Ava DuVernay’s new miniseries, “When They See Us,” detailing the events surrounding the wrongful convictions of the “Central Park Five” has been the most watched show on Netflix since it dropped earlier this month.
Netflix made the announcement via Twitter on Wednesday.
When They See Us has been the most-watched series on Netflix in the US every day since it premiered on May 31 pic.twitter.com/jS8IXIh03g
— Netflix (@netflix) June 12, 2019
Since the show dropped, there’ve been a number of people who’ve said that the story of the five young men would be too hard to watch, since it hits so close to home for people who have been impacted by America’s flawed criminal justice system, but that hasn’t impacted viewing totals for the streaming giant.
Since its release the show has sparked fiery conversations on Twitter and reignited many of the same debates around the criminal justice system that were at the forefront during the Central Park Five Case in the late eighties. The case’s prosecutor Linda Fairstein has been dropped by her publisher and has resigned from Vassar College’s board of trustees. Another prosecutor, Elizabeth Lederer stepped down from her position as a professor at Columbia University Law School after students called on her to resign.
Exact numbers for the show are hard to determine since Netflix is known to not release specific viewing data around its programs, but the success of DuVernay’s newest work could pave the way for more hard hitting, historical films like this one.