Streaming audiences can’t seem to get enough of buzzy new TV shows like Guy Ritchie’s gangster romp The Gentlemen and FX on Hulu’s Shogun, a brutal saga about feudal Japan that feels like a spiritual successor to Game of Thrones.
According to new data from the streaming search engine Reelgood, those are some of the most popular TV shows right now across all of the major streaming services — from Netflix to Max, Apple TV+, Hulu, and Peacock. For the 7-day period that ended on March 20, the 10 shows that topped Reelgood’s latest TV chart are as follows:
- The Gentlemen (Netflix)
- Shogun (Hulu)
- Apples Never Fall (Peacock)
- Manhunt (Apple TV+)
- Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV (Max)
- Resident Alien (Peacock)
- Masters of the Air (Apple TV+)
- The Signal (Netflix)
- The Regime (Max)
- Constellation (Apple TV+)
As for some observations about this list that immediately jump out to me — there are several shows here that are pretty meh overall, and I think they’re basically only showing up this week because of people’s curiosity leading them to give the shows a try. I put Peacock’s Apples Never Fall and Apple TV’s Manhunt in this category (the latter is a drama about the hunt for Abraham Lincoln’s assassin, but I found the book of the same name that Apple’s show is based on to be much more compelling).
Second, if I had to pick the best TV shows from this list, as someone who covers the streaming space pretty extensively, I’d have to agree with the first two — along with possibly #8, Netflix’s The Signal. But I hesitate to recommend that one too forcefully, because while The Signal does execute an Interstellar-style sci-fi narrative set largely in space, the payoff at the end felt like a letdown and a kind of disappointing “cheat” (no spoilers, of course). You can read more about The Signal right here in a separate post I wrote.
Finally, it obviously doesn’t escape my notice that Apple’s still comparatively small, niche streamer has more entries on the Top 10 list above than Netflix does. Can Apple keep that momentum going and kick things up a notch this year? We shall see.
