Wednesday's second season might just have been the most highly-anticipated Netflix show of the year, the numbers show that it really did come back with a bang. It opened with an 87% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and both halves of the season separately shot to the top of the streaming charts. However, even in the number one spot, the final four episodes saw an immense drop in viewership compared to the first part, and the change in numbers, despite still performing well, is staggering.
According to a report in Variety, the first instalment of the season opened to 50 million views in its first five days on Netflix, while the second opened to 28.2 million. Though this is still an incredibly impressive number, it constitutes a 43.6% drop in viewership between the two, which has left fans of the show wondering why.
Many viewers took to social media forum Reddit to express their thoughts, but people can't seem to agree on the reasoning. One fan wrote: "If you're going to make a show aimed at teenagers having a 3 year gap between seasons probably isn't the best idea." Another cited the tone shift between seasons: "The first season was fun, this season has too much going on."
Others claimed that Netflix's decision to split the release of the season into two parts was the main reason for the surprising drop in viewership. One viewer said: "I don't understand why they couldn't just release the whole season in October around Halloween. Wednesday is a fall show!" A different fan commented: "Perhaps this would end Netflix's gradual push to a weekly release. The whole splitting single seasons into two needs to stop."
Either way, fans of the series can rest assured that we'll be getting more Addams Family antics in the near future – Wednesday has already been greenlit for a third season, with the reveal coming before the second even dropped. According to Radio Times, it's set to start filming some time next year, which may mean that fans will have to wait until 2027 to see what happens next.