptation of the popular PlayStation video game “Horizon: Zero Dawn” for Netflix, so he’ll be staying with the streamer for some time. While IndieWire enjoyed the finale of this truly wacky series , it has left other fans and critics cold, with a 59 percent Critic score on Rotten Tomatoes and a dismal 17 percent score from Audiences.
Blackman also recently denied accusations of a toxic workplace on set as levied in a Rolling Stone article from late June, a little over a month before “Umbrella Academy” Season 4’s premiere. A representative told the outlet that the claims were “entirely untrue” and “completely absurd.” “The Umbrella Academy” is led by Elliot Page and also stars Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Justin H.
Min, and Aidan Gallagher..
