Emily in Paris
This article was published on August 18th and republished on August 20th.
Emily in Paris returned on August 15th with a long-awaited fourth season, but a few days later it was dethroned from Netflix’s top 10 list before the weekend was even over by a new true crime documentary about a very famous case: Laci Peterson.
American Murder: Laci Peterson is currently the No. 1 show on Netflix. It is a three-episode series that chronicles the gruesome facts of the case in which she was killed by her husband, Scott Peterson. The series opened at No. 2, and considering that shows about murders you’ve never heard of always rank pretty high, it’s no surprise that one of the most notorious cases in US history ranks well here.
Top 10
As for Emily in Paris, part of the achievement here is that Netflix has once again split a season of its popular series into two parts. The first five episodes of season four aired on August 15, and the next five arrive on September 12. Previously, Netflix acted like this was about production times or reworking episodes, but now it’s clearly just about the fact that they don’t want people to sign up, watch a new season of a show they like in one sitting, and immediately cancel. This ensures that they pay for at least two months. Of course, this is a really annoying viewing experience, as you’re toeing the line between binge-watching and weekly releases in a way that’s worse than both.
Matt Rife’s Lucid stand-up special has slipped to #3 and, by the looks of things, may not be as popular as his last one. A licensed series called Average Joe is at #4. I’ve never heard of it, but it seems like people like it quite a bit. This is the first season.
The final season of The Umbrella Academy has slipped down the list quickly and has been criticized so heavily by most fans that I don’t even want to watch it anymore, even though I used to like the show. Love is Blind UK is back at number 6 with new episodes. Former number 1 A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder has slipped to number 9 and we haven’t heard whether or not that show will be renewed. But it’s still pretty early.
I would expect the Laci Peterson documentary to stay at the top for a while because of its focus, even though it’s only three episodes long. Emily in Paris will no doubt make it back to #1 when the second half comes out in September. I really wonder what this does to the stats about whether or not people actually finish watching seasons.
Update (20.08.): I thought I’d come back to the list and check, and yes, American Murder: Laci Peterson and Emily in Paris have defended the number 1 and 2 spots after a few days. Other new additions to the list include AMC’s excellent Dark Winds, which not enough people have seen, and two other AMC series, A Discovery of Witches and the please-don’t-watch Fear the Walking Dead in seventh and eighth place, respectively. I’m happy to see Dark Winds come out on top of the bunch, because it deserves it.
I actually watched the Emily in Paris contest and watched the Laci Peterson documentary. As expected, it was pretty brutal and I can’t think of any of these true crime offenders that you end up hating as much as Scott Peterson. There is excellent interviewing with absolutely all of the relevant parties in the case, including the main witness Amber Frey, who was extremely brave in disclosing her relationship with Peterson even though she didn’t know he was married, because that was The twist to both the case and the trial. It was tough to sit through though and I definitely don’t think I’d recommend it to anyone. But OJ aside, this was undoubtedly one of the most memorable crime stories of my youth and I was curious to read it again.
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