As the calendar approaches Halloween, pop culture fans are used to being bombarded with the monsters, villains and freaks from horror classics of yore. This week’s Samba Weekly Wrap Report streaming chart is a study of familiar faces, ranging from some of those seasonal horror icons, like Carrie and Jason Voorhees, to Hollywood stars who are ever-present no matter what time of year it is.
Despite the familiarity of some characters further down the chart, we kick off this October Top 10 with a new spooky title. “Below,” the nautical Netflix monster series starring former teen heartthrob Josh Hartnett, sails into first place this week, its second week on the chart. The series finds Hartnett adopting a Canadian accent to play a fisherman whose Newfoundland town is beset by a mystery that lurks in the water.
A Netflix title has now topped the chart for four consecutive weeks, with “Below” the fourth different title to do so. As “Below” rises, last week’s No. 1, “Animals,” slides into second place this week. Speaking of familiar faces, “Animals” is directed by and stars Ben Affleck.
The Wrap Report provides an exclusive first look at the most-watched movies and TV series from the past week across both streaming and linear television, sourced from viewership trends collected from Samba’s panel of more than 3 million households, balanced to the U.S. Census.
We’re hardly done with Netflix though, as “The Diplomat” returns for its fourth season and lands in third place. Star Keri Russell should be familiar to anyone who has turned on a TV in the past 30 years, following acclaimed roles in “Felicity” and “The Americans.” As Ambassador Kate Wyler, she has garnered both Golden Globe and Emmy nominations for the political thriller.
Fourth place delivers one of those classic Halloween characters with “Carrie,” Amazon Prime Video’s latest adaptation of the Stephen King novel. We all know what happens at the fateful prom at the end of the series, but this take on the source material has drawn attention for bringing more empathy to the title character than previous adaptations.
Meanwhile, “Tulsa King” lands in fifth place as the Paramount+ gangster series returns for its fourth season. The familiar face here? Octogenarian Sylvester Stallone as a New York mob boss who looks to build a new crime empire in flyover country.
That’s followed by “East of Eden,” as the Netflix drama falls four spots to sixth place. That marks three straight weeks in the Top 10 for the Steinbeck adaptation, no easy task for any series that releases all its episodes at once.
The remaining four spots are all chart debuts, starting with “Crystal Lake” in seventh. The Peacock horror series is a prequel to the classic “Friday the 13th” slasher films. In this gory interpretation of the IP, Linda Cardellini plays Jason Voorhees’s mother, showing a proclivity for violence while unraveling in the aftermath of her son’s drowning death.
“Tyson,” Netflix’s deep dive documentary into the life of former world champion boxer and convicted rapist Mike Tyson, comes in eighth this week.
“VisionQuest,” the final piece in a Marvel trilogy built around three miniseries, comes in ninth this week.
Finally, for those looking for a more warm and cuddly kind of familiar, “The Great British Baking Show” returns for its 17th season, closing out our list in tenth place.
There’s a big shake up on the linear chart this week, with a few seasonal favorites falling down the chart ranks. “Wheel of Fortune” tops the chart this week, with “Jeopardy!” coming in second. Those two timeless game shows beat back a triumvirate of recent primetime darlings, including the rejuvenated “Dancing With the Stars” (third), “The Voice” (fifth and seventh) and “Survivor” (absent from this week’s chart after placing second last week).
Aside from “Name That Tune,” Fox’s revival of a gameshow with its roots in the 1970s, “Wheel of Fortune” and “Jeopardy!” carve up the rest of the board, with “Wheel” taking four spots total, with two going to “Jeopardy!”
