Ripley season 2: Does Netflix viewership data spell concern?

Before we get too deep within this Ripley article, we should note that a second season here was never necessarily planned. The Andrew Scott series (originally pitched for Showtime) was designed as a limited series; yet, there are more books out there that conceivably could be adapted. Because of that, and because of the way in which season 1 concluded, we held out hope for more for a good while.

However, do some new numbers from Netflix make us a little more worried about the long-term future of this property? You could easily say that.

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This week, the streaming service released viewership data for much of its roster from January through the end of June; within that (per Deadline), we learned that the first season of Ripley generated 9.1 million viewers following its premiere in early April. While that number would be considered solid for a network TV show these days (at least in live numbers), this is an expensive property that shot internationally and took some huge creative swings. It also fared worse in viewership than a number of series Netflix acquired that originally aired elsewhere, including Your Honor and Dexter. It also drew about a tenth of the total audience of the third season of Bridgerton, which actually debuted later in the year.

It is possible that Ripley has picked up considerably more viewers this summer, especially after the Emmy nominations. However, sometimes it can take tremendous word of mouth to make a second life like this happen. Our sentiment is that as beautiful as the black-and-white imagery was on the series, it may have also been a turn-off for some casual viewers who wanted something that appealed more to their day-to-day aesthetic. The show also required a lot of immersion due to its pacing and highly-visual focus, with there being long stretches based on action rather than any specific dialogue.

Are you sad at all that the viewership data for Ripley was not higher at Netflix?

Share right now in the comments, and also come back to get some other updates on the way.

This article was written by Jessica BunBun.