DAHMER – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which has been at the top of Netflix’s daily tally of most viewed TV series for over a month, was pushed off the top place on Friday, and is now at the number two slot. Another true-crime anthology series, The Watcher, has taken its place. Ryan Murphy, who inked a massive five-year contract with Netflix in 2018, is the creator and executive producer of both programmes. The total number of hours spent watching Dahmer has surpassed 701.37 million since its premiere on September 21. Multiple first-week streaming records were shattered, and it quickly rose to the number thirteen spot on Netflix’s all-time list of most viewed television series.
Just behind Stranger Things Season 4 in terms of total views, it is Netflix’s most-watched original English-language series ever. Jeffrey Dahmer, popularly known as the “Milwaukee Cannibal,” was a serial murderer and sex offender who murdered and mutilated 17 victims between 1978 and 1991; his life is depicted in a true-crime series. Dahmer, despite its widespread acclaim, is only 57% approved by film reviewers according to the website Rotten Tomatoes. Because of the show’s highly dramatized representation of the killer’s actions, many viewers have complained that it exploits Dahmer’s victims and their families.
The show’s inclusion in Netflix’s LGBTQ+ section and its role in spawning a troubling TikTok fad in which viewers record themselves reacting to graphic murder scene photographs have also been met with criticism. The Watcher, Dahmer’s successor, has a very different storyline. Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennen co-produced the true-life drama The Watcher, which stars Naomi Watts and Bobby Cannavale. Throughout the film, Watts and Cannavale portray a married couple with children who relocate to Westfield, New Jersey and into the home of their dreams. What should have been a fantastic reality is swiftly turned into a nightmare when they begin receiving threatening letters from an unknown sender identified only as “The Watcher.”
With each letter, the stalker reveals more personal information about the family, such as when they moved in and how many children they have. The performance is based on an essay by Reeves Wiedeman titled “The Haunting of a Dream House,” which appeared in the 2018 edition of The Cut, a magazine produced by New York magazine. There are a total of 7 episodes of The Watcher, and you can watch them now on Netflix.