‘Wednesday’ is slaying the competition © 2025
HELEN SLOAN/NETFLIX
If ever there was a situation which could be described as a win-win it’s the one currently facing Netflix.
Last week the second season of teen drama series My Life with the Walter Boys debuted on the streamer and went straight to number one as it was watched 11.8 million times for a total of 88 million hours.
Based on a 2014 novel with the same name it tells the story of the daughter of famous fashion designers who moves from New York City to a ranch in Colorado after her parents and sister’s tragic deaths. She is taken in by her mother’s best friend where she lives with 10 children including two boys who fall for the new addition to the family.
When it debuted in December 2023 it was renewed for a second season and ahead of the premiere it was announced that a third season will drop in 2026. Despite only having a 61% audience rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the second season seemed set to reign at the top of the Netflix rankings for some time as its fish out of water love triangle theme made it a fan favorite.
The second season of ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’ is struggling to match the popularity of its first © 2025
COURTESY OF NETFLIX
However, the show couldn’t have come up against much stiffer competition in the form of Wednesday, season two, part two which dropped yesterday. Spinoff of the 1960s television series The Addams Family, about a group of gothic and macabre relatives who fail to fit into society, Wednesday is a supernatural comedy focusing on the titular teenager who gets expelled from school. Her parents transfer her to their alma mater – a high school for outcasts – where she attempts to solve a murder mystery.
Filled with an A List cast, the eponymous anti-hero is played by Jenna Ortega who is joined by Catherine Zeta-Jones, Steve Buscemi, Christopher Lloyd, Thandiwe Newton and even Lady Gaga.
Although the outcast boarding school is set in Vermont, the first season was actually filmed in Romania. It became the most-popular English-language Netflix show of all time as it was watched 252.1 million times for 1.7 billion hours. This success made a second season inevitable and executive producer Tim Burton told British broadcaster ITV that it was shot in Ireland because of a lack of studio space in London.
Part two of the second season arrives a month after the first part which hit number one in 91 countries in its first week – more than any other English-language Netflix title has ever achieved.
Unsurprisingly given this track record, part two is hot property and this is reflected in data from Google Trends which analyzes the popularity of top search queries. As shown in the chart below, Wednesday – Season 2 reached peak popularity in the week that part one was released. Its score of 100 represents the maximum relative interest worldwide rather than the absolute number of searches.
Interest in Season 2 of ‘Wedneday’ far outstrips that in ‘My Life with the Walter Boys’
Google Trends
In contrast, My Life with the Walter Boys only hit 53 last week when its second season was released. Although it has risen to 63 since then, Wednesday – Season 2 is back on the rise and has already reached 54. It has also been renewed for a third season so the two shows could be set for a rematch with Netflix yet again eagerly looking on
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carolinereid/2025/09/04/wednesday-crushes-my-life-with-the-walter-boys-in-netflix-number-one-battle/
