Virgin River

Netflix

Virgin River can no longer be considered a sleeper hit when it’s about to be one of, if not the longest-running series on the service’s history, but its time at #1 on the Netflix top 10 list is over, at least for now.

Rather, Virgin River has been unseated by the second half of the Tyler Perry thriller drama Beauty in Black, now back for season 2. It’s one of those shows that’s widely watched, yet critics have ignored it so much that it doesn’t even have a Rotten Tomatoes score. Season 2 has opened with a great 85% audience score, an increase from the 61% of season 1. Here’s the synopsis:

“A stripper’s fate takes a turn when she crosses paths with the wealthy, dysfunctional family behind a cosmetics dynasty and a devious trafficking scheme.”

That at least somewhat sounds like the Oscar-winning Anora, though the show and the movie were released within days of each other in October 2024, so there’s no stealing one way or the other. And in practice, the show and the movie are not actually all that similar.

While we talk about The Pitt with its big seasons and yearly releases, the same is happening with Beauty in Black. Season 2 aired just 11 months after season 1 in 2024, though its mid-season split is six months rather than the usual one month on Netflix, which seems a bit odd. These are 16-episode seasons, however, and it’s a 45-50 minute show. This whole setup and release pattern is pretty strange for Netflix, or most streaming shows, and I wonder why they did it this way. Perhaps the idea is just to keep up its popularity year-round, almost, but again, we just never see this.

Yes, Beauty in Black has been renewed for season 3, though that will be its final season as Perry moves on to other projects.

The rest of the list has Virgin River at #2, and what seems to be a new hit reality series for Netflix, Age of Attraction, is staying within the top 3 with new episodes added periodically. Season 2 of One Piece is #4, never reaching #1 in the US, but posting big overall numbers, with little viewership loss despite the very long gap between seasons 1 and 2, which is pretty unusual. We will see how long Beauty in Black stays on top. One thing to watch is Something Very Bad is Going to Happen, the new show from Stranger Things’ Duffer Brothers, not long after that series’ finale. We’ll see how it does.