Each week, Netflix segregates its global ranking of the Top 10 TV series on the platform into two charts — one for English shows and one for non-English titles. More often than not, the #1 title on the Top 10 English TV shows chart is also the most-watched series on the streaming platform, worldwide, but that’s not actually the case this week. That honor, for the 7-day period that ended on March 12, actually goes to the Korean drama The Glory, which pulled in significantly more viewership than You Season 4 (the top English Netflix series this week).
The Glory: #1 in the world on Netflix
Between March 6 and March 12, The Glory — Part 2 of which debuted this past Friday — garnered 124.4 million hours viewed worldwide. The biggest English language Netflix series for the week, You Season 4? Just 75.8 million hours viewed.
The Glory, meanwhile, tells the story over 16 episodes of a woman named Moon Dong-eun (played by Song Hye-kyo) who carries out an elaborate plan to take revenge on five former classmates who tormented her as a teenager. In an unusual move for a Netflix Korean series, the show was split into two parts, and Part 1 (which debuted at the end of December) stayed on Netflix’s Top 10 non-English TV list for more than a month after its debut.
Another unusual facet of this series is that — like the 2021 Netflix Korean crime series My Name — The Glory is built around a female lead and is not primarily about a romance. Song, one of the top female actresses in Korea, also went to great lengths to transform herself for the role — including via the application of special effects makeup that took four to five hours each time.
That’s because her character bore many burn scars because of her tormentors, which is also why Song — to make her appearance more realistic — went on a strict diet three days before filming a scene where all the scars were going to be visible (and stopped drinking water the day before).
In addition to being the #1 Netflix series in the world this week, by the way, The Glory also has a perfect 100% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes and a near-perfect audience score of 96% on the review aggregation site.
