Netflix’s new hit TV show — starring a fantastically smarmy Jeff Goldblum as Zeus, a modern-day king of the gods — is a little like what you’d get if you took Prime Video’s violent and profane The Boys but replaced the superheroes with gods and goddesses from Greek mythology.
In Kaos, Goldblum and his fellow deities (including Hera, Prometheus, and Dionysus, among others) exist in a slightly off-kilter version of the real world. It certainly looks like ours, except this one is ruled by gods who dress like the sort of aging mobsters you might find living in a Palm Beach timeshare, with the capricious and cruel Goldblum at the top of the almighty food chain. And though they live in palatial luxury, the gods here also squabble like children, while we mere mortals are caught in the cosmic crossfire. Good times.
This eight-episode drama is one of the biggest TV shows on all of streaming right now (according to the streaming search engine Reelgood), and it actually brings a welcome dose of originality and vigor to Netflix’s release slate of late. Part of that is due to the brilliant decision to cast the hammy Goldblum as an all-powerful deity — and not the kind of god who declares things like: “Kaos, ah, finds a way.” Rather, in the words of the show’s Prometheus, Goldblum’s Zeus is “a transcendent, unmitigated bastard.”
In all seriousness, I feel like few actors could pull off an about-face from awkward sheepishness to full-on hardcore power-tripping with the suaveness and ease of the Jurassic Park star. While watching, I found myself veering from “WTF even is this” to “I like it, so obviously it’s getting cancelled,” but I found it offbeat enough that I’m not surprised at all Reelgood has pegged Kaos as the biggest TV show across all of streaming this week.
Reelgood, by the way, monitors 20 million viewing decisions each month across every streaming platform in the US, from Apple TV+ to Max, Peacock, Disney+, Hulu, Netflix, Prime Video, Paramount+, and more. For the 7-day period that ended on Sept. 4, the 10 TV shows that topped Reelgood’s latest weekly ranking are as follows:
- Kaos (Netflix)
- Bad Monkey (Apple TV+)
- Only Murders in the Building (Hulu)
- The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (Prime Video)
- English Teacher (FX/Hulu)
- Terminator Zero (Netflix)
- Kevin Can F**K Himself (Netflix)
- Slow Horses (Apple TV+)
- From (Prime Video)
- Dark Winds (Netflix)
You can see from that list that there are a lot of great streaming TV shows ruling the roost right now (check out our coverage of series like Netflix’s Terminator Zero and Apple’s Slow Horses). If we’re scoring purely on the basis of originality, though, Netflix’s Kaos definitely takes the cake this week.
In terms of what it’s about: Basically, the cruel-yet-stylish Zeus one day discovers something previously thought unimaginable: There’s a wrinkle on his forehead. Battle stations, people! That sends Zeus into a spiral of paranoia, and he starts to see bad omens and his potential fall all around him. And the thing is, he’s actually right to be worried. His one-time friend Prometheus is orchestrating a plot to bring him down, one that involves three humans who are totally unaware of their being pawns in a god’s scheme to save the world.
