New Netflix show reaches peak popularity during its third season with 100% Rotten Tomatoes score

Creating a show that earns a 100% critical score on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes is no small feat. Doing this for three consecutive seasons raises the barrier even higher, but the latest Netflix show has done just that. There are already indications that this will translate into a lot of traffic for the streamer.

The show is Dark windsan American psychological thriller that follows three Navajo tribal police officers in the Four Corners area of ​​the 1970s American Southwest. They investigate crimes with supernatural elements that put a modern twist on traditional Navajo myths.

The show is based on Tony Hillerman’s new series and while the mostly Native American cast isn’t well known, the series features A List talent behind the camera. Executive producers include the late Robert Redford and George RR Martin, author of the A song of ice and fire fantasy novels that were adapted into HBO’s blockbuster Game of Thrones series.

It is Redford’s final work, both behind the scenes and as an actor, as he has a cameo in an episode of the third season of Dark winds. However, his performance is not one that critics are raving about.

“McClarnon is a unique performer in modern television, someone who delivers every season Dark winds gives a more heartbreaking performance than the last,” wrote RogerEbert.com critic Kaiya Shunyata in her review. Collider added that “Dark winds is as compelling as ever, with a third season that continues to exceed expectations.”

Despite this praise, audiences have only awarded the third season an average of 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. It’s higher than the 68% score for the second season and the 77% for the first, but it still generally raises questions about whether its popularity is declining. Not this time.

Since Dark winds debuted each season in 2022 and was shown first on AMC, with the third premiering in March of this year before arriving on Netflix earlier this week as part of the theater chain’s deal. A fourth season will debut in February 2026, near the end of AMC’s winter season. This model puts the spotlight on the show’s popularity.

It is evident from data from Google, which processed more than five trillion searches last year, giving it a 90% market share. The Google Trends service analyzes the popularity of popular searches, although the results do not reveal the number of searches for a specific term. Instead, they show the number of searches over time, with 0 being the low point and 100 the maximum relative interest rather than the absolute number of searches.

The results are displayed in graphs showing each point relative to the other points. A score of 50 means that there were half as many searches for a term on that date as there were when the term reached 100. That represents the peak popularity for the term, while a score of zero refers to the lowest number of searches during the given time.

The graph above shows that there is worldwide interest in it Dark winds reached an all-time high in March of this year when the third season was released on AMC. It is closely followed by the number of searches in July 2022, the month after the launch of the first season. Interest in the second season lags behind in third place, indicating that it has the lowest audience score of the series on Rotten Tomatoes. If the third season follows this trend, Netflix will have another hit.

Additional reporting by Christian Sylt