Below: Netflix’s Sea Creature Is The Biggest Show In Streaming Right Now

Netflix’s current No. 1 show never appeared on Nielsen’s chart — and that is a fact about the charts, not the show. Below, a six-episode limited series from Canada, premiered on October 8, 2026, after Nielsen’s most recent U.S. streaming window (September 28–October 4) had already closed. On Netflix’s own global chart, it then did what no Canadian Netflix original has done: it was the No. 1 television show in the world for two straight weeks, with 17.0 million views in the week of October 5–11 and 21.2 million views in the week of October 12–18 — the second figure a record single-week total for a Canadian Netflix original, and the show ranked No. 1 in 80 countries. The figures are Netflix Tudum’s, as reported by Seat42F and ScreenRant.

The series was created by Jesse McKeown and is set in the fictional Newfoundland town of Snook’s Arm. Josh Hartnett plays Calvin Penney, a fisherman defending his town against a sea creature. Mackenzie Davis plays Fonda Howander, a marine researcher; Charlie Heaton plays Penney’s son, Wade. The setting — a working fishing community, an unidentified thing in the water, and the people whose living depends on going out in it — gives the creature story its ground.

The six episodes are the whole of it. Below is a limited series, and McKeown has confirmed there are no plans for a second season, a status Netflix’s own listing shares. Its two-week reign therefore has a fixed end: the audience for a closed story arrives, finishes, and moves on, which is precisely what the week-two growth — up from 17.0 million to 21.2 million views rather than down — makes unusual. Limited series usually peak in week one; Below grew.

On this desk’s chart, Below is ranked on the freshest available evidence: Netflix’s global figures are the only top-line numbers that cover its run so far, while Nielsen’s U.S. streaming chart — the measure used for the rest of the streaming top eight — will not reach its premiere week for roughly another two weeks. When Nielsen’s window catches up, the U.S. minutes figure will give the direct comparison. Until then, the record stands in Netflix’s own ledger: the biggest week a Canadian original has ever posted, anywhere on the service.

Sources: Nielsen U.S. Streaming Top 10 (Originals and Overall), week of September 28–October 4, 2026; Netflix global Top 10 (Tudum), weeks of October 5–11 and October 12–18, 2026; service announcements as noted. Read October 22, 2026. Photo credit on the image above.