10 Most Binge-Watched TV Shows Of 2019
A devilish winner to last year's binge awards...
Are you still watching? Four little words to remind you just how much fun you're having watching something on Netflix. Four little words to prod you, to accuse you even, to make sure you haven't just passed out. Because TV shows were never traditionally supposed to be watched how we watch them now.
They were always episodic, always a weekly drip-drip of content built on things like cliff-hangers and long-seeded pay-offs that rewarded audiences for committing to them long-term. That's all changed now with the advent of streaming and we're more likely to turn a Netflix or Amazon TV release into a single-serving event. We binge, we gobble it all up double-quickly and then we wait for more. And now, "binge-worthy" has become its own indicator of quality - of how gripping a show is, primarily - and we judge everything slightly differently.
That's just how it is these days, and with Apple, Disney, Warner Bros, NBC and others joining the streaming platform marketplace in a big way in 2020, we're going to have even MORE shows to binge. So Netflix won't have quite the stranglehold they've traditionally had on what we binge. Hell, even in 2019, they had serious competition, according to data released by TV Time.
Behold, the TV shows that gripped you most in 2019. Are you still watching? Of course you are.
10. Money Heist
Platform: Netflix
In 2018, fans initially fell in love with Spanish crime show Money Heist. The show became the most popular non-English show, despite the slightly jarring decision to redub the actors with English-speaking counterparts. That decision - which clearly was no impediment to its success - aside, the show is one of Netflix's smartest pick-ups in recent years.
It's different - not least because it turns conventional heist film genre tropes upside down and also thanks to its strong Spanish identity - and crucially, it's incredibly well-written. Which is presumably how it managed to get over the fact that Netflix basically didn't market the first season.
The fact that it also somehow survived the platform's dramatic recutting and redubbing is also testament to how great it is, and it's only fitting that Netflix users flocked to it in 2019 too. Particularly because it's one of those rare shows that stands astride multiple traditional demographic splits.